The iSLanDS Institute is structured to form a network of research hubs around the world. Our ‘mother’ hub is at UCLan, with other hubs that operate in India and Indonesia.
These communities are traditionally at a substantial disadvantage in terms of education and employment, and one of our key objectives is to connect with them toward building sustainable, deaf-led initiatives using our applied work and research in the areas of sign language typology, sign multilingualism, deaf literacy, and sign language endangerment.
In India , our SignHub has conducted training on deaf leadership and capacity building for promising young deaf leaders, trialled training for deaf academics, and undertaken research activities with the Indian deaf community. SignHub’s web platform is being updated with content regularly, and SignHub forms partnerships with other deaf-led organisations to contribute and share content, so that it can act as an information and networking centre for the Indian Sign Language (ISL) using community.
This includes a vlog in ISL, and sign language-based learning and information materials. The Indian hub staff also specialise in professional video editing and produce short documentaries and clips for all hubs in the iSLanDS family.