黑料网911

Belonging in education and research (Image by Rafael AS Martins on Unsplash).

Founded in 2024, the Neurodivergent Researchers Network is a space for members of the 黑料网911 – whether diagnosed or self-identifying as neurodivergent, or friends and allies – to share and reflect upon their lived experiences of education and research. It aims to foster inclusive opportunities for members to support and encourage one another, acknowledging the breadth of neurocognitive diversity and its strengths and benefits as well as its struggles and challenges.

Neurodivergence can be understood to cover a wide range of cognitive profiles including (but not limited to) autism spectrum conditions, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, dyslexia and dyspraxia. Estimates suggest that between 15 and 20 per cent of the general population are neurodivergent, and while the increasing number of neurodivergent students within higher education is prompting the rapid reshaping of student-facing accessibility provision, neurodivergence remains significantly underreported and underrepresented among academics (Cumming et al., 2026). However, according to some figures, only 1.8 per cent of academics disclose neurodivergence (Podsiadlik, 2026), potentially due to the stresses of requesting and securing reasonable adjustments (Morrison, 2019).

In this 黑料网911 Blog Special Issue, curated by the Neurodivergent Researchers Network, we draw back the curtain on neurodivergent experiences of higher education, ranging from those of undergraduate and postgraduate students to those of navigating portfolio careers and senior leadership.

To begin, Katie Kilian and Ruolin Hu (University College London) report on their action research study with neurodivergent undergraduates, uncovering the challenges of negotiating institutional systems and bureaucracies, as well as the importance of holistic understandings of neurodiversity and wellbeing. Nysha Chantel Givans (University of Wolverhampton) then brings her personal experience to bear on similar issues, describing the intensity of the ‘imposter syndrome’ she felt as a late-diagnosed, Black, working-class, first-generation university student.

Elizabeth MacGregor (University of Leeds) then discusses how neurodivergence intersects with the institutional precarity affecting early career researchers, describing the cost of navigating job insecurity as someone who values structure and routine. Negotiating similar complexities – sustained employment, academic networking and work environments – is further addressed by Fiona Monahan (Ulster University), who looks towards the potential benefits of portfolio careers, self-employment and hybrid working for some neurodivergent employees. Liz Aylott (University of East London) also explores some of the benefits of her own autistic characteristics, considering how deficit framings of repetitive and defiant behaviours often mask valuable alternative and creative perspectives.

In the final contributions to this Special Issue, we move from higher to secondary education, as Emily Bathie (University of Derby) vividly describes the process of training as a teacher and the ups and downs of juggling planning demands, pastoral responsibilities and professional expectations in a neurotypical workplace. Hannah Page (College of Richard Collyer) then explores the institutional practices that have both helped and hindered her as a neurodivergent teacher in a position of senior leadership. Reflecting the thoughts of our other contributors, she underlines how the inclusive organisational structures and systems that benefit neurodivergent staff and students are so often those that support wider communities too.

Taken together, these accounts demonstrate how neurodivergent experiences are both impacted by and have the potential to reshape institutional cultures for the benefit of all those within higher education. As guest editors, it has been a privilege to gain such insight into the commonalities and nuances of our contributors’ stories and experiences. We are acutely aware that they all identify as women – a population that has historically been disenfranchised by medical models and diagnostic processes based upon stereotypically male neurodivergence (Bargiela et al., 2016). In light of this past inequity, we have chosen to foreground these women’s experiences without artificially redressing the gender balance with supplementary or invited contributions. We hope that this will not only amplify voices that have previously gone unheard, but also contribute to the growing recognition of the vital role women play both within higher education and as advocates of neurodiversity.

References

Bargiela, S., Steward, R., & Mandy, W. (2016). The experiences of late-diagnosed women with autism spectrum conditions: An investigation of the female autism phenotype. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 46, 3281–3294.

Cumming, T. M., Kriss, K., Macer-Wright, J., Zwi, A. B., Alonzo, D., Jolly, J. L., & Townend, G. (2026). ‘Imagine what we could achieve if we were supported to thrive’: Neurodivergent scholars navigating academia. Higher Education Research & Development, 45(4), 917–935.

Morrison, A. (2019). (Un)reasonable, (un)necessary, and (in)appropriate: Biographic mediation of neurodivergence in academic accommodations. Biography, 42(3), 693–719.

Podsiadlik, A. (2026). Experiences of neurodivergent academics: A qualitative research synthesis. In N. Keates & K. Waldock (Eds.), Neurodivergent education and lifelong learning (pp. 203–228). IGI Global Scientific Publishing.