Since our inception, at DWP we have believed in the power of research - research that is built through the lens of disabled people living in poverty. From producing models of disability benefits before the Canada Disability Benefit was conceived, to the Shape The CDB report that filled the gaps in the government’s research, to our recent research reports, we have felt the need to collect that data that matters, in numbers and in stories.
We believe that disability poverty is shaped, monitored and actioned through the Determinants of Disability Poverty - financial security, policy design, administrative accessibility, social inequities, and political will - and our research focuses on these factors so that we are best positioned to enable systems change.
Our Research Collective is made up of three areas:
- Our Research Table. The Research Table is a group of invited academics that work in the disability poverty space from multiple different angles. The purpose is for academics to share their work with each other, to discuss thorny issue that we all encounter in our research, and to provide advice to DWP on our research initiatives.
- Our Research. Disability Without Poverty regularly produces our own research. Currently, we produce an Annual Report Card on disability poverty in Canada, in conjunction with Campaign 2000, as well as quarterly reports that flow from our longitudinal study on the Canada Disability Benefit.
- Our Research Symposium. Annually, around the UN International Day for Persons with Disabilities, we hold an annual symposium, a virtual conference, where disabled researchers and their allies at all levels - community researchers, students, established academics and so on - present their work through lectures, panel discussions and video poster presentations, to highlight the depth of research on disability poverty being conducted, to educate, and to create new pathways for future research.
By bringing together our grassroots advocacy and our research, we believe that Disability Without Poverty provides unique insights into the lives of disabled people living in poverty. We know that all of this work is built from the stories and data that disabled people share with us first hand, and we are honoured that they trust us with their personal stories.