Applied Human Rights (Taught)

Please check the Sheffield Hallam University website for the latest information.

This course is moving into one of our new buildings at City campus. Teaching will be delivered at our Collegiate campus during the 2024/25 academic year while we get our new facilities ready. After that you will study in brand new facilities at City campus.

Course summary

• Develop a multidisciplinary understanding of contemporary issues in human rights and social justice.

• Understand how human rights organisations work in practice.

• Apply your skills by working alongside human rights practitioners throughout the course.

• Take part in the work of the Helena Kennedy Centre for International Justice.

• Enhance your employability and make the transition into a rewarding career.

This postgraduate degree provides the grounding you need to begin a fulfilling career advocating for and protecting others. You'll cover wide-ranging subjects and issues in human rights and graduate as a skilled, knowledgeable and employable practitioner.

How you learn

All our courses are designed around a set of key principles based on engaging you with the world, collaborating with others, challenging you to think in new ways, and providing you with a supportive environment in which you can thrive.

The course provides a supportive learning experience that employs wide-ranging means to impart understanding of contemporary issues from gender violence and radicalisation to asylum and global security. Your skills will be applied through working with academics and practitioners and you are offered an opportunity to work with the Helena Kennedy Centre for International Justice.

You learn through

• lectures and seminars

• a dissertation on specialist areas

• teaching input from human rights organisations

• human rights case studies from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, British Council, United Nations, Amnesty and Clarion Global

• engagement with live projects, events and simulated cases

• workshops

• student presentations

Applied learning

Work placements

This course offers you the opportunity to take part in the work of the Helena Kennedy Centre for International Justice on a range of practical human rights projects, public events, case reviews, seminars and workshops.

Live projects

Throughout the course, you will engage with live projects that allow you knowledge and understanding of contemporary human rights cases and issues. You can also opt to take part in a project on human rights, rather than a dissertation.

Networking opportunities

As well as engaging regularly with human rights practitioners, specialists and organisations (past speakers include Shami Chakrabarti and Trevor Phillips) there will be ample opportunity for workplace networking, internships and involvement in planning events. You will also interact regularly with the research work of staff in the Human Rights and Social Justice and Social-Legal Research Clusters, as well as the Department of Law and Criminology.