Accessibility Statement
Website accessibility statement inline with Public Sector Body (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018
This accessibility statement applies to the domain cafebio.org.
This website is run by the University of Edinburgh on behalf of the CAFE-BIO consortium.
We want as many people as possible to be able to use this website. For example, that means you should be able to:
Using your browser settings, change colours, contrast levels and fonts
Use the website without encountering any flashing, scrolling or moving text
Listen to most of the website using a screen reader (including the most recent versions of Job Access with Speech (JAWS), NonVisual Desktop Access (NVDA) and VoiceOver)
Navigate to most of the content by keyboard only
Navigate most of the website using speech recognition software (including Dragon NaturallySpeaking)
Use the website without encountering any time limits
Customising the website
AbilityNet has advice on making your device easier to use if you have a disability. This is an external site with suggestions to make your computer more accessible.
AbilityNet - My Computer My Way
How accessible this website is
We know some parts of this website are not fully accessible:
Some text size is small
Some colour contrasts could be improved
Spellcheck options are not offered in all browsers
Tabbing via keyboard is not always logical and/or consistent, and does not always meet contrast focus requirements
Magnification to 200% is not possible in all areas
Some parts may not be fully compatible with screen readers
Not all images have suitable alternative text
Some headings and heading levels are missed
Some pop-ups may appear or links may open a new tab without notice
Some links may be indicated by colour only or lack meaningful hypertext
Some older PDF documents may not be fully accessible to screen reader software
Feedback and contact information
If you need information on this website in a different format, including accessible PDF, large print, audio recording or braille:
Email: Gradschool.Physics@ed.ac.uk
Reporting accessibility problems with this website
We are always looking to improve the accessibility of this website. If you find any problems not listed on this page, or think we’re not meeting accessibility requirements, please let us know:
Email: sopa.support@ed.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 2018 (the ‘accessibility regulations’). If you’re not happy with how we respond to your complaint please contact the Equality Advisory and Support Service (EASS) directly:
Contact details for the Equality Advisory and Support Service (EASS)
The government has produced information on how to report accessibility issues:
Reporting an accessibility problem on a public sector website
Technical information about this website’s accessibility
The University of Edinburgh is committed to making its websites and applications accessible, in accordance with the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018.
Compliance Status
This website is partially compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2 AA standard, due to the non-compliances listed below.
The full guidelines are available at:
Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2 AA standard
Non accessible content
We are working towards solving these problems and expect several improvements by June 2026. The site is fully within our control.
The content listed below is non-accessible for the following reasons.
Noncompliance with the accessibility regulations
The following items to not comply with the WCAG 2.2 AA success criteria:
Not all non-text content has a text alternative.
There are some empty headings and links
The way the content is presented affects its meaning, and a correct reading sequence is not programmatically determined
Links in the text should be clearly identifiable (color alone is not enough to distinguish links from the surrounding text).
There may not be sufficient colour contrast between font and background colours especially where the text size is small. For example, table captions have insufficient colour contrast between foreground and background.
It is not possible to magnify all content to 200% without distortion or content disappearing
Information is conveyed as an image of text rather than as text itself so that it's not compatible with screen readers and other assistive technology.
Most tooltips disappear as soon as the cursor moves or may not be accessible by other means than mouse. Also, tooltips are not always present for all icons and images.
There may be some occurrences of badly formatted links either with text that is not descriptive enough, e.g., click here or have the full web address , e.g., https://www. rather than formatted link text. This is rare though. We are currently working to eliminate these link issues.
Headings or heading levels are sometimes missed.
It is not always clear where the user has reached via keyboard navigation.
Pop ups appear without the user being alerted when the user interacts with an item and some links open new tabs.
User errors are either not automatically detected or suggestions for correction are not given.
Not all content may be robust enough that it can be interpreted by a wide variety of user agents, including assistive technologies.
