NIDRR’s Long-Range Plan presents a comprehensive research agenda, focusing on developing new methods, technologies, and approaches for eliminating the environmental, cultural, and social barriers that prevent people with disabilities from full inclusion in all aspects of society. NIDRR intends for this plan to challenge the disability and rehabilitation community to address the new paradigm of disability and its implications for their lives and work. Sensitivity to the environmental components of disability leads to an awareness of a changing disability universe, which results from both new conditions and etiologies and from the differential distribution of disabilities among socioeconomic and cultural groups.
The new paradigm calls for an emphasis on an accessible society and participation by individuals with disabilities. This plan presented in this document also supports the concept of universal design as a way to facilitate access and enhance or replace the use of many individualized accommodations. NIDRR believes these concepts and approaches will enable the disability field to capitalize on the opportunities presented by the convergence of technological breakthroughs and the empowerment of disabled advocates.
This plan outlines new management strategies to oversee NIDRR’s extensive, multifaceted rehabilitation research effort. Using a five-year agenda, NIDRR will provide a blueprint for advancing knowledge in medical and rehabilitation service delivery, assistive technologies, employment, statistical methods and survey research, disability studies and rehabilitation science, and approaches to independent living and community integration. By creating avenues for the dissemination and utilization of research knowledge and by enhancing research capacity and management talent, NIDRR stands as an agency for change, promoting the advancement of individuals with disabilities.
Appendix Long-Range Plan Steering Committee Members
