Rights for Time is an international research network generating ambitious collaborative research on humanitarian protection challenges to bring direct benefits to people and communities in the Global South. We engage extensively with communities, NGOs, CSOs, cultural organisations, policy makers and other stakeholders. Rights for Time is funded by the United Kingdom Research and Innovation’s (UKRI) Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF). We invite funding proposals for humanitarian protection research that will take place in one or more low-and-middle income countries.
The principles underpinning our Network that we have developed collaboratively include:
Redistribution
To support and champion research activities that reduce poverty and serve the needs of people in the Rights for Time Network;
Grassroots - led
To be led by the needs of the people in our Network
Redress Evidence Hierachies
To amplify the voice of communities to reach a wider audience, and facilitate research to be led by Global South academics, NGOs, and policy practitioners
Transparency
To commit to transparency in the administration of Network projects
Respect
To value difference, appreciating skills and capacities of others, and understanding the different goals individuals and groups will have in their involvement with the Network.
What kinds of projects does Rights for Time fund?
Rights for Time is currently supporting research projects created and conducted by Network partners in Kenya, Rwanda, Jordan, Palestine, and Lebanon, where long periods of violence have produced enduring challenges for vulnerable groups, such as refugees, people who have been displaced, women, and children. You can explore the information and projects on our website—The projects are excellent examples of the types of research we hope to fund: https://www.rights4time.com/projects.
Rights for Time projects demonstrate the impact of the long times of violence and trauma, and present solutions developed by communities to create lasting and meaningful change with regard to humanitarian protection. We are also interested in mediating and enabling spaces and processes that bring about change including, but not limited to, family and community spaces, media and technology, civil society and activist organizations, and social movements, just for some examples.
We especially invite projects that align with one or more Rights for Times research themes. The themes give a directional pull through both time (past, present to future) and the journey from research to action, in culture, policy, protection and law.
The themes are:
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Protracted Times: Focusing on long-times through memory, trauma, transgenerational transmission, aftermath, and archives;
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Protection Times: Focusing on the institutionalisation and instrumentalization of time in policy, law, prevention and change;
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Open Times: Focusing on the creativity opened up when ‘crisis’ and linear time are put aside, in particular forms of long-time expression that emerge across languages, art forms, archives, methodologies, and solidarities that operate beyond existing frames. See the figure below.
The themes are central to the analysis and provide considerable scope for interdisciplinary and intersectoral research collaborations and stimulate debate about humanitarian protection and human rights legal frameworks. Invisible harm can be explored across themes by examining why policies and laws, as well as interpretive cultural frames, lead to exacerbating vulnerability and marginalization. The themes also allow for exploring questions of why reversing, or reforming, the effects of violence requires a deep-rooted understanding of the processes that have shaped it, and of the convoluted, complex and dynamic temporal and spatial dimensions of long violence.
Rights for time plans to fund around 10 projects to expand our Network and explore and advance creative approaches to humanitarian protection.
We will provide a Digital Mentorship programme for all funded projects to share research approaches, project management, and learning with each other.
