The Human Rights Centre of the University of Essex has launched a summer school on Human Rights Research Methods in 2014. The motivation for the summer school is the recognition that only little attention has been paid to methodology in human rights, while academics, non-governmental organizations and intergovernmental organizations carry out vast amounts of research. Member of the İstanbul Bilgi University Human Rights Law Research Center Burcu Yeşiladalı joined this year’s five-day summer school that was run between 27 June-1 July 2016. Taught by an international faculty of experts in the field, sessions in the summer school focused on research design, methodology and impact and examined relevant examples and case-studies. The teaching team and sessions on the summer school were:

• Prof. Lorna McGregor and Dr. Ahmed Shaheed, Introduction & overview
• Assoc. Prof. Nora Sveaass, Interviewing survivors of human rights violations
• Dr. Róisín Ryan-Flood, Qualitative data analysis
• Esther Major, Interviewing women & girls; Conducting in-country research
• Dr. Başak Çalı, Single and comparative case studies
• Cosette Creamer, Indicators; The role of databases
• Barbora Cernusakova, Focus groups in human rights research
• Prof. Paul Hunt and Prof. Geoff Gilbert, Special session 
• Dr. Anita Gohdes, Counting human rights violations
• Dr. Simone Dietrich, Experiments
• Dr. Clara Sandoval, Documenting harm and claiming redress in transitional societies
• Prof. Paul Hunt, Measuring the impact of the right to health
• Prof. Todd Landman, Surveys; Socio-economic and administrative statistics; Choosing between research approaches: Qualitative vs. quantitative
• Prof. Lorna McGregor and Dr. Gary Williams, Bringing the methods together: When to use what

Participants of the summer school also had the opportunity to receive feedback on existing research plans in one-on-one clinics by Dr. Gary Williams from the University of Essex. For more on the Essex Human Rights Summer School please click.

Photo: University of Essex Human Rights Center