Members of the Research Network
Universal Design Hub has created and facilitates an interdisciplinary network that aims to turn the academic field of universal design into a research-based, cross-disciplinary field of knowledge. Universal design cannot be propagated from within one field alone. Researchers in the network come from various fields of study that each contribute to shaping the world around us.
Members of the network are researchers who work with universal design in their teaching and research within their specific academic discipline, for example construction, design, health and engineering.
The network meets three times a year for e.g. master class sessions with international experts or joint publication, and teaching activities.
The network also regularly participates in debates, publications and activities in collaboration with Universal Design Hub.
Anne Kathrine Frandsen
Senior Researcher
Aalborg University
Anne Kathrine Frandsen’s research focuses on how users experience the quality of architecture and the built environment. It particularly focuses on how sensory and utilitarian qualities contribute to stimulating and equal frameworks for all, and how these can be created and upheld throughout the entirety of the building process, from programme to outline, from project planning to completion.
Division of of Building Technology and Management
Department of the Built Environment
Aalborg University
E-mail: akf@build.aau.dk
E-mail: build@build.aau.dk
Barbara Nino Carreras
PhD student
IT University of Copenhagen
Barbara Nino Carreras is a PhD student at the IT University of Copenhagen, where she researches digital accessibility within Science and Technology Studies (STS) and Human-Computer Interaction (HCI). Her PhD project examines how people in Denmark use mandatory digital infrastructure to access benefits or communicate with public authorities. She is particularly interested in exploring collective forms of accessibility.
IT University of Copenhagen
E-mail: barb@itu.dk
Emil Ballegaard
PhD student
The Royal Danish Academy
Emil Ballegaard is an Architect MAA and PhD student at the Royal Danish Academy where he studies digital descriptions of user-architecture interactions and how they are used to develop housing architecture.
Emil Søbjerg Falster
Postdoc
Aalborg University
Emil Falster is a postdoc at the Universal Design Hub/Bevica Foundation and the Department of Sociology and Social Work at Aalborg University. His research has previously focused on children and young people with disabilities and their everyday lives. His research is now centred on the Danish concept of disability and how it creates certain possibilities and limitations for the implementation of the UN Sustainable Development Goals and the Leave No One Behind agenda.
Aalborg University
E-mail: emil@Bevica.dk
Eva Sievert Asmussen
PhD student
The Royal Danish Academy
Architect, special consultant at the Agency for Culture and Palaces
The Royal Danish Academy
E-mail: easm@kglakademi.dk
Eva Brandt
Professor
Design School Kolding
Eva Brandt is a professor and the technical manager of the Lab for Social Design at Design School Kolding. Her primary research field is co-design/design anthropology/participatory design, with a focus on the development of democratic design processes and experiments that can provide new perspectives on existing designs and that explores new horizons with citizens and private and public actors.
Frederik Gybel Jensen
PhD student
University of Copenhagen
Frederik Gybel Jensen is a speech and language therapist and PhD student at Rigshospitalet and the University of Copenhagen. He works with adults with acquired communication and language difficulties (aphasia) after brain injury. He also works with communicative accessibility, communication partner training, as well as the adaptation of digital healthcare tools for people with cognitive and language difficulties.
Henrik Kasch
Associate Professor
Aarhus University
Inge Bonfils
Docent
University College Copenhagen
Inge Storgaard Bonfils is a senior associate professor at the Department of Social Work, University College Copenhagen. She has a PhD in political science, and her research and teaching is centred around disability policy, the Danish disability movement, social work, as well as psychosocial and occupational rehabilitation. Inge is a member of the board of NNDR.dk, the Danish branch of the Nordic Network on Disability Research.
University College Copenhagen
Department of Social Work
Tlf.: +45 51 38 04 76
E-mail: inbo@phmetropol.dk
Jannick Friis Christensen
Postdoc
Copenhagen Buisness School
Jannick Friis Christensen, PhD, is a Postoctoral Researcher at Copenhagen Business School (CBS) in Denmark. Focusing on norm-critical approaches to organising and researching diversity, Jannick has in recent years studied LGBT+ workplace inclusion from queer perspectives in collaboration with Danish labour unions. He also engages with alternative organisations such as Denmark’s Roskilde Festival at which he has explored the phenomenon of transgressive behaviour. His current project investigates the civil-religious public ritual of Pride and its wider socially integrative potential through corporate collaboration, taking a particular interest in critiques of pinkwashing and the organisational learning of partners and sponsors from LGBT+ employee resource groups in the context of ‘woke capitalism’. Jannick is Course Coordinator on the CBS HRM master’s programme where he teaches and supervises the next generation of human resource management professionals.
