European Disability Expertise
The European Commission signed the European Disability Expertise (EDE) contract, which started in July 2020. This contract lasts 18 months, and may be renewed by a further 18 months. This initiative is financed by the Rights, Equality and Citizenship Programme of the European Union.
Under this contract, as with the European network of academic experts in the field of disability (ANED), data on disability across the EU will be assessed.
The aim of EDE is to collect, analyse and provide independent scientific data and information relating to national policies and legislation, linked with provisions at EU level, as well as providing information about the situation of persons with disabilities. The project will draw upon the expertise of existing disability research centres, supported by national experts, thematic rapporteurs and links to relevant networks in the disability policy field.
Under this contract, as with the European network of academic experts in the field of disability (ANED), data on disability across the EU will be assessed.
The aim of EDE is to collect, analyse and provide independent scientific data and information relating to national policies and legislation, linked with provisions at EU level, as well as providing information about the situation of persons with disabilities. The project will draw upon the expertise of existing disability research centres, supported by national experts, thematic rapporteurs and links to relevant networks in the disability policy field.
This project is managed by Human European Consultancy and is supported and coordinated by a team of international senior experts on disability law, statistics and policy, working together with 30 country teams of independent experts.
Themes
EDE’s research and reporting activities are organised according to themes negotiated between the EDE project team and the European Commission. This includes both recurrent activities and new themes developed each year.
EDE maps and monitors existing EU laws and policies as well as the national disability policies of 30 EU Member States and candidate and associated countries. We provide summary policy data in the DOTCOM database, as well as annual publication of comparative statistical indicators.
Each year, we assess evidence relevant to progress on the EU2020 Strategy from a disability perspective (focusing on the headline targets for employment, education and poverty reduction), with analyses of social policy developments relevant to the post Europe 2020 Strategy.
In addition, new themes or topics are identified each year for additional focused reporting.
The theme structure will stay single level, without sub-themes. Keywords will be added to reports to allow a form of tagging of sub-themes. For instance, a report about COVID-19 will be filed under the theme of Health and will additionally receive ‘COVID-19’ as a keyword. The keywords can be used when searching for reports.
Currently, we are working on two themes. The first theme focuses on COVID-19 and people with disabilities in Europe: assessing the impact of the crisis and informing disability-inclusive next steps. The second theme explores the action of European countries to harness the potential and address the challenges of new and emerging technologies to advance the rights of persons with disabilities.
The initial set of themes will be the following for EDE:
- Accessibility
- Consumer protection
- Education/training
- Employment
- EU2020
- EU law and policy
- Health, including COVID-19
- Independent living
- Rights monitoring
- Political participation
- Social protection
- Statistical indicators
- Disability assessment
- European Pillar of Social Rights
- Sustainable Development Goals
- European Disability Strategy
- New technologies/digital inclusion
Consult the Reports of EDE and the DOTCOM: The Disability Online Tool of the Commission
