Critical and collaborative praxis research for justice and solidarity
The Latest
CGHR Practitioner Series 2026 Talk with Philippa Metcalfe
For our final iteration of the 2026 Practitioner Series, CGHR welcomed Dr Philippa Metcalfe.
Vacancy: Executive Director – Declarations Podcast Team
The Executive Director will lead Declarations, a human rights podcast from the University of Cambridge, providing strategic, editorial, and operational oversight.
About CGHR
The Centre of Governance and Human Rights (CGHR) is an outward focused multi-disciplinary research endeavour strongly committed to advancing thought and practice within areas of critical importance to global justice and human well-being in the twenty-first century.
CGHR is co-directed by Professor Ella McPherson, Associate Professor of the Sociology of New Media and Digital Technology at the Department of Sociology, and Professor Sharath Srinivasan, David and Elaine Potter Professor of International Politics at the Department of Politics and International Studies (POLIS).
The Centre’s mission is to be widely valued as a dynamic, innovative and collaborative research network with proven expertise, producing high quality scholarly outputs. As such, the Centre is particularly interested in building bridges between the academy, policymakers and practitioners, and does so through core research themes as well as through innovative spin-out projects.
Events @ CGHR
Bodily Autonomy in the AI Age Salon Series: The Case For Hope
27/04/2026
Pembroke College, Cambridge
Cambridge Symposium on Protest and Peaceful Assembly
13/05/2026
Alison Richard Building 7 West Road Cambridge CB3 9DP
Book Launch: The Oxford Handbook of Peaceful Assembly
13/05/2026
Alison Richard Building 7 West Road Cambridge CB3 9DP
Communication Technology and Contentious Politics
CGHR’s research under this theme uses a historicised approach to the relationship between communication technology and politics to interrogate how authority, power and political contestation are changing in a digital age. Motivating these enquiries is a strong normative purpose: learning recent and past experience, how can we radically rethink civic action and democratic popular sovereignty in our technological present and future?
26/11/25
Sharath delivers keynote at INDL-MEA 2 2025 Conference
The keynote, “Challenging the ‘thingness’ of AI from Eastern Africa”, was given at the second International Network on Digital Labor – Middle East and Africa Conference.
25/06/25
Humanities, Social Sciences and AI – Transversal Theme: a Lego Serious Play workshop
On Friday, 3 June 2025, Ella and Sharath convened the first Connections event of the ‘Humanities, Social Sciences and AI’ Transversal Theme: a Lego Serious Play workshop.
20/06/25
Sharath organises panel at ECAS 2025
The panel will focus on the complex trajectories of AI within eastern Africa, in order to interrogate AI’s impacts within lived realities in the region.
Global Experiences of Algorithmic Governance
CGHR’s Global Experiences of Algorithmic Governance theme draws attention to lived realities around the world of algorithmic governance, to how agency and discretion manifest in algorithmic systems, and to how people talk back to algorithmic domination.
The dialectics of discretion in algorithmic governance and smart policing
This paper analyses the effect of algorithmic infrastructures on the practices of discretion within the police force.
Violence, Conflict and Peacebuilding
Violence, Conflict and Peacebuilding is one of the core areas of research interest at CGHR. The Centre serves as a meeting place for a multi-disciplinary group of researchers at Cambridge working on topics connected to this theme. A strong area of core research deals with the politics of peace processes and negotiations.
10/02/26
Sharath explores Sudan’s resistance committees in BITS Pilani lecture
The invited lecture, ‘Rethinking resistance: Sudan’s resistance committees during revolution, peace and war’, was held by The Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani.
28/11/25
Sharath gives lecture on Sudan’s resistance committees at the University of Manchester
The invited lecture, ‘Rethinking resistance: Sudan’s resistance committees during revolution, peace and war’, was based on Sharath’s own research and collaborative research with Matthew Benson-Strohmeyer and Raga Makawi.
21/11/25
Special event with Sudan’s Emergency Response Rooms
A delegation from Sudan’s Emergency Response Rooms (ERRs) will be in Cambridge for a special event at King’s College Chapel on 26th November 2025.
Human Rights in the Digital Age
CGHR’s Human Rights in the Digital Age theme addresses the emergent and rapidly evolving changes wrought to human rights practices and norms by the use of digital technologies.
28/01/26
Ella and Albert participate in Geneva roundtable on United Nations Guiding Principles
The roundtable evaluated whether the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs) remain fit for addressing current and emerging challenges.
21/01/26
Albert on unlawful NYPD surveillance practices
In an interview with Al Jazeera, Albert Fox Cahn discussed the privacy violations in New York Police Department’s surveillance practices.
25/06/25
Humanities, Social Sciences and AI – Transversal Theme: a Lego Serious Play workshop
On Friday, 3 June 2025, Ella and Sharath convened the first Connections event of the ‘Humanities, Social Sciences and AI’ Transversal Theme: a Lego Serious Play workshop.
Students at CGHR
CGHR Student Group Michaelmas 2025 Update
This term, the CGHR Student Group has been preparing for upcoming events and opportunities for students interested in the centre’s work.
DVC Michaelmas 2025 Update
In Michaelmas term, the DVC hit the ground running with a project focused on the repression of protests in Türkiye.