ETBs and HEIs: Ready to adopt the ALTITUDE Charter?
Communicate your commitment to adopt on March 20th 2026 - 2nd National ALTITUDE Adoption Day!
In April 2025, the first National Adoption Day was held for ALTITUDE – the National Charter for Universal Design in Tertiary Education.
A significant number of higher education institutions (HEIs) and education and training boards (ETBs) adopted on or around that day, and several more have done so over the course of 2025. As of Dec 2025, 20 tertiary education institutions/organisations in total have adopted and begun implementation of the ALTITUDE Charter.
Through our engagements with ETBs and HEIs, we know that many more are strongly considering adoption and working through what it would mean for their organisations and what governance structures would need to be created/amended in order to implement it. If you are one of them, then you are in the right place!
On March 20th, 2026, aligning with the second day of the inaugural ALTITUDE Summit, the project team partners are encouraging all tertiary institutions who have yet to adopt but are ready to do so in or around that date, to release a public web statement declaring:
- their support for and adoption of the ALTITUDE Charter.
- their support for a national call to action for institutions and agencies to work towards a more universally designed tertiary education system.
This is essentially a mass communications exercise which will:
- display a collective cross-tertiary commitment to universal design
- raise awareness about ALTITUDE and signal your intent to join the growing number of institutions strongly committing to embed a universal design approach
- encourage other institutions and agencies to support this effort. We are working to engage with national agencies to echo this sentiment via statements of their own.
Institutions who contact altitude@ahead.ie by Jan 31st 2026, expressing their intention to adopt the Charter and communicate their commitment on March 20th, will also be offered a lightning slot at the ALTITUDE Summit to mark their adoption and communicate their plans to the wider sector.
We have prepared all of the information you need to consider adoption and communicate your commitment on March 26th below, as well as a handy communications pack to make sharing your adoption on your website and socials as pain free as possible.
Practical Steps You Need to Take to Join the 2nd National Adoption Day on March 20th
On March 20th, 2026, we are encouraging all tertiary institutions who have yet to adopt but are ready to do so in or around that date, to release a public web statement declaring:
- their support for and adoption of the ALTITUDE Charter.
- their support for a national call to action for institutions and agencies to work towards a more universally designed tertiary education system.
If your institution is considering publicly declaring its adoption of ALTITUDE on that date, here's the steps you need to take part:
- If not already complete, read the adoption FAQ and go through whatever internal procedures your institution requires in order to adopt the ALTITUDE Charter (e.g. getting senior sign-off) and join the national call to action between now and March 20th. As well as any internal formalities you need to complete, you can either:
- Plan an institutional adoption event and/or institutional communications to socialise the Charter with staff and share what the institution’s plans are around it. We recognise it is difficult to pick a specific date for adoption events due to availability of leaders and of venues, so feel free to do this any time between now and March 20th, or in the weeks immediately after. You may if you wish to copy or adapt the slide deck in the ALTITUDE Comms Pack and present it to support understanding of the Charter if running an institutional event.
- Or - wait till March 20th and use this as the date to both support the national call to action an declare your adoption and ALTITUDE plans with both your staff and the public.
- Prepare external communications declaring your support for the national call to action and your adoption of ALTITUDE on Mar 20th, using the draft ALTITUDE Comms Pack provided as a guide. It doesn’t matter if you’ve already done some comms around the Charter in your institution, we would still ask that you release a statement on this day to project a collective response and increase the communications impact of the national call to action. The pack features a template statement to be edited and released on your institutions website on Mar 20th, as well as a web banner image, adaptable social media images and social media post text and alternative text for associated images. You may use/adapt any of these you wish to join the call on Mar 20th, or design your own materials from scratch if preferable.
- Share your intention to adopt with AHEAD by emailing altitude@ahead.ie and let us know that you are supporting the call on Mar 20th - we will be sure to retweet and amplify your comms on the day to share the good news. We will also feature your institution on a page we intend to curate on which institutions have adopted ALTITUDE. Please provide a contact point for any ALTITUDE queries (not published), and details of your social media handles.
- On Mar 20th, release the prepared statement on your website declaring your adoption and supporting the national call to action using the draft statement and social media posts in the comms pack as a guide.
- Reach out to altitude@ahead.ie over the coming months if you need guidance and a bounce board for your institution's approach to setting up an implementation structure or getting started with implementation.
Download the ALTITUDE Comms Pack
What is the Charter and How Can it Help Your Institution?
Adoption FAQ - What Does It Mean for My Institution and How Do We Adopt?
View the ALTITUDE Charter, Technical Report and Toolkit (Hosted by ATU)