John Paulin Hansen
Professor
Technical University of Denmark
For 30 years, Psychologist John Paulin Hansen has been researching how we can use our eyes to control technology. People with mobility impairments can use their eyes to control their wheelchair or to write. Soon, they will also be able to operate a telepresence robot or control a robotic arm.
Leif Olsen
Senior Researcher
Vive
Leif Olsen primarily works with research, analysis and evaluation of social issues and initiatives within the area of disability and social care services. His research has mainly focused on the specialised social field and has included studies cantered on the experience of private citizens and specialist groups with specialised advisory services. He is dedicated to finding solutions to the challenges related to the development and organisation of specialised knowledge so it can be used to improve people’s daily lives.
VIVE Social Policy
VIVE – The Danish Center for Social Science Research
E-mail: leol@vive.dk
E-mail: vive@vive.dk
Leif Hemming Pedersen
PhD student
Roskilde University
Leif H. Pedersen is a PhD student at Roskilde University. His work is centred on the general role that media and media development have in the processes and struggles surrounding social acknowledgement. In this context, he tries to couple insights from media (use) research with social-philosophy theories and discussions regarding recognition and disrespect, and examines these phenomena in ethnographic studies together with young media users.
Marcus Tang Merit
PhD student
The Royal Danish Academy
Marcus Tang Merit is a sociologist and PhD student at the Royal Danish Academy. He researches the methods and design processes used by architects with a particular focus on their drawings and visual analyses. His research also focuses on inclusive public urban spaces, and the presence of users with functional impairments in the design processes that are part of creating those spaces.
Institute of Architecture, Urbanism and Landscape
The Royal Danish Academy
E-mail: mtan@kglakademi.dk
Link to Marcus’ research profile at The Royal Danish Academy
Maria Bee Christensen-Strynø
PhD student
University of Copenhagen
Marie Christoffersen Gramkow
PhD student
University of Copenhagen
Marie Christoffersen Gramkow has a PhD in landscape architecture and is an assistant professor at the University of Copenhagen. Her work focuses on the relationship between nature, health and design, with special focus on Universal Design and accessibility. Using an evidence-based approach, she has primarily worked on designing accessible and health-promoting urban and green areas.
Masashi Kajita
Associate Professor
The Royal Danish Academy
Masashi Kajita, PhD, assistant professor, Architect MAA. His research focuses on the body, materials and space within architecture. Masashi previously worked as a researcher at the Danish Building Research Institute and was a visiting scholar at the Royal College of Art in England. He has worked with architecture and interior design in London and Copenhagen, and has taught architecture since 2005.
The Royal Danish Academy
E-mail: Masashi.Kajita@kglakademi.dk
Mia Høj Matthiasson
Assistant Professor
University of Southern Denmark
Mia Høj Mathiasson is an assistant professor at the University of Southern Denmark. She holds a Ph.D. in Library and Information Science from the University of Copenhagen. Her research interests cover the social and societal role of public libraries, especially concerning sustainability and social inclusion, and the proactive role of librarians in social innovation and sustainable development processes. She is currently connected to the international research project UPSCALE: Upscaling sustainable collaborative consumption using public libraries, funded by the Norwegian Research Council, and a member of the PubLIB for Refugees Research Group, focusing on the programs and services provided by public libraries to Ukrainian refugees.
The Department of Media, Design, Education and Cognition
University of Southern Denmark
E-mail: mmath@sdu.dk
Mikkel Hjort
Postdoc Landscape architect
The Royal Danish Academy
Mikkel Hjort is a landscape architect and Post.doc. at the Royal Danish Academy. His primary research interest is to generate research-based knowledge on how the design of the public realm can promote well-being. In his current research project, the focus is on teenage girls, but the methodology and knowledge will benefit everyone with special needs and support the ‘Leave No One Behind’ agenda.
