The Master of Advanced Studies in Children’s Rights (MCR) is an interdisciplinary postgraduate programme that is offered by the Centre for Children’s Rights Studies of the University of Geneva. As an inter-faculty centre of the University of Geneva, the Centre for Children’s Rights Studies operates in collaboration with the Faculties of Law, Psychology and Educational Sciences, Social Sciences and Medicine. It has a strong record in providing interdisciplinary academic teaching, in particular at postgraduate level (Master) and in continuous education. The Centre undertakes basic and applied research on various subjects related to the study of children, childhood and children’s rights. Via its outreach activities, the Centre maintains privileged links with numerous governmental and non-governmental organisations, including with the International Institute for the Rights of the Child (IDE) which is a partner organizations of the MCR Programme.
Existing since 15 years, the Master of Advanced Studies is one of Europe’s oldest children’s rights programmes. Between 2003 and 2014, the programme has been offered as a joint degree delivered by the University Institute Kurt Bösch (IUKB) in Sion and the Law Faculty of the University of Fribourg in Switzerland. Following the transfer of IUKB’s teaching and research activities in children’s rights to the University of Geneva, the programme is now part of the large portfolio of continuing education programmes of the University of Geneva.
At the international level, the Centre for Children’s Rights Studies hosts the Coordination Office of the Children’s Rights European Academic Network (CREAN), a network of European universities that aims to enhance the academic field of children’s rights as an interdisciplinary field of studies and to reinforce the already existing ties between academic research and policies development. The Master of Advanced Studies in Children’s Rights has been accredited by the Swiss Accreditation Council at the request of the Swiss Agency for Accreditation and Quality Assurance (AAQ).
