Experiences and reflections from co-leading the MUN project

2025-09-19

Over the past few years, I have been co-leading the Model United Nations (MUN) project at United Nations House Scotland, working with schools, teachers, and students across different levels of education. From our first in-person MUN conference at Liberton High School in June 2024, to the Heriot-Watt University conference in February 2025, and then returning to Liberton in September 2025 for a debate with youth Earth Ambassadors, I feel that in just over a year, we have really travelled quite a distance and made substantial progress.

📅 Timeline of Activities

  • Aug - Nov 2023
    • Initial conversations with Liberton High School about a MUN club and conference
    • Teacher workshop and an online training video
  • Feb – Jun 2024
    • Intensive preparation for the first Liberton High School conference
    • Programme design, resource creation, info session for students
    • June: Liberton HS conference, plus visits to HWU and Peebles MUN conference
  • Sep – Dec 2024
    • Launch of Liberton HS MUN club
    • Continued activities and outreach (including a vist to Belfast supported by UNA NI)
    • Clubs at Prestonfield Primary; initial planning for HWU conference
  • Jan – Mar 2025
    • Preparation and delivery of the HWU MUN conference in February
    • Visit to Eyemouth HS; clubs at Craigour Park Primary
  • Apr – Jul 2025
    • I took a pause to focus on my PhD
  • Aug – Sep 2025
    • Collaboration with Beyond COP and Earth Ambassadors for a week-long event, including MUN day at Liberton HS

Over time, the MUN project has expanded into more schools, more clubs, and more conferences. The Beyond COP collaboration in September 2025, where Earth Ambassadors spent a week in Scotland (with MUN as part of the programme), was a highlight and showed how the project could connect to wider conversations.

Some key impacts include:

  • Growing numbers of students and teachers involved.
  • New clubs and conferences established, making the project more inclusive and accessible.
  • More resources created – from draft resolutions and handbooks to country and bloc profiles.
    For more details, see our [blog and report – link to be added].

Personal reflections

Now that I have submitted my PhD thesis, I finally have some time and energy to reflect more formally on this work. In fact, the MUN journey goes back even further – to our online conferences during Covid – but the past year and a half has been especially intense.

I see MUN involvement across all levels of education:

  • Primary schools
  • Secondary schools
  • Universities
    And across different groups:
  • Students
  • Teachers
    Through varied formats:
  • Clubs
  • Workshops
  • Conferences

Participation barriers

As I argued in my PhD thesis (soon to be published after my viva and corrections), MUN is not equally accessible to all students. Participation often requires a level of linguistic proficiency, cultural capital, prior knowledge, and particular skills that cannot be assumed across diverse school populations. While my thesis focused on a Chinese context, I have observed similar patterns in Scotland (although here they play out differently in a more multicultural setting). The barriers are not only linguistic or procedural but also intersectional, shaped by gender, race, and class.

In co-leading the project, we have tried to take concrete steps to address these inequalities. We decided that our MUN conferences should carry no registration fee, so that cost alone would never stop a school from participating. We offered support for travel arrangements whenever needed. We also provided workshops and club sessions in advance of conferences, so that students would not arrive unprepared or overwhelmed. Most importantly, we worked to engage more state schools rather than only private ones, so that the benefits of MUN could extend to a broader and more diverse range of students. These are small steps but part of our aim for a more inclusive approach to MUN.

Co-evolution with the Curriculum / reimagining education

In my master’s dissertation, I discussed whether MUN could align with Scotland’s Curriculum for Excellence (CfE). My conclusion then (and still now) is that the answer is not simply yes or no. Both MUN and CfE are themselves contested fields. CfE has been criticised for its lack of clarity and conceptual coherence, while MUN varies widely in practice: each activity or conference differs depending on the topics chosen, the organisers, the chairs, and the students who take part.

This means that context matters enormously. The differences may be as large as those between countries like Scotland and China, or as small as the contrast between one 40-minute lunchtime club session and another in the following week. There is no universal set of standards by which all MUN activities can or should be evaluated. Instead of trying to make MUN simply ‘fit’ into CfE, I see more value in imagining how the two might develop together. Both have clear strengths and limitations. Through their co-evolution, perhaps we can reimagine the Scottish educational field in ways that are more inclusive, more critical, and more just.

Sustainability of the project

Sustainability has been one of the most persistent challenges in this work. On a personal level, I have grown in confidence as a team leader, but I have also learned how crucial it is to share responsibilities rather than carrying them alone. The project depends heavily on the contributions of volunteers, mostly undergraduate or postgraduate students who always bring their knowledge, experience and a fresh eye, but who inevitably graduate and move on. Each cycle of turnover raises the same question: how can we sustain momentum once the current group leaves? This is something we are keeping reflecting on.

For myself, co-leading the project while writing my PhD thesis was demanding, but it has also taught me resilience. Paradoxically, the MUN project provided a form of ‘productive distraction’: balancing these commitments forced me to organise my time more carefully and reminded me that research and practice can inform each other in unexpected ways.

A critical eye?

Through both my PhD research and this practical engagement, I have developed a more critical perspective on MUN. I am increasingly aware of its limitations and the inequalities it can reproduce. Yet this critical eye does not leave me pessimistic but motivates me to make MUN better. I won’t claim to change every MUN in the world, but I can make it better in the schools and communities I work with. And for now, that is more than enough to keep me going.