The Royal Danish Academy
E-mail:mhjo@kglakademi.dk
Olivia Dahl Nielsen
PhD student
University of Copenhagen
Olivia Dahl is a sociologist and PhD student who researches in the field of critical disability studies, ableism, social interaction and everyday life sociology. Olivia’s project focuses on identifying the barriers and potentials for thriving in todays society, from a disability perspective. Olivia uses qualitative methods such as interviews and poetry writing to gain insight into the lived experiences of people with disability.
University of Copenhagen
E-mail: odn@soc.ku.dk
Roberta Cassi
PhD student
The Royal Danish Academy
Roberta Cassi is an architect and PhD student at the Royal Danish Academy, where she researches how the design of sport and leisure buildings affects the inclusion of users with physical or sensory impairments. Her research focuses on the role of the built environment in our lives, and discovering new potentials for design that supports and strengthens individuals.
Sofie Skoubo
PhD student
Aarhus University
Sofie Skoubo is a PhD student at Aarhus University, Public health. Her PhD is a cooperation between the National Rehabilitation Center for Neuromuscular diseases and No Isolation, a Norwegian company developing the telepresence robot AV1. She is researching in the use of telepresence robots to reduce absence for children and adolescents with neuro muscular diseases. She researches focus on the telepresence robot’s ability to create participation and flexibility in the education system for children with neuromuscular diseases.
The Danish National Rehabilitation Center for Neuromuscular Diseases and No Isolation
Aarhus University
E-mail: sosk@rcfm.dk
Stine Bekke-Hansen
PhD student
University of Copenhagen
Tanja Schmidt
Postdoc
University of Southern Denmark
Thomas Bredgaard
Professor
Aalborg University
Thomas Bredgaard is a professor of labour market policy and head of the Centre for Labour Market Research at Aalborg University (CARMA). Since 2018, Thomas has been head of the cross-institutional Research Center for Disability and Employment, which is being funded by the Bevica Foundation (www.fhb.aau.dk). The research center brings together researchers that study disability and employment and who want to find new ways to integrate and retain people with disabilities on the labour market.
Aalborg University
The Research Center for Disability and Employment
E-mail: thomas@dps.aau.dk
Thomas Skovgaard
Associate Professor, Head of Centre
SDU
Thomas Skovgaard, PhD, associate professor, head of research for Active Living, Department of Sports Science and Clinical Biomechanics, University of Southern Denmark. Thomas has long-standing experience from the university sector and has worked in both the NGO and consultancy sector. He is president of the European Network of Sport Education (ENSE).
Department of Sports Science and Clinical Biomechanics
University of Southern Denmark
E-mail: tskovgaard@health.sdu.dk
Turid Borgestrand Øien
Postdoc
Aalborg University
Turid Borgestrand Øien is an Architect MAA and assistant professor at Aalborg University, where she researches the built environment as part of peoples’ everyday lives. The focal point of her research within the Universal Design research group has been vision and light, but her work also includes a broad cross-disciplinary collaboration: From vision specialists to public authorities, contractors, architects and lightning designers.
Ulrika K. Stigsdotter
Professor MSO
University of Copenhagen
Ulrika K. Stigsdotter is a professor in landscape architecture with special responsibilities within health design at the University of Copenhagen. She is head of an interdisciplinary research group focusing on the interplay between humans, nature, health and design. Ulrika is also responsible for the Nature, Health and Design Laboratory, which includes the Nacadia® therapy garden, the Health Forest Octovia® and Move Green (established in 2021).
Department of Geosciences and Natural Resource Management
Section for Landscape Architecture and Planning
Research Group: Nature, Health & Design
University of Copenhagen
E-mail: uks@ign.ku.dk
Valeria Borsotti
PhD student
University of Copenhagen
Valeria Borsotti is a digital anthropologist and PhD fellow in Computer Science at Copenhagen University. She studies how norms and values around gender, race and disability are encoded in digital and physical spaces, shaping opportunities and barriers for equity and accessibility – particularly in computer science education. Her research interests include digital inclusion, inclusive design and the social dimensions of accessibility.