Universal Design for the Neurodivergent PhD Experience

The PhD experience can be intensely challenging, resulting in significant levels of stress that can impede wellbeing, progression, and completion, and embedded in an academic system that is already characterised by the normalisation of overwork. For neurodivergent PhD researchers, the stressors that impact on the PhD experience can be compounded by more profound impacts of overwork and systemic ableism that stigmatises disclosure of disability and impedes the provision of reasonable accommodations for this cohort, in turn risking further alienation. This narrative literature review examines how neurodivergent PhD researchers experience the doctoral journey and investigates how Universal Design - and in particular, Ireland's ALTITUDE Charter - could inform PhD programmes to address barriers that this cohort faces, while also ameliorating the experience for doctoral researchers more broadly.