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By Kristi Hill, Deputy Director, ACL's National Institute
on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research
As the National Institute on Disability, Independent Living
and Rehabilitation Research works through the busiest time of our grants
year, we have gotten a lot of questions from across the research community
about how we are implementing the Executive
Order On Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved
Communities Through the Federal Government.
The executive order states that the goal in advancing equity
is to provide everyone with the opportunity to reach their full potential.
That goal is at the core of NIDILRR’s mission, and we wholeheartedly
embrace the EO’s charge to recognize and work to redress inequities in our
policies and programs that serve as barriers to equal
opportunity.
As the largest funder of disability, independent living, and rehabilitation
research in the U.S., we understand that structural racial inequities have
shaped the research we have funded and the knowledge that our grantees have
generated about the experiences and outcomes of people with disabilities.
As a federal team and as a network of grantees across the United States,
NIDILRR is actively re-envisioning the diverse, inclusive, and equitable
disability research organization that we intend to be.
NIDILRR has a number of tools at its disposal as we work to
ensure that our research portfolio is relevant to the full racial and
ethnic diversity of people with disabilities. Section 21 of NIDILRR’s
authorizing legislation (Rehabilitation Act of 1973, as amended) emphasizes
the need for NIDILRR to generate research-based knowledge to improve
services and supports for traditionally underserved minority populations
with disabilities. Through our Section 21 program, NIDILRR provides grant
funding directly to HBCUs and other minority serving institutions (MSI) to
conduct disability research, and to build capacity for further disability
research by MSIs. NIDILRR’s Rehabilitation
Research and Training Center on Research and Capacity Building for Minority
Entities is at the center of this effort. As part of our Section
21 programs, NIDILRR also works closely with ACL’s Office of Independent
Living Programs to co-fund a Center on
Minority Youth and Centers for Independent Living, aimed at
building and disseminating the evidence base for transition services for
youth with disabilities from minority backgrounds. In addition to
funding these and other ongoing Section 21 grants, NIDILRR has increased
the number of new awards that it plans to make under this program in fiscal
year 2021.
Building upon the emphasis that our authorizing legislation
places on addressing the needs of underserved people with disabilities from
minority backgrounds, NIDILRR also has program regulations that reflect
this imperative. Under 45 CFR
1330.11, NIDILRR can require applicants to demonstrate in their
applications how they will address the needs of people with disabilities
from minority backgrounds. We historically have required applicants seeking
Rehabilitation Research and Training Center (RRTC) grants to address this
requirement. We are now extending these requirements across all NIDILRR
grants. For research-intensive grant opportunities such as the Spinal Cord
Injury Model Systems, for example, we are requiring applicants to
demonstrate that their proposed study samples reflect the full racial and
ethnic diversity of the population of people with disabilities they are
researching. For grant opportunities like the ADA National Network, which
emphasize the provision of technical assistance, training, and outreach
activities, we are requiring applicants to describe how those activities
will be designed and provided in order to effectively reach the full racial
and ethnic diversity of intended stakeholders.
We began including these requirements in our funding opportunity
announcements earlier this year, and they will be included in all future
NIDILRR funding opportunities. We also have begun planning for some
new initiatives beginning next fiscal year – stay tuned for more
information in a blog post next month by our new director, Dr. Anjali
Forber-Pratt.
Through these and other efforts, NIDILRR will continue to
generate and promote rigorous research-based knowledge that is relevant and
important to the full and rich diversity of people with disabilities from
across the United States. We invite people with disabilities, service
providers, policymakers, and other users of the knowledge and products that
NIDILRR generates, to engage with us in this important ongoing effort.
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