Accessibility, Governance, Policies and Education

The European Accessibility Act should have been transposed to National laws, by June 2022 in EU countries, and it must be fully enforced by 2025. Different approaches have been adopted, depending on the governance policies of states and organizations, financial health, society willingness, and socio-technical readiness. The role of Higher Education on these factors is paramount and urgent, not just in the curricula of Information Design and Information Technology degrees and courses, regarding the later, but also through the example they provide to the society. How does one transpose the EAA to the University, and hopefully show how it will be adopted by public and private institutions, and provide society with the tools and resources that enable its enforcement by 2025?

Luís Carriço is Full Professor at the Department of Informatics, of the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Lisbon. He is currently Dean of this Faculty, since 2018. He was director of LASIGE, and he is currently a senior member of this research unit. He holds a PhD (2000) in Electronic and Computers Engineering, from the Technical University of Lisbon, and a Habilitation in Informatics, from the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Lisbon. His main research focus is on extreme human-device interaction, for health, accessibility, and emergency scenarios. He has published over 200 refereed technical/scientific papers and book chapters, mostly addressing mobile design and support for cognitive impairments and mobile and web accessibility. He was general and program chair of several top-level conferences, such as IUI, W4A, MobileHCI and CRIWG. He coordinated and participated in several research projects in those areas, including EU funded (e.g., ACCESSIBLE, GUIDE, AGEISM, ASTARTE, WAI-tools, SONAAR, WeHealth), national government funded (e.g., InSiThe, QualWeb, mIDR, FoodParenting), and industry funded, national and international (e.g., S4S, UXREC, IDEA-FAST). He was appointed for the evaluation of EU project proposals, and ongoing projects, on the e-Inclusion area, including those in ICT and Ageing and e-Health. He was appointed as one of the evaluators the Greek Research Units in Computer Science (2014). He has founded BoomUX (2010), a company in digital accessibility and user experience.