Robert Dunbar is Senior Research Professor at Sabhal Mòr Ostaig/UHI, where he is the director of ‘Soillse’, a research project worth £5.29 million over 5 years which will investigate the current situation of Gaelic and policies in support of Gaelic. He is also a member of Bòrd na Gàidhlig, and was formerly a Director of Comunn na Gàidhlig and Chairperson of its working group on legal status for Gaelic. As such, he helped draft CNAG's proposals for a Gaelic Language Act. His research includes the rights and systems of legal protection for minorities and minority languages, language policy, and language planning for minority languages, and his expertise in these areas is internationally recognised. Rob is an Expert of the Council of Europe, and frequently works with the Secretariat for the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. He is also a Senior Non-Resident Research Associate of the European Centre for Minority Issues (ECMI), in Flensburg, Germany. He has advised governments, human rights bodies, and non-governmental organisations in a number of countries on language and human rights issues. Rob is originally from Canada, and he earned an LL.B. from Osgoode Hall Law School, York University, Canada, and worked in Toronto for several years at Fasken Martineau, one of Canadas leading law firms, before completing an LL.M. at the London School of Economics, and taking up academic positions in law at Glasgow then at Aberdeen University. Rob has also earned a Ph.D. from the University of Edinburgh, on the life and work of the renowned Tiree and Nova Scotia poet John MacLean, ‘Bàrd Thighearna Chola’ (1787-1848). His research interests include Gaelic literature and culture, and particularly the Gaelic tradition of Canada, and he is presently working on a scholarly edition of the secular poems of John MacLean as well as a monograph on that poet’s life and work.


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