Inclusive higher education is a matter of inclusive education and research. Inclusive research, in which participants actively contribute in every phase of the research process (Walmsley & Johnson, 2003) leads to the strengthening of the validity of the research (Sergeant et al., 2021). Inclusive research is therefore a point of attention for governments and universities in the Netherlands (OCW, 2020; VH, 2022). However, the implementation of inclusive research methodology is in various ways complex there being no one-size-fits-all approach to achieve inclusion (Nind, 2014; Griffiths et al., 1998). To support educational researchers in their quest for creating valuable research which is applicable to practice, three academic research groups in the Netherlands designed an inclusive methodology tool: ‘The 3-Rs of inclusive research: reasons, rolls, and reflexivity’. The tool aims to get researchers to reflect, through an interactive and playful manner, on their own research and methodological choices herein. This all with an inclusive methodology lens and attention to the eventual societal relevance and aim of the research. In this presentation, we showcase the tool’s implementation through studies in our academic group in which inclusive research methodology is, consciously and deliberately, applied in more and lesser matter. By employing honesty and transparency on the (inclusive) research methodologies and rationale behind the chosen methodology, the validity, value, and interpretation of the results is made clear (Walmsley, 2004). The studies consist of the following methodologies: a systematic literature review, surveys, interviews, and interventions, all on teachers’ understanding of inclusive higher education. The studies illustrate the need for reflection on one’s own methodologies through an inclusive methodology lens while also showing the complexity and nuances within applying inclusive methodologies. By providing a tool on inclusive methodology and an example of how to implement it, we aim to give researchers the ability to implement this lens to their own research practices. In this presentation, we reflect on the usability of the tool for employing inclusive methodology and its use in our studies on inclusive higher education.

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