Observatory of Children’s Human Rights Scotland

We are a collaborative of Scottish organisations working to drive implementation of children’s human rights in Scotland, with local impact and global learning.

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 focus on deploying the dynamic relationship between academia and global and local learning to stimulate change in Scotland by:

  • bringing together lived experiences along with 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 work

Information about activities can be found on the 'Our Work' page linked below and on the University’s Research Explorer.

Events

Explore our upcoming and past events

Terms of Reference

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

Recent and current funding

University of Edinburgh ESRC Impact Acceleration Grant, "Accountability for Children’s Human Rights: Supporting implementation in Scotland", September 2024-February 2026.

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.

Scottish Government, funding to develop the Theory of Change for Making Children’s Rights Real in Scotland, November 2021 – May 2022.

Get in touch

This article was published on