The members of the network are connected by the common belief that childhood is a social, historically changeable phenomenon and that children are social subjects who are to be respected as such, with own views, interests, competences and the right to comprehensive participation.

The members of  the ENMCR cooperate in order to:

exchange experiences,
consult and advice each other,
promote an exchange between teachers and students,
enhance research on the implementation and further development of children's rights and
influence children's policies on a national and European level to achieve a farreaching and sustainable implementation of children’s rights.

In order to promote an international exchange also beyond European borders, ENMCR also cooperates with the Latin American Network of Master study programms in Children’s Rights (www.redmaestriasinfancia.org) and aims at cooperating in the future also with similar networks and institutions on other continents.

The education imparted by the Master degrees and other courses is designed in a manner that the participants acquire:

high quality preparation on policy design and evaluation,
organisational management, intervention and research projects with children and
a sound theoretical understanding of children and childhood based on new research and academic literature that has transformed the academic understanding of children and childhood over the past decades.

The courses are oriented to the production of innovative knowledge, taking into account the participants’ practical and applied experiences of working within a children’s rights framework, with the aim of generating socially validated scientific knowledge.

The courses are designed in communication with:

government departments, at national and local levels,
international and national NGO's working to improve children’s lives and situations,
private organisations and especially with
child and youth-led organisations.

According to these principles, ENMCR has an understanding of children’s rights that does not only view children as subjects of rights in the formal sense but also in a material sense as social subjects who can claim their right themselves. This requires conditions in society that allow children to really claim their rights. The rights groups determined in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), which are generally categorized as protection-, provision (development) and participation rights are seen as an inseparable even though at times controversial unit. Their interpretation and implementation requires that children are respected, supported and strengthened in society with their own views and competences.  

Scientific dealing with children’s rights requires that they are not understood as a fixed and completed canon of codified rights. The development of rights is always an uncompleted social process in which, besides the UNCRC, other rights that are at times articulated and claimed by children themselves (unwritten rights) are to be considered. In this sense, the UNCRC and its practical implementation has to be subject to critical analysis that aims at further developing children’s rights and improving the conditions for their implementation. This holds true not only for the civil and political rights of children but also for the further development and practical implementation of their social, economic and cultural rights.

In addition to the European Master in Children’s Rights which is being offered jointly by several network members universities since October 2007, other specialised childhood and children’s rights courses are  offered at individual universities. They orient themselves to the above mentioned principles and are to be linked successively. More

Furthermore specific interdisciplinary research projects- and cooperations are being established. A special focus is laid on European and international contexts of children’s rights research and practice. More 

Activities of the Network include:

Developing common resources such as virtual exchange, funding and scholarships, conferences and seminars,
Exchanging experiences in teaching and curriculum development,
Raising the profile of the field through disseminating information,
Staff and student exchange,
Exploring common research areas and developing joint student projects,
Cooperating with other networks and
Organisation of workshops, seminars, conferences. More