The United Nation’s education, science and cultural organisation supports more than 700 such chairs worldwide, to facilitate academic exchange and improve links between the southern hemisphere and the wider international scientific community.

The university said the UNESCO grant would support research, public education and documentation in the field of human rights.

The first holder of the chair is Professor Jean-Paul Lehners, historian and human rights expert in the faculty of language, literature, humanities, arts and education. His programme supports north-south cooperation in the fields of equal opportunities, bioethics and finance. The University of Luxembourg currently partners with counterparts in Cape Verde and Mali in the disciplines.

“Human rights do not only have a legal dimension, so that is why interdisciplinary collaboration between scientists from the three faculties of the university is important,” Lehners said in a press statement.

The four-year UNESCO chair is largely symbolic, not financial, but carries weight with universities' major donors.