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Profil

 

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Michael Rasell joined the Disability Studies and Inclusive Pedagogy team in November 2021. He is a qualitative sociologist and his research analyses the impact of social services on inclusion, human rights and wellbeing. He has a particular focus on the participation of people using social services in their design and implementation, as well as the evolution of community-based disability services in Eastern Europe.

Michael has been Principal or Co-Investigator on international projects totalling €14 million. He leads the Horizon Europe RESPONSIVE project “Increasing the responsiveness of social services to citizen voice across Europe” (2023-2026), which unites eleven research and practice organisations to develop innovative ways of embedding participation by people using social services. From 2024, Michael is the Austria Country Expert for the European Disability Expertise (EDE) project of the European Commission. Michael is also a trustee of the UK-based charity BEARR, which supports grassroots civil society organisations in Eastern Europe and Central Asia to tackle social and health issues.

Michael was previously Associate Professor in Social Care at the University of Lincoln in the United Kingdom. He co-supervised a Marie Curie Fellowship to build evidence base to support Polish women victims of domestic abuse (Dr Iwona Zielinska, 2020-22) and coordinated the erasmus Mundus Master programme “Advanced Development in Social Work”, which is recognised as best practice in international social work training. 

Michael has served as Director of Studies for PhD theses on child protection for families with autistic children, refugee women in Brazil, domestic abuse in rural England and primary healthcare for older LGBTI+ people. He has been External Examiner for PhDs at University College London and the University of Illinois at Chicago.

 

Arbeitsschwerpunkte

• User participation and co-creation in social services
• Critical disability studies
• Disability rights and social service development in Eastern Europe
• Qualitative research methods
• Knowledge transfer and research impact

 

Aktuelle Arbeiten

• Principal Investigator, Horizon Europe Forschungsprojekt ‘Increasing the responsiveness of social services to citizen voice across Europe’, https://responsive-europe.eu/ (2023-2026)

• Country Expert for Austria, European Disability Expertise (EDE), https://ec.europa.eu/social/main.jsp?catId=1532&langId=en (2024-2028)

• Ren, M., Wang, B. and Rasell, M. (2022) ‘Flexibility and Professionalisation: Reflections on Adaptions by Social Work Services in China during COVID-19’ Practice: Social Work in Action, 34:2, 87-101, https://doi.org/10.1080/09503153.2021.1998413