ID152 Designing Keele as a truly neuroinclusive university

The Idea

Keele should commit to becoming a genuinely neuroinclusive university by embedding neuroinclusive design principles into how we teach, work, lead, and make decisions. Rather than treating neurodiversity as something that requires individual adjustments, this idea reframes neuroinclusion as a strategic design choice that improves clarity, accessibility, and effectiveness for everyone.  

Universities remain heavily reliant on systems designed around narrow assumptions about communication, concentration, confidence, and participation. This affects neurodivergent students and staff most acutely, but it also creates unnecessary friction, cognitive load, and exclusion across the whole community. 

A neuroinclusive Keele would consciously design learning, working practices, governance, and digital systems to support different ways of thinking, processing information, communicating and engaging. This includes clearer expectations, multiple ways to contribute, reduced reliance on performative behaviours such as speaking up quickly in meetings, and whole-staff development in inclusive communication so that less visible barriers are better understood. This should include clearer and more targeted email practice, such as using headline points or opening lines that explain the purpose of an email, what action is needed, and by when. It should also recognise that some formats are harder to access because of processing needs, and that inclusive communication means offering information in ways that are clear, structured, and easy to act on. This would help reduce the risk that neurodivergent or disabled staff and students are misinterpreted as rude, abrupt, disengaged, or unprofessional because of differences in communication, processing, movement, eye contact, or other forms of self-regulation such as stimming. It would also make better use of technology to remove unnecessary complexity. 

This is not about doing more or adding new initiatives. It is about doing things differently: designing Keele’s systems for the widest possible range of minds, so they work better for all. 

Why This Idea Should Be Considered

Neuroinclusion aligns strongly with Keele’s values around fairness, widening participation, and positive culture, while offering clear strategic advantage. Many of the complex challenges facing universities today – social, economic, environmental, and technological – will not be solved by relying on the same perspectives and ways of thinking that created them. If existing approaches were sufficient, these problems would already have been resolved. Progress now depends on harnessing the full diversity of cognitive styles, lived experience, and socio‑economic backgrounds across our community. Designing systems that enable everyone to contribute effectively is both inclusive and essential, strengthening decision‑making, innovation, and Keele’s capacity to address the challenges of the future. 

How We Would Implement This Idea

Keele could adopt neuroinclusion as a core design principle, supported by clear institutional expectations rather than optional good practice. This could include reviewing learning design, meetings, governance, and digital processes through a neuroinclusive lens; building neuroinclusive leadership and management capability; and using technology to simplify and clarify communication and workflows. Crucially, implementation should combine inclusive focus on changing default design with continued recognition of individual needs. Universal or neuroinclusive design should reduce the need for people practices, not relying on individuals to repeatedly request adjustments, but it should not replace tailored support where this is required. A practice that appears equitable because it is the same for everyone may still disadvantage people whose needs intersect with neurodivergence, disability, health, caring responsibilities, or other circumstances.  

Neuroinclusive practice should also be reflected in appraisal, promotion, and research support planning, with realistic timelines and milestones that recognise individual circumstances, access needs, and different working patterns. This would help ensure that support for development and progression is genuinely equitable, rather than assuming that the same pace, outputs, or route will be accessible to everyone. Keele should therefore design more inclusive defaults while retaining flexibility to respond to individual access needs. Small, systemic changes would compound into significant cultural and operational benefits, such as sharing meeting questions or papers in advance, and allowing multiple ways to contribute, or simplifying digital systems and communications so key information is easier to find and act on. 

Implementation should also include clear staff and student expectations about inclusive conduct and communication, recognising that neurodivergence and disability can affect both students and staff. This could include communicating, where appropriate, that marking or feedback timelines may need to reflect staff accessibility needs; recognising and valuing different teaching and lecturing styles; and encouraging students to seek clarification on summative feedback before interpreting direct or concise written comments as rude or abrupt. Staff should also be supported to use appropriate tools, including AI, to help make feedback clear, constructive, and accessible, reducing the additional mental load involved in student-facing written communication.

What Success Would Look Like

Success looks like neuroinclusive practice being embedded as the default across Keele, rather than relying only on individual adjustments. Teaching, assessment, meetings, governance, and digital systems are designed to be clear, flexible, and accessible to different ways of thinking and working. Staff and students experience reduced cognitive load, greater clarity of expectations, and a stronger sense of belonging. Meetings and decision-making processes routinely build in thinking time before discussion, opportunities to contribute after meetings, and facilitation practices that enable quieter voices to feed in rather than allowing the loudest voices in the room to dominate. Neurodiversity is normalised and valued as a strength through staff development, leadership behaviours, and everyday practice. Decision-making benefits from wider participation and diverse perspectives. Keele is recognised internally and externally as a place where people can thrive without having to mask or adapt themselves to fit rigid systems, resulting in improved wellbeing, retention, and performance.