About the Journal

Focus and Scope

Disability, CBR and Inclusive Development aims to enhance knowledge in the field of disability and inclusive development, addressing the needs of practitioners in the field (particularly those from developing countries), policy makers, disabled persons’ organisations and the scientific community. The journal encourages publication of information that is evidence-based, to improve policy,current knowledge and programme implementation, and will be openly and freely accessible to all readers.

Disability, CBR and Inclusive Development focuses on the following themes, with emphasis on perspectives from developing countries:

  • Community-based rehabilitation
  • Inclusive education
  • Women with disabilities
  • Children and Disabilities
  • Inclusive development
  • Human rights and self-advocacy
  • Role of Disabled Persons’ Organisations (DPOs)
  • Policy and legislation related to disability issues
  • Health-related rehabilitation and outcomes - perspectives from developing countries
  • Assistive devices - perspectives from developing countries
  • Accessibility (including inclusive design)
  • Disability and HIV/AIDS/sexual and reproductive health rights
  • Disability and conflict
  • Disability and emergencies
  • Disability and Culture

Publication Frequency

The journal is published online in 4 issues in a year.

Special collections of articles are welcomed and will be published as part of the normal issue, but also within a separate collection page.

Open Access Policy

This journal provides immediate open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge. There is no embargo on the journal’s publications. Submission and acceptance dates, along with publication dates, are made available on the PDF format for each paper.

Authors of articles published remain the copyright holders and grant third parties the right to use, reproduce, and share the article according to the Creative Commons license agreement.

Authors are encouraged to publish their data in recommended repositories. For a list of generic and subject specific repositories that meet our peer review criteria, see here.

Journal Archiving

The journal’s publisher focuses on making content discoverable and accessible through indexing services. This journal is indexed by Google Scholar, and the previous iteration of the journal (Asia Pacific Disability Rehabilitation Journal) is in SCOPUS. Content is LOCKSS enabled. The journal is also indexed in CINAHL Systems, USA and Elsevier Bibliographic Databases, the Netherlands.

Journal History

The first decade

ACTIONAID Disability News was started in 1990, as a biannual publication meant for concept clarification and highlighting of issues to be addressed in the field of rehabilitation. The newsletter, which was circulated free of cost, was aimed at implementing agencies, donor organisations, policy planners, administrators and professionals involved in rehabilitation. The Goodricke Group, based in Kolkata, India, was the main sponsor of the newsletter. The initial issues of the newsletter attempted to provide a holistic picture of the field of rehabilitation, including methods of service delivery, manpower training, development of technical aids, evaluation and research, with a focus on community-baased rehabilitation (CBR).  Over the next few years, the scope of the newsletter gradually changed, to include more articles from contributors from all over the world, including a few peer-reviewed articles. A readership survey showed that a majority of the respondents read more than 75% of the newsletter and that more than 80% gained new information from it (ACTIONAID Disability News, 1993).  

The second decade

As more authors showed interest in contributing to the newsletter,  readers suggested that the newsletter could be upgraded into a journal. From 1997, ACTIONAID Disability News became the Asia Pacific Disability Rehabilitation Journal, with an international editorial board comprising members from different parts of the world. The major focus of the Journal was on articles related to policy development, concept clarification, development of methodology in the areas of service delivery, training of manpower and programme evaluation, and development of technology related to rehabilitation. Two issues of the journal were published each year and circulated free of cost. Action for Disability, UK was the main supporter of the journal in the initial years, and was joined by CORDAID, the Netherlands, a few years later.

This was one of the very few journals dealing with community based rehabilitation, to be published and circulated from the developing world. Healthlink Worldwide’s list of CBR Essential Resources in 1996 and 2003 quoted the maximum number of articles from this journal, as important training resources in CBR.

With the aim of continuing with its mission of disseminating quality information to people involved in promoting CBR, the Asia Pacific Disability Rehabilitation Journal group came out with some associate publications with the support of different donors, between 1999 and 2006.

Friday meetings were started in 1997 in Bangalore, India, as public meetings to discuss CBR and other disability-related issues, by a group of like-minded people. The deliberations from these meetings were published from 1999 to 2002 in a newsletter called Friday Meeting Transactions twice a year, and mailed to readers in association with the Asia Pacific Disability Rehabilitation Journal.

