WORLD DISABILITY EMPLOYMENT CONFERENCE

Selection criteria

• International relevance
  Submissions must demonstrate applicability beyond a single national context. Content should offer insights, comparisons, or lessons that practitioners, researchers, and policymakers from multiple countries can draw on.
• Innovation and evidence
  Submissions should present approaches, findings, or frameworks that are original, evidence-informed, and go beyond what is already widely known in the sector. Emerging practice is welcome alongside established research.
• Impact and outcomes
  Content should demonstrate or credibly project meaningful outcomes for people with disability. This may include quantitative or qualitative changes at individual, organisational, or systems level.
• Practical and transferrable
  Submissions should identify what could be adapted, replicated, or scaled in other countries or contexts. Presenters are encouraged to reflect on both enablers and barriers to transferability.
• Lived experience
  Strong preference is given to submissions that meaningfully incorporate the voice, leadership, or co-design of people with disability — not just as subjects, but as contributors, researchers, or presenters.

SESSION FORMATS

• Presentation — a single presenter or small team presenting research, practice, or policy findings (suggested 20–30 minutes including Q&A)
• Panel discussion — a curated group of speakers exploring a theme or question from multiple perspectives (35–50 minutes)
• Short session / lightning talk — a concise, focused presentation designed to spark discussion (suggested 15–20 minutes)
• Workshop — an interactive, participatory session focused on skills, tools, or collaborative problem-solving (45–75 minutes)
• Virtual session (pre–record) – (maximum session length of 30 minutes)

Please note: the conference does not support fully hybrid panels (a mix of in-person and live virtual speakers within the same session) due to quality and technical considerations. In-person and fully virtual session formats are both available.

Selection Process

• Eligibility screening – all submissions are checked against formal submission requirements
• Criteria review – assessed by the WDEC program committee against the five criteria
• Program design – accepted submissions are shaped into a coherent conference program. Decisions on session length, format and grouping will be made in this stage.
• Notification to applicants of the outcome of their submission – All submitters will be notified of their outcome. Successful submissions will receive information about logistics and next steps.
• Accessibility expectations – presentation materials will be required to adhere to accessibility requirements to be approved for presentation. All presentation materials including resources will need to be submitted prior to the conference to be approved. Accessibility outlines can be found at the bottom of this document.
• Speaker registration cost – To remove as many barriers to access as possible, there will be no cost for speakers selected by the committee to attend this event.

ACCESSIBILITY PRESENTATION GUIDELINES

Please review the following requirements carefully when preparing your presentation.

• Use a simple and clear design (simple background with high contrast font).
• Use at least 24-pt for body text on presentation slides and 40-pt for titles.
• Include Alt text for images to ensure accessibility of presentations.
• Read and describe the slide content, to include blind or visually impaired participants. Slides that support what you are saying and not require silent reading.
• Explain images and their purpose, including describing metaphorical contributions.
• Use clear, high-resolution images and graphic, ensuring any text within images is readable.

Recommended tools for checking colour contrast and accessibility:

• Vision Australia Contrast Checker
• SA Government Online Accessibility Toolkit – Colour and Contrast
• Vision Australia – Creating accessible digital colour palettes using the 60-30-10 design rule