Accessibility

Table of Contents

Accessibility statement for LSE Research Online

LSE Research Online is run by The London School of Economics and Political Science. We want as many people as possible to be able to use LSE Research Online. For example, that means you should be able to:

  • change colours, contrast levels and fonts
  • zoom in up to 300% without the text spilling off the screen
  • navigate most of the website using just a keyboard
  • navigate most of the website using speech recognition software
  • listen to most of the website using a screen reader (including the most recent versions of JAWS, NVDA and VoiceOver)

We have also made the website text as simple as possible to understand.

AbilityNet has advice on making your device easier to use if you have a disability.

How accessible LSE Research Online is

We know some parts of LSE Research Online are not fully accessible:

  • PDFs and other files are user provided and may not be fully accessible to screen reader software

What to do if you cannot access parts of LSE Research Online

Email lseresearchonline@lse.ac.uk to request accessible versions.
  • call 020 7955 7229

We will consider your request and get back to you in 10 working days.

Reporting accessibility problems with LSE Research Online

We're always looking to improve the accessibility of LSE Research Online. If you find any problems not listed on this page or think we are not meeting accessibility requirements, please contact Open Research Services Team: Lseresearchonline@lse.ac.uk.

Enforcement procedure

The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) is responsible for enforcing the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2.28 (the 'accessibility regulations'). If you’re not happy with how we respond to your complaint, contact the Equality Advisory and Support Service (EASS).

Technical information about LSE Research Online's accessibility

The London School of Economics and Political Science is committed to making its website accessible, in accordance with the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2.28.

Compliance status

LSE Research Online is not compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.2 AA standard. The non-accessible sections are listed below.

Non accessible content

The content listed below is non-accessible for the following reasons.

Non compliance with the accessibility regulations

Disproportionate burden

None of the issues listed above present a disproportionate burden to fix. They will all be resolved as part of a planned upgrade.

Content that is not within the scope of the accessibility regulations

PDFs and other documents

As LSE Research Online is an open access research repository, the principal content made available to users are research outputs such as articles, papers, posters and reports, many of which are PDF documents. Many PDF documents, especially older ones, are not fully accessible to screen reader software and do not contain other common accessibility features. In particular:

  • many documents, especially older ones, do not conform to the PDF/A archiving format.
  • many lack bookmarks or document titles, therefore failing to meet WCAG 2.2 success criteria 2.4.5 and 2.4.2.
  • many discuss scientific or scholarly concepts that may be abbreviated with no mechanism for discovering the meaning of the abbreviations, or unusual words arising from scholarly discourse without definitions. These issues each fail WCAG 2.2 criteria 3.1.5, 3.1.4, and 3.1.2 respectively.
  • there may be some documents that fail to specify their human language, thereby failing WCAG 2.2 success criterion 3.1.1.
  • many documents may not reflow satisfactorily. This fails WCAG 2.2 success criterion 1.4.10.

PDFs and other files are user provided and therefore may not be fully accessible. If you find documents that are not accessible please contac Open Research Services Team: Lseresearchonline@lse.ac.uk.

General issues

Areas of LSE Research Online that are not document-based demonstrate good levels of accessibility. However, the following issues have been identified and are in the process of being addressed:

  • Headings on some of our pages do not appear in a logical order. This does not meet WCAG 2.2 success criterion 2.4.10.
  • Some of the forms and interactive search pages on LSE Research Online are not appropriately labelled or do not have labels. This does not meet WCAG 2.2 success criterion 3.3.2.
  • Interactive elements of LSE Research Online (such as search) do not utilise status messages to update screen readers of a change in state. This does not meet WCAG 2.2 success criterion 3.2.2.

How we tested LSE Research Online

LSE Research Online was last comprehensively tested on 26/01/2026. You can read the comprehensive report.

What we’re doing to improve accessibility

Our accessibility roadmap shows how and when we plan to improve accessibility on LSE Research Online.

This statement was first prepared on 26/01/2026. It was last updated on 26/01/2026.