“Inclusion doesn’t happen by accident”: 2026 Neurodiversity Student Conference Combines Research and Advocacy

““Our lived experiences should inform policy and practice. We are the evidence, we are the data,” said Miriam Collins in the opening speech for the 2026 Neurodiversity Student Conference (NSC). Students, postgraduates, and academics from Trinity College and other Irish universities came together on March 28th for a series of research presentations and panels celebrating and discussing neurodiversity across higher education. Hosted in the Graduates Memorial Building (GMB), the theme of this year’s annual conference was “Fostering Collaboration and Practicing Co-Creation – working towards shared goals for access and inclusion”. Upon entry, attendees were offered coloured stickers indicating willingness to engage – green if they were happy fully engaging, yellow if they preferred smaller groups and interactions, and red if they preferred to observe with minimal interaction. Organisers also provided guests with a designated “quiet room” and made masks and earplugs available. “The big part of this conference that I really love is that it is designed by students, for students, and for people supporting students, and as a result, the student voice is central,” continued Collins, an undergraduate student in Law and Human Rights at the University of Galway, and one of the conference’s five co-organisers. She continued by stating that the student voice is not only central to the conference but to higher education itself. “We are the reason these institutions exist, and they should serve us.” The conference is a “testament”, she said, to the “importance” and “persistence” of the neurodivergent student voice. “We are very determined to be heard.” NSC began in 2024, stemming from the Dublin University Neurodiversity Society (DUNeS), which was founded by Faolán Doecke-Launders in 2021 while he was an undergraduate at Trinity. Throughout his master’s and the beginning of his PhD, which specialises in peatlands and bioeconomy, he has served as head of the society. Since NSC’s adoption of an intervarsity committee in November 2025, Doecke-Launders has co-organised the conference with students from multiple Irish universities: Miriam Collins (University of Galway), Juliet Cabraja (University of Galway), Madeleine Day (University College Dublin), and Ash Muldoon (Trinity College Dublin). Now in its third year, the conference has spiked in popularity. While initially attended mostly by Trinity undergraduates, NSC jumped from 20 attendees last year to 83 this year, including postgraduate scholars from universities across the country. Doecke-Launders underscored the assistance of the Trinity Trust, Trinity EDI and disAbility Services for their role in funding the event, to which Collins followed up, “I think Faolán doesn’t give himself enough credit for how central he is to so much of this”. In the early stages of DUNeS, Doecke-Launders established contacts with other college societies, most of which were likewise new. He wanted to find a way to maintain those connections. “I thought…what we could learn from each other was really valuable.” When he planned the conference, it was a way to “put everyone in a room” together. NSC stands out as the only student-led, student-centred neurodiversity conference of its kind. Doecke-Launders highlighted the necessity of embedding neurodiversity and disability supports into the structure of institutions. In addition to DUNeS being consulted by the College for accessibility matters, the Ability Co_Op was given United Nations human rights status as a Disabled Persons’ Organisation last year, legally obliging the College to “consult them on any decision that impacts students”. DUNeS and the Ability Co_Op are currently the only student-led organisations at Trinity focusing on neurodiversity. DUNeS centres on “soft advocacy” and creating community for neurodiverse students, while the Ability Co_Op is a disability advocacy group that works with the Students’ Union and Trinity disAbility Service. Embedding neurodiversity and disability groups into educational institutions, Doecke-Launders said, allows them to “keep things smoothly running and alive” and thus, “do a lot more”. In welcome speeches, the conference’s organising committee discussed the need to centre neurodivergent student voices in higher education and to create spaces designed by and for neurodivergent students through “co-creation”. The following research presentations and panel discussions were organised around co-creation and collaboration, inclusion, and neurodiversity in education. Several of the presenting researchers emphasised the need for participatory and inclusive neurodivergent research methodologies through “co-creation”, even if they challenge academic normativity. Accessibility, comfort, and the communication preferences and needs of participants, they argued, should be at the forefront. Madeleine Day, a University College Dublin student researcher and conference co-organiser, stated that communities should guide research as collaborators, rather than subjects, quoting the disability rights movement slogan, “nothing about us without us”. Noting the difference between curiosity and