Human rights collaborative and faculty-student human rights laboratory to promote equitable civil society

A substantial cross-disciplinary and cross-collegiate group of faculty at the University of Minnesota engages in sustained collaborative research, instruction, and policy outreach on issues of human rights. The current project seeks to further strengthen the capacity of Minnesota as a nationally and internationally recognized human rights university (network of faculty engaged in human rights research). It takes the form of a research lab, serving the advancement of faculty research, graduate student training, interdisciplinary collaboration, and policy-oriented outreach. Common denominators are a focus on inequality by which we mean unequal access to and experience of a variety of resources, operationalized through the prism of human rights. Twelve lab sessions, each focused on one sub-project, will be followed by summer research stays of graduate students in a site of practice (e.g., community, NGO, policy institution, court) and faculty field site visits. Results include intensified scholarship-practice ties, scholarly publications, and grant proposals for external funding.