The VDPM was founded by Dr Harvey Cowe, a wheelchair user for over 40 years, disability scholar, activist and trustee of two Disabled People's Organisations in Brighton.
Dr Harvey Cowe has been a wheelchair user for over 40 years, following a spinal cord injury in 1984. His experience of navigating a world built without Disabled People in mind has shaped everything he has done since.
He completed his PhD in philosophy at Sheffield University, focusing on disability studies and the philosophical foundations of Disabled People's Organisations. His doctoral research examined the difference between organisations that are genuinely owned and governed by Disabled People and those that claim to be.
He has served as a trustee of two Disabled People's Organisations in Brighton, bringing both the academic analysis and the lived experience of governance to his work. He knows from the inside how organisations can drift from their founding principles, and how structural safeguards can prevent this.
In 2025 he published two peer-reviewed articles in Disability and Society, the leading journal in the field. The first examines Disabled People's Organisations and the case for a new frontier in user-led advocacy. The second explores the use of artificial intelligence as a tool for Disabled scholars.
He is currently completing a third article for Disability and Society examining how UK government policy since the late 1990s diluted the activist ethos of the Disabled People's movement, drawing on composite case study analysis to show how organisations adopted movement language and structure without genuine commitment to its principles. The article argues that things are not getting better for Disabled People, and that renewal requires a movement kitemark, political education, financial independence and new forms of technology-enabled solidarity.
He serves as a guest editor and contributor to Disability and Society.
The Virtual Disabled People's Movement is the practical expression of everything he has learned. It is not a research project about what Disabled People's organisations should be. It is an attempt to build one that lives up to those principles, with technology that makes the governance guarantees structural and permanent.
The Union of the Physically Impaired Against Segregation publishes its Fundamental Principles, establishing that disability is created by social organisation, not by impairment. This remains the foundation of everything the VDPM does.
A spinal cord injury introduces Harvey to the barriers that society places in the path of Disabled People, and to the movement that names and fights those barriers.
Harvey serves as trustee of two Disabled People's Organisations in Brighton, gaining direct experience of the governance challenges facing genuinely member-led organisations and the pressures that cause drift from founding principles.
Harvey completes his PhD at Sheffield University and publishes two peer-reviewed articles in Disability and Society, laying the academic foundations for the VDPM.
The Brighton and Hove Virtual Disabled People's Organisation becomes the first organisation in the VDPM network. The Independent Living Challenge goes live at bnvdpo.org.uk. The first founding members join. Something that has never existed before begins.
Whether you are a Disabled Person who wants to get involved, an organisation interested in solidarity or the Kitemark, a researcher, a journalist, or a potential funder, we want to hear from you.
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