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| Latest news |
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FINISH: Unique partnership aims to spur innovation in India’s sanitation sector
Posted: 2008-09-03
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| An Ecosan (waterless) public toilet in an Indian slum built with a grant from WASTE. |
While the necessity of improving access to water and sanitation programmes is unquestionable, achieving significant scale remains a challenge for many developing countries. FINISH (Financial Inclusion Improves Sanitation and Health) is a unique initiative that aims to harness and integrate expertise from diverse sectors including financial services, sanitation engineering, health sciences and local development programmes, and to identify mechanisms for more effective inclusion of poor communities in sanitation services. UNU-MERIT’s partners on the project include Indian health insurer TATA-AIG and BISWA, a micro-finance company; WASTE, a Dutch-based international environmental network; Dutch bank SNS Reaal; and Maastricht University’s Faculty of Health Sciences. On 29th August, UNU-MERIT hosted a stakeholder workshop that generated a concrete mix of academic, private sector and civil society perspectives for the further implementation of the research programme.
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Just published
Posted: 2008-09-11
UNU-MERIT's LINK (Learning INnovation Knowledge) network recently published two opinion pieces on the future of development assistance for science, technology and innovation. The articles are contained in the August LINK newsletter issued to coincide with the 3rd High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness (HLF 3) that took place in Accra, Ghana, from 2-4 September.
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| Research & policy analysis |
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EU-India conference held
Posted: 2008-09-03
As part of its ongoing collaboration with the European Commission to develop new policy directions for strategic partnerships between the EU and major emerging economies – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa - UNU-MERIT recently participated at the EU-India conference in New Delhi in August. Suma Athreye and Luc Soete presented a paper titled: “The Economic, Social and Environmental Dimension of the EU’s External Action: The Global Challenges of the Knowledge Economy – The EU and India.” The paper will be available shortly as a UNU-MERIT Working Paper.
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UNU-MERIT research presented at top Economics conference
Posted: 2008-09-03
The joint European meeting of the European Economic Association and the Econometric Society (EEA-ESEM) is one of the foremost events for economists and econometricians to disseminate the state-of-art in their field of study. At this year’s conference, hosted by the University of Bocconi, Milan, from 27-31 August, more than 1300 contributions from around the world were discussed. Théophile Azomahou presented UNU-MERIT research on human capital, focusing on the relationship between life expectancy and economic growth, and chaired two sessions on this topic. The ensuing discussions centred on new nonlinearities in the field, and the puzzle of human capital and how new data set might help in overcoming it. Strong emphasis was also placed on policy analysis. Dr. Azomahou will elaborate on these issues in a forthcoming article in the International Journal of Economic Theory.
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Mental Capital study featured in Dutch newspaper
Posted: 2008-09-03
On 26th August, the Dutch national newspaper, Het Financiele Dagblad, published an extensive article about research on "Mental Capital" carried out by UNU-MERIT researcher Rifka Weehuizen. Dr. Weehuizen successfully defended her PhD thesis on this topic in June 2008. Weehuizen argues that there is an intangible production factor in the economy that is not sufficiently recognized as such by economists: the mental resilience of workers. Strengthening the human psyche is the 'next frontier' when attempting to further increase labour productivity and economic growth. She points to the need to invest in the mental resilience and emotional literacy of (future) workers so that they can cope better with today's complex and dynamic work environment.
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| Training & capacity development |
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UNU-MERIT PhD Class of 2008
Posted: 2008-09-03 | Updated: 2008-09-11
Five postgraduate researchers have been selected to join the UNU-MERIT PhD training programme in the Economics and Policy Studies of Technical Change. They are: Salih Cevikarslan (Turkey); Rodolfo Lauterbach (Chile); Iman Rajabzadeh (Iran); Muhammad Shafique (Pakistan) and Ying Zhang (China).
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DEIP training course in India
Posted: 2008-09-03
Applications are invited for the UNU-MERIT training course in the Design and Evaluation of Innovation Policy (DEIP) taking place in New Delhi in February 2009. The workshop is co-organized by the National Institute for Science, Technology and Development (NISTADS)and the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) New Delhi; the Centre for Development Studies, Trivandrum, Kerala. The deadline for applications is 15 December 2008.
The next Maastricht training course in the Design and Evaluation of Innovation Policy (DEIP) series takes place from 10-14 November.
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DIMETIC course
Posted: 2008-09-03
The DIMETIC programme trains younger economists interested in the Dynamics of Institutions and Markets in Europe, providing opportunities for direct interaction between younger researchers and senior experts in the field. The autumn course takes place each year at UNU-MERIT. This year's programme runs from 6-17 October.
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| Events & networking |
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Joint UNU-MERIT/Maastricht Graduate School of Governance seminar
Posted: 2008-09-03
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| Wing Thye Woo |
On 9 September, Wing Thye Woo will give this month's joint UNU-MERIT/MGSoG seminar on the topic: “The Challenges of Governance Structure, Trade Disputes and Natural Environment to China's Growth.” Wing Thye Woo is Professor in the Department of Economics, University of California at Davis. He is also Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution, and Director of the East Asia Program at the Center for Globalisation and Sustainable Development, Columbia University.
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UNU-MERIT welcomes ambassadors
Posted: 2008-09-08
On 2nd September, UNU-MERIT welcomed a delegation of three high-level Dutch diplomats based in Jordan, Afghanistan and Japan. The discussions centred on the experiences of foreign students seeking to travel to the Netherlands and their perspectives on how Royal Netherlands Embassies in their countries could facilitate further academic exchanges. The visit was organized as part of the programme of the conference of Dutch Ambassadors from around the world that took place at Maastricht University from 1-2 September.
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| New publications |
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Book of the Month
Posted: 2008-09-03
Uneven Paths Of Development Innovation and Learning in Asia and Africa by Banji Oyelaran Oyeyinka and Rajah Rasiah
Publisher: Edward Elgar
Forthcoming January 2009
'This book represents an important step forward towards understanding why some countries and regions are successful in catching-up with the rich part of the world while others tend to have great difficulties in doing so. It represents a very happy marriage between the literature on economic development and the literature on innovation and learning. At the end of the book a series of thoughtful recommendations for innovation policy are presented. This volume should be recommended to students and practitioners involved in understanding and promoting economic development.'
Bengt-Åke Lundvall, Aalborg University, Denmark
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