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Our research projects

The DFC are working on exciting new projects that address pressing and emerging issues relevant to children’s rights in the digital environment. Here you can find out about our current projects. 

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RIGHTS.AI

In this project we talk to children and young people about their own experiences, expectations and imaginations of generative AI (GenAI). Engaging our EU Kids Online partners and partners in Brazil, Kenya, Thailand and India we are conducting in-depth interviews with children in over six countries, providing an international understanding of GenAI's impact on children around the world. Read further

Project lead: Mariya Stoilova

 

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Children in Digital Inclusion Policies (Chil'InDIP)

Digital policies are designed to support and propel regions and countries into an era that is increasingly digital. Unfortuntely, previous findings suggest that children are wholly excluded from these policies, which could exacerbate existing societal issues.

This project will collate and analyse digital inclusion policies from around the world to assess how children are mentioned, or even if they are mentioned at all.

Project lead: Ellen Helsper

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Mapping the impact of General Comment No. 25

The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child’s General comment No. 25 was adopted in 2021 and the DFC are completing systematic tracking of the comment's impact.

This could give us valuable insight into the enablers and barriers of implementing such a comment, and how legislation effects the rights of children. 

Project lead: Kim R. Sylwander 

Playful by Design Toolkit

Children's rights by design

This work stream addresses the gap between policies, principles and design for children’s rights by prototyping and testing a child-rights-based design tool with approximately 30 designers and developers from both the Global North and South, drawing on the Digital Futures Commission’s Child Rights by Design (Livingstone & Pothong, 2023).

Project lead: Sonia Livingstone

Consultant: Kruakae Pothong

 

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Children’s rights in relation to the digital environment: spotlight on Africa

The key challenges and opportunities that children on the African continent experience in relation to their use of a variety of digital platforms, services and apps is rarely explored. This qualitative project will bridge some of this gap by investigating the experiences of 199 children and young people living in six nations on the African continent (Egypt, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, South Africa and Tanzania).

Project leads: Amanda Third and Louisa Welland, Young & Resilient Research Centre, Western Sydney University

 

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Children's visions of digital futures

This project will engage 5Rights Youth Ambassadors around the world to explore their visions of digital futures. The project adopts a co-design participatory futures methdology to amplify children's voices to impact research and policy.

Project Lead: Kim R. Sylwander

 

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AI-facilitated EdTech in the UK and its implications on children's rights

This project uses a child rights framework and a mixed methods approach to examine case studies of prominent AI-embedded EdTech products used in UK classrooms, assessing how these products can impact children's rights.

Consultant: Ayça Atabey

 

FUTURE PROJECTS

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Impact of regulation on children's digital lives (2) 

The first report examined developments in legislation and regulation between 2017 and 2024, analysing the Impact of regulation on children's digital lives. The second stage of the research will deepen this research to include the technological and regulatory advances of the last year. 

Consultant: Steve Wood