The Selected Readings in Community Based Rehabilitation was an occasional associate publication of APDRJ, dealing with contemporary reviews on CBR,  and meant for academicians, researchers and policy planners. Series 1, entitled ‘CBR in Transition’ was published in January 2000, with the support of Action for Disability, UK.  Series 2, on Disability and Rehabilitation in South Asia, was published in 2002, with the support of DFID-UK and Action for Disability.

The APDRJ team brought out the Training Notes in CBR in 2000 and the ‘Manual for CBR Planners’ in 2003, with support from Action for Disability, UK. These manuals were meant for planners and trainers of CBR, to be used to plan more systematically and effectively for CBR programmes.

The third decade

By 2010, one thousand two hundred copies of the journal were being mailed to 91 countries in Asia, Africa, North America, South America, Europe and Australia/Pacific. About 60% of the readers were from developing countries. About 25% of the readers were individuals, the rest were institutions (NGOS, academic institutions including libraries and INGOs). The journal was available electronically on the AIFO website, and was also disseminated through WiderNet E Granary Digital Library, USA and EBSCO Publishing databases, USA.

The journal was being indexed in CINAHL Systems, USA and Elsevier Bibliographic Databases, the Netherlands. The estimated readership through direct mailing was about 15000, based on the analysis of feedback questionnaires sent in 2009. It was also estimated  that the readership from  different electronic media was about 5000.

By 2010, the future of Asia Pacific Disability Rehabilitation Journal was under discussion between the management team and interested stakeholders from different parts of the world.

Given the increasing importance being accorded to disability issues from the decade of 2000s, in particular human rights, CBR and inclusive development, combined with the fact that the majority of persons with disabilities lived in low and middle-income countries, the time was right for a journal with a global scope to  continue to be free and openly accessible for readers and free for authors; to reach higher international scientific quality; and to be published more frequently.  With the growing acceptance of the APDRJ and the fact that it had steadily been gaining recognition from different sources, including SCOPUS,  it was decided to upgrade the journal to reach such a standard. 

Disability, CBR and Inclusive Development was launched in 2011 with a new international editorial board, published by Vrije University, Amsterdam and supported by NLR, the Netherlands, CBM, Germany, Light for the World, the Netherlands , and the Liliane Foundation, the Netherlands. The journal aimed to address the needs of practitioners in the field (particularly those from developing countries), policy makers, disabled persons’ organisations and the scientific community. It was an e-journal, in order to reduce costs and to cater to the needs of the large majority of readers. The frequency of publication was increased to four issues per year, and the journal continued to address a global audience.

From 2011 to 2019, four issues of the journal were brought out every year. Apart from SCOPUS, the journal is being indexed in Google Scholar.  The journal was positively evaluated in Journal Citations Impact Factor report (https://www.citefactor.org/impact-factor/impact-factor-of-journal-Disability-CBR-and-Inclusive-Development.php).

A readership survey conducted in 2013 showed that more than 90% of the respondents rated the journal as excellent and good on its usefulness; and that more than 90% of the respondents rated the journal’s quality as excellent and good. From 1 January to 31 December 2018, the journal website recorded 33,538 sessions from 25,303 users. On an average, each visitor browsed around 2-3 pages per visit (Source: Google analytics data for http://dcidj.org for 1 Jan – 31 Dec 2018).

The future

Over the last 30 years, the journal grew from a national newsletter to a journal focusing on the Asia-Pacific region, and then went on to become a global journal. For 30 years, the operations of the journal were managed by a small team based in India, but this was not considered sustainable in the long term. In order to maintain the journal over a longer term and to help with academic and management sustainability, it was necessary to link the journal with an organization  involved in promoting disability issues and knowledge management,. 

From 2020, Disability, CBR and Inclusive Development came under new management, with Mr. Huib Cornielje, Director, Enablement, taking over as  the new Editor-in-Chief from Dr. Maya Thomas, and supported by the Liliane Foundation, the Netherlands, and NLR, the Netherlands. Ubiquity Press, UK will be the publisher, taking over  from Vrije University, Amsterdam.