Collaborative research and child rights advocacy of civil society

A blog by Agata D’Addato, Eurochild Head of Programmes about the CREAN Conference 2024 on Collaborative Research in Children’s Rights.

The 2024 CREAN (Children's Rights European Academic Network) conference on Collaborative Research in Children's Rights: Fostering Dialogue Between Academia and Society illustrates how a dynamic, real-time discourse on the generation of knowledge about children can help identify core building blocks which are important to strengthening partnership-building strategies and making rights real in children’s lives.

To inform policy, challenge assumptions, guide action and translate policy guidance, principles and recommendations into reality we need specific evidence, concrete arguments and clear messages that appeal to policymakers and the general public.

Eurochild, as the leading child rights civil society network in Europe brings together 200 members from different sectors among which practitioners, child rights national or sub-national umbrella organisations, academic institutions and researchers, and children and young people groups. Eurochild campaigns for the realisation of children’s rights across Europe with a focus on those children at risk of poverty, social exclusion and marginalisation.

Eurochild is uniquely positioned to contribute to bridging the gap between research, policy, practice, and children and young people themselves – through its broad and diverse membership in 42 European countries.

Research needs to be framed in reality and the actual lived experience of children and young people; it needs to be based on practice and on what child rights activists can use to influence policy. We need more efforts to employ research findings in shaping policies and services and ultimately improve people’s quality of life and well-being.

Knowledge and evidence are vital to equip the wider global community to deliver results for children, inform evidence-based policy and practice, and ensure effective monitoring of the implementation of policies for children and young people.