extraction in research, she also spoke about the need for trust-built relationships. Carolina Carvalho, a PhD student at the University of Limerick, similarly remarked that participants deserve to be seen as authors of research themselves. “Inclusion doesn’t happen by accident. It’s the result of collaboration and co-creation, and it’s a commitment to the idea that we can build something better when we work together and when we hear each other,” said Collins. The conference combined academic research with advocacy, platforming research and policy both by and for neurodivergent students and scholars. “In a strange way, it is an act of advocacy or perhaps empowerment to create a space that is focused on research that’s collaborative and perhaps sensitive and respectful of people’s lived experiences,” Cabraja said of the conference. “But it’s also a moment to say, look, there are all of these people with great ideas and everybody deserves this space.” She described research and advocacy as inherently intersecting, with research often providing a space and tangible evidence for neurodiversity advocacy. “[Research] allows for a new format, a new way to have lived experience incorporated into the knowledge base to perhaps inspire, inform, improve advocacy, and make it more rooted in what the community is saying,” Cabraja said. At Trinity and other universities across Ireland, resources, support, and communities for neurodivergent students are often still inaccessible or invisible, with information commonly circulated between students via word of mouth. These support systems need to be more accessible, according to the organising committee. A significant barrier to accessing neurodiversity and disability supports in higher education is proof of diagnosis, Collins said. Cabraja added that while Trinity’s policies in terms of medical documentation vary, “if we’re looking at [the] big picture across Ireland, the requirement for official documentation, proving a diagnosis, I think is something that needs to change”. The student experience of support visibility is a “two-tiered system”, said Collins, differing based on the pathway you enter College through. Those who enter through Disability Access Route to Education (DARE) are registered in the university system and receive immediate communication, whereas non-DARE students do not. In addition to calling for more accessible information, Cabraja noted a “significant level of invisible workload that’s put onto students with disabilities to pursue certain types of information”. The organising committee highlighted that promoting accessibility and inclusion can flourish through small, community-based actions: open-mindedness, creativity, and recognition of students’ various perspectives and needs. Community continues to be at the root of how the conference is evolving. Looking forward, organisers’ goals for the future of NSC include growing the organising committee and becoming more intervarsity. They hope to maintain momentum, continuing to centre diverse student voices in higher education and champion accessibility in all areas of academic life. Barriers to inclusion, organisers noted, impact the entire university community, irrespective of disability. Furthermore, access is not only the right of all students but also the legal responsibility of all College faculty and administrators. “Not only encourag[ing] but mandat[ing] that academic staff are aware and up to date on accessibility and how to make students feel included in their classrooms” is a chief concern, said Cabraja. Collins emphasised that events such as the NSC, where individuals share ideas and research, give “a broader cohort of students that same foundation of knowledge”. When they graduate, that cohort can “carry the torch” of knowledge to the next class of students. “These things take time; change takes time. It takes building…momentum”, Collins said. NSC26 is one step in the evolution of resources and spaces for neurodiverse student communities — many of which are still in their infancy and continuing to grow. Although attendees are spread across the country, they remain connected through the conference network. Organisers are currently compiling a digital journal of research shared at NSC26. Over the years, DUNeS has attempted to keep track of neurodiversity societies across the country. As of now, they know of six: at University College Cork (UCC), University of Galway, University College Dublin (UCD), Dublin City University (DCU), Technical University Dublin-Tallaght (TUD), and Atlantic Technological University-Sligo (ATU). “We’ve now created a platform. We’ve now created a community…now the network has been established”, said Doecke-Launders. For NSC organisers and attendees, this work extends far beyond their own degrees and universities. The months-long labour that went into the conference is only the beginning of a continuing dialogue. Having published several papers on disability and student support outside of his own doctoral research, Doecke-Launders’ work certainly doesn’t end with Trinity. “A lot of people ask me how I actually do my studies as well. I have no answer for that”, he joked. “Ask my supervisor.”

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