Research Stream: Social Lives
Author: Hilary Hooks, Project Manager, Protecting the Right to Culture of Persons with Disabilities and Enhancing Cultural Diversity in EU Law: Exploring New Paths (DANCING) Project
As the Project Manager for the ERC-funded DANCING Project, led by PI, Prof. Delia Ferri, my role has been to manage the project’s administrative and operational aspects and supporting the PI in ensuring that the project stayed on track with its key milestones.
I have endeavoured to create a robust project management framework. This involved developing a suite of tools, including a spreadsheet to track finances, another to track project activities and deliverables and another to record meetings—ensuring that we met all milestones efficiently. With a project of this scale, managing a €2 million budget requires close attention, and by working closely with other university offices, I ensured compliance with all relevant regulations. The administrative side of the project is complex and involves coordinating with multiple university offices, as well as external entities like graphic designers, filmmakers, and dance companies, the latter two through a tendering process. By managing these details, I freed up our researchers to focus on their work without worrying about the operational hurdles.
One of my main contributions concerns the accessibility of the project, and its website. From the outset, we have prioritized inclusivity in order to bring awareness of the project to a diverse audience and to ensure participation, particularly by individuals with disabilities.
One of our first tasks was commissioning an accessible logo, and designing an accessible website, ensuring it adhered to web accessibility standards and was user-friendly for people with disabilities. This made sure that everyone could easily engage with the project’s content.
I also worked with Dr Ann Leahy and PI Prof. Delia Ferri on designing an accessible survey to gather feedback after a preview of our choreography ‘Lived Fiction’. By making the survey fully inclusive, we ensured that all participants could share their thoughts, helping us improve the experience of the performance.
Additionally, I created text and audio descriptions for various materials, including infographics and visual content, to ensure they were accessible to people with visual impairments. Easy-to-Read versions of web pages and articles were also developed to make the content clearer and more straightforward for those with intellectual disabilities.
A significant aspect of my role has been supporting team collaboration and I set up a weekly coffee meetup for team members to facilitate group cohesion. By maintaining consistent communication, I supported the PI in delivering the project’s objectives.
Over the course of the project, I have also managed the logistics for the team for many academic trips to conferences throughout Europe as well as for our own events, including the mid-term academic conference in September 2023, where we hosted academics and musicians with and without disabilities. By working with university offices on everything from security to catering, I ensured that each event was organized efficiently, with accessibility at the core of every detail.
On the whole, the first four years have allowed me to engage with different tasks and I am looking forward to smoothing the path for the final activities: planning the final conference, arranging for a deaf interpreter to overlay sign language on our documentary, and seeing the last of the project articles and books being published. This project has been a journey of learning and growth, and I am delighted to have played a role in its success and in ensuring that the DANCING project leaves a legacy in both the research community and in European society.
