The UK Academies Human Rights Committee

The UK Academies Human Rights Committee (UK HRC) is a collaboration between the Academy of Medical Sciences, British Academy, Royal Academy of Engineering, the Royal Society and the Royal Society of Edinburgh. 

It allows the five member Academies to address alerts issued by the International Human Rights Network of Academies and Scholarly Societies. This international network is run by a group at the US National Academy of Sciences and identifies incidents where scientists, engineers, or health professionals worldwide are subjected to repression for having expressed human rights in line with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

The UK HRC considers cases raised by the International HR Network, and coordinates responses either from individual Academies or on behalf of all five where appropriate. It is the practice of the UK HRC to act only in cases where there is evidence that the human rights of an individual have been violated due to reasons directly related to their research or academic/scientific work. 

The Academy is current acting as lead Secretiart for the committee, and our Vice-President (International) sits on the UK HRC as our representative.