Background
During its 5th Strategic Plan (2024-28) the Commission is prioritising work to improve its evidence-base informing how human rights are being experienced in Scotland, through a combination of its own contribution and advocacy for improved duty bearer data collection.
Critical to our success, is access to a comprehensive and up to date evidence base that pertains to human rights work nationally and beyond.
Part of this work will include developing a more systematic methodology to continually update the Commission Evidence Database which was created in 2009 to inform the development of Strategic Plan 1 and Scotland’s first National Action Plan for human Rights (SNAP). At that time, research was carried out to populate the evidence base using a wide range of existing sources, including:
- A literature review of social research.
- Three legal literature reviews on references to specific international human rights treaties in relation to Scots law.
- A review of the UK’s outstanding recommendations from international human rights bodies.
An analysis of this evidence informed the publication of Getting it Right?: An Overview of human Rights in Scotland
Opportunities to update the Commission’s evidence base and review new data sources is undertaken during preparatory phases for International Treaty Reviews. However, it is really hard with the capacity the Commission has, and limited access to published academic work, to do this routinely and well, and as such everything is out of date. The Commission wants to develop a system for updating the repository on a regular basis, within set criteria building on the collection framework for Getting it Right?
The intern will help us develop such a methodology and we are particularly interested in strategies that harness AI/machine learning capabilities to scan academic, regulatory (local and national governments) and civil repositories.
The outputs of this internship will fuel future outcomes. For example, any synthesis of recently published work will directly inform the Commission’s research agenda. In turn, a methodology that harnesses digital curation will directly impact on our practices.
Project goal
We would like this internship to bring the evidence base up to date whilst developing methodological options for the Commission to consider, which would support the regular updating of the evidence base (which could be within existing commission resources/ making use of a rolling annual internship).