evidoria

← Back to browse

Good practice Imported

Ireland's Centre for Excellence in Universal Design — the World's Only Statutory Universal-Design Body

Ireland · Dublin · See the Ireland profile · See the Dublin profile

Evidence: Descriptive / self-reported Top 55% 72/100 · Ask Evidence Copilot about this practice

Ireland's National Disability Authority runs the world's only statutory Centre for Excellence in Universal Design, mandated since 2007 to embed universal design - including ICT and digital services - into public policy, education and procurement.

Details

Maturity
Established
Promoter
National Disability Authority (NDA)
Period
2007–ongoing
Keywords
disability rights, universal design, ICT accessibility, public policy

Context

Ireland's National Disability Authority established the Centre for Excellence in Universal Design (CEUD) in 2007 under the National Disability Authority Act 1999 and the Disability Act 2005 — described as the only statutory universal-design centre of its kind in the world — with a remit spanning the built environment, products, services and ICT.

Results

A 2022 submission to the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Disability Matters documents CEUD's statutory functions and ongoing role fifteen years after its creation, including ICT guidance aligned with the EU Web Accessibility Directive's EN 301 549 standard and universal-design content embedded into professional and university curricula.

Implementation
Indicative cost
Medium (€50k–€500k)
Time to results
Long (> 3 years)
Staffing & skills
National Disability Authority policy staff, CEUD universal-design specialists

Conditions for success

  • embedding the mandate directly into national disability law rather than running it as a voluntary initiative
  • integrating universal-design content into professional and university curricula so it reaches practitioners before they enter the workforce

Commonly funded by

National / regional programmes

Indicative funding routes for practices of this type — always check each programme's current calls and eligibility rules.

Do you run this practice? Claim it — verified implementers get a public contact pathway and can propose corrections.

Data sources

Where this practice's information was retrieved from, and when.

Similar practices you may find useful