About the OHMI Research Partnership

The OHMI Research Partnership (ORP) is a collaboration between the OHMI Trust, Imperial College London, Queen Mary University of London, and Birmingham City University. Its purpose is to form new research partnerships on subjects relating to music and disability with universities, researchers, musicians, educators, sociologists and instrument makers globally.

We are committed to undertaking research which can improve disabled people's access to music, through research in the following areas: 

Instrument Design and Adaptation

We support research focused on the production of accessible instruments: instruments designed to address the access needs of physically disabled musicians. 
Key areas include:

• Instrument design
• Enabling equipment
• Materials science
• Digital Musical Instruments (DMIs)

Music education

We aim to improve understanding of the disabling barriers which can prevent full participation in musical life in music education. This includes:

• Methods for teaching with specially adapted instruments
• Pedagogic approaches in mixed ability classrooms
• The 'first barriers' to access in musical life, e.g. the attitudinal and social barriers which prevent disabled musicians from embarking on instrument learning during early years education.

Policy and Social impact

​The strategies, plans and ideas that guide the work of government departments, the music industry, and relevant charities can play a significant role in removing the barriers to full participation by disabled people in musical-life.

We aim to interrogate and define the rationales and effects of those policies, in order to provide essential information to all those concerned, and work towards challenging any embedded prejudicial practices.

We wish to bring in knowledge and discourse from disability studies and related social sciences​ in all levels or our research, to provide a critical lens and means of understanding the social impact of our work.