While we have a 'Skip to content' link on every page when new users access the website, they will receive our cookie consent banner at the bottom of the page. This can't be skipped over as it's important to get consent for cookies to comply with the General Data Protection Regulations. We do not believe this to be an accessibility issue but it does mean that the site will fail some automated accessibility tests. Once a user has chosen their level of consent, they will then be able to access the 'Skip to content' link.
Not all our Portable Document Files (PDF) or Word documents meet accessibility standards.
We aim to improve our websites accessibility on a regular and continuous basis. See the section below ('What we're doing to improve accessibility') on how we are improving our site accessibility.
Disproportionate burden
We are not currently claiming that any accessibility problems would be a disproportionate burden to fix.
Content that’s not within the scope of the accessibility regulations
PDFs and other documents
Some of our PDFs and Word documents may not meet accessibility standards - for example, they may not be structured so they’re accessible to a screen reader. This does not meet WCAG 2.2 success criterion 4.1.2 (name, role value).
WCAG 2.2 success criterion 4.1.2 (name, role value)
Some of our PDFs and Word documents are essential to providing our services. For example, we have PDFs with information on how users can access our services, and forms published as Word documents. We will work to rectifying these and where possible replacing with more accessible HTML format. We will also try to ensure any new PDFs or Word documents we publish will meet accessibility standards and where we find any that are not accessible, we will rectify this as soon as possible.
The accessibility regulations do not require us to fix PDFs or other documents published before 23 September 2018 if they’re not essential to providing our services.
Regulations for PDFs or other documents published before 23 September 2018
What we’re doing to improve accessibility
We will continue to address and make adequate improvements to the accessibility issues highlighted. Unless specified otherwise, a complete solution or significant improvement will be in place by June 2026.
While we are in the process of resolving these accessibility issues, we will ensure reasonable adjustments are in place to make sure no user is disadvantaged. As changes are made, we will continue to review accessibility and retest the accessibility of this website.
Training is available to all staff on:
creating accessible content,
manual accessibility testing of websites and applications
and accessibility statement writing
We use a design framework which is stable and has been tested for accessibility issues. This cuts down, but doesn't totally remove, the risk of web editors adding design elements that are not accessible.
The University has a published web strategy and governance approach.
Support is available for all staff to increase awareness of accessibility and what our responsibilities are.
Accessibility improvements
Accessibility improvements, bug fixes and development work to fix issues will be recorded to keep a record of work completed.
Please see the change log below for more detail.
Preparation of this accessibility statement
This statement was prepared in January 2026. It was last reviewed on 26th January 2026.
The website was last tested in January 2026. The testing was carried out by the School of Physics and Astronomy's Computer Support Team at the University of Edinburgh using both automated and manual methods.
The site was tested on a Macbook, primarily using Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari, Opera Browser, and Brave Browser. Other user agents have been used at various stages.
Recent world-wide usage levels survey for different screen readers and browsers shows that Chrome, Mozilla Firefox and Microsoft Edge are increasing in popularity and Google Chrome is now the favoured browser for screen readers:
WebAIM: Screen Reader User Survey
The aforementioned three browsers have been used in certain questions for reasons of breadth and variety.
We ran automated testing using AXE browser extension (for Google Chrome) and then manual testing that included:
Spell check functionality;
Scaling using different resolutions and reflow;
Options to customise the interface (magnification, font, background colour, etc);
Keyboard navigation and keyboard traps;
Data validation;
Warning of links opening in new tab or window;
Information conveyed in the colour or sound only;
Flashing, moving or scrolling text;
Tooltips and text alternatives for any non-text content;
Time limits;
Compatibility with mobile accessibility functionality (Android and iOS);
Any drag functionality and alternatives;
Consistent help function;
Need to re-enter data already submitted;
Any cognitive tests.
Our main approach to accessibility testing of the central University website is as follows:
We use an automated testing tool to batch process a sample of pages. This includes all the different page or content types and for small sites this will include all pages.
Once a year we plan to run a significant manual test on a sample of pages and a number of key pages that have a large number of website visitors.
Change Log
2026-01-26 - Initial accessibility statement.