Research

About us

The Observatory of Children’s Human Rights Scotland works to stimulate change to fully implement children’s human rights in Scotland.

Our vision

We work towards a Scotland where children’s human rights are fully implemented in all areas of children and young people’s lives, in line with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) and broader international human rights treaties. This will help to ensure that children’s human dignity is respected and all children are supported to thrive and reach their full potential.

What is the UNCRC?

To achieve this, we want to use global and local learning to stimulate change in Scotland, by:

  • bringing together lived experiences, academic, inter-disciplinary and cross-sector contributions, to exchange and amplify ideas, evidence and expertise, in order to accelerate progress
  • fostering spaces to critique and grapple with the contentious and complex challenges inherent to implementing children’s human rights
  • identifying progress in implementing children’s human rights, in terms of particular areas, practice and systems, and how to address gaps

 

Our membership

The organisations working together to develop the Observatory’s strategy and agenda are:

 

Our Terms of Reference

The Observatory's Terms of Reference can be downloaded below. They are revised annually.

The Observatory was launched in February 2020 in an event at the University of Edinburgh.

Launch of the Observatory

 

Our recent and current funding

  • Royal Society of Edinburgh Research Network grant, "Research Network on Children's Human Rights: Mobilising expertise from research, policy and practice", March 2023-February 2025.

 

  • Scottish Graduate School of Social Sciences Open Collaborative Studentship grant, "Developing children’s human rights indicators for Scotland", October 2023 onwards

 

  • University of Edinburgh CAHSS Knowledge Exchange and Impact Grant, “Ensuring accountability for children’s human rights”, January – September 2023.

 

  • Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC)’s Impact Acceleration Grant (grant reference ES/T50189X/1”), “Making children’s rights real through implementation of the UNCRC”, February 2021 - November 2022.

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Further information on our activities can be found in the relevant section about our work and on the University’s Research Explorer.

Our work

University of Edinburgh Research Explorer

 

Get in touch

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