Towards a digitally accessible thesis: the experience of a PhD researcher

Digital transformation strategies are developed to guide organisations and nations (OECD, 2019) towards successful policymaking and policy implementation in the digital age. With four pillars at the core of Europe’s Digital Decade: government, business, skills and infrastructure (European Commission, 2022), digital accessibility is an important feature of the twenty-first-century economy and society and is enshrined in legislation that governs the European Union (EU) member states. Legislation includes the Web Accessibility Directive for public sector websites and apps (Official Journal of the European Union, 2016) and the European Accessibility Act due to come into law in June 2025 for businesses offering a wide variety of products and services including websites (Official Journal of the European Union, 2019). In the higher education sector, Universal Design for Learning (UDL) offers a framework for educators to design with equality for all students in mind, as described by Anita Byrne in her personal reflection on UDL implementation (Byrne, 2023). It would appear therefore that, guided by such legislation, a top-down approach is making progress towards digital accessibility in the public, private and education sectors with regard to website-based and other mobile applications. What then, of a bottom-up approach by students in their production of postgraduate research papers, dissertations and doctoral theses?