News

What is economic fitness and complexity?

By Nanditha Mathew and Bernardo Caldarola (UNU-MERIT researchers and co-organisers of our Economic Fitness and Complexity Summer School) The science of complex systems can play an important role in understanding social and economic dynamics but its application to economics has not yet been fully exp...
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What to expect from our intensive course on economic fitness and complexity

5 days, state-of-the-art research, top experts In June 2023, UNU-MERIT co-organised a summer school on economic fitness and complexity (EFC) together with the Enrico Fermi Research Centre in Rome (CREF). The five-day event brought together 26 speakers – from as far afield as Peking University ...
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Final CatChain Symposium: Conclusions from a major four year research project

  On 19-20 February 2024, UNU-MERIT hosted the final symposium of CatChain (‘Catching–up along the global value chain: models, determinants and policy implications in the era of the fourth industrial revolution’), a major four-year EU-funded research project. Led by Bocconi Universi...
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Summer of Science Program: Supporting young Indigenous female researchers to flourish

Michelle González Amador – who is currently completing her full-time PhD at UNU-MERIT – has been involved with the multi-institutional initiative Mechanism Design for Social Good (MD4SG) for several years and was previously the organiser of the Latin America and Caribbean Working Group. ...
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How four UNU-MERIT PhD alumni redefined ‘research stay’ in Ghana

By Victor Osei Kwadwo, researcher and lecturer at UNU-MERIT In March 2023, three friends and I – all of us graduates of UNU-MERIT’s PhD programme – were thrilled when we stumbled upon a research fellowship opportunity in Africa, our home continent. Unfortunately, it turned out that the call was for ...
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Beyond the COP28 headlines: Sanae Okamoto shares fresh insights in Japan Times op-ed

  In December, the latest international climate negotiations at the 2023 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP28) made headlines around the world, as expected – but, as UNU-MERIT researcher Sanae Okamoto argues in an op-ed written for The Japan Times, two major achievements of thi...
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New European Research Area Policy Platform includes UNU-MERIT’s research contributions

  Last week, the European Commission launched its European Research Area Policy Platform, aspects of which researchers from UNU-MERIT and Maastricht University worked on as part of a larger consortium.   About the European Research Area Launched in 2000, the European Research Area (ERA) ai...
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Bernardo Caldarola featured in NEMO Kennislink articles about IT development in Africa

NEMO Kennislink – the Dutch science journalism platform of NEMO, the largest science museum in the Netherlands – has recently published two news pieces, one discussing how African remote employees could help solve the Netherlands’ major shortage of IT professionals, and the other f...
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5 ways we made a difference in 2023

When it comes to summarizing all that an institute as diverse as UNU-MERIT achieves in a year, where does one begin? Our work spans education programmes and capacity development efforts to media engagement and thought leadership to research projects big and small, and so much more. Nevertheless, we&...
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Pairing photography and research for social change

Researcher and photographer Mariajose Silva Vargas is about to complete her full-time PhD at UNU-MERIT (defending on 24 January) and now works as a Research and Policy Manager at Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab Europe (J-PAL Europe). In this interview, she shares some highlights from both her ...
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How government payments to the vulnerable can multiply to create economic growth for everyone

By Conrad Nunnenmacher (PhD fellow, UNU-MERIT), Franziska Gassmann (Professorial Fellow, UNU-MERIT) and Julieta Morais (researcher, UNU-MERIT) The economic fallout of COVID-19 left people around the world facing a significant threat to their livelihood. As governments scrambled to mitigate the pande...
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Latest developments in global refugee policy: UNU-MERIT expert Melissa Siegel weighs in

On 13 to 15 December, the Global Refugee Forum 2023 – the world’s largest international gathering on refugees – took place in Geneva, Switzerland. Launched in 2019 and held once every four years, the Forum assembles world leaders to discuss international progress on the four key objectiv...
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15 policy recommendations for the climate-health nexus

The topic of health, both mental and physical, is taking an increasing amount of space in climate change discussions and negotiations. According to the World Health Organization, climate-related health damages are estimated to cost up to USD 4 billion by 2030, with outsize impacts on developing nati...
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Climate change: its impacts on mental health

Our resident mental health expert, Sanae Okamoto, was recently interviewed by the UN Regional Information Centre (UNRIC) in Brussels about her research – below follows an except of the Q&A that was published on the UNRIC website on 5 December 2023. Can you elaborate on some specific exampl...
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UNU-MERIT researchers featured in Diplomatic Courier’s COP28 bookazine

  Four UNU-MERIT researchers (Sanae Okamoto, Shyama Ramani, Rasmus Lema and Alejandro Álvarez-Vanegas) have co-authored articles for a COP 28 bookazine from the global affairs media network Diplomatic Courier, entitled COP 28: Saving Gaia to Save Ourselves.   This special edition, which wa...
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The art and science of questioning others

New book distills three decades of learnings on survey design  Despite all the digital and virtual means by which the world is connected, when it comes to a researcher in, say, Brussels trying to get to know a community in, say, Almaty on a level that’s technical, substantial and deep enough to incl...
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A look at ASEAN’s new Vision 2045

On 15 November, UNU-MERIT played host to the panel discussion ASEAN 2045: The Future of the Region as an Epicentrum of Growth, co-organised by the Embassy of the Republic of Indonesia. Five ambassadors and diplomatic representatives from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) discussed h...
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UNU-MERIT at COP28

From 30 Nov to 12 Dec, the 2023 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP28) is taking place in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Expectations are high for the year’s climate negotiations, which will focus on combatting temperature rise and the conclusion of the first global stocktake, which cr...
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Using machine learning to solve public policy problems: our researchers launch online course

Machine learning (a subfield of artificial intelligence) is now routinely used by policymakers in the design, calibration and evaluation of public policies. Solving these prediction policy problems requires tools that are tuned to minimise prediction errors, but also frameworks to ensure that models...
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How can policymakers support the elimination of gender-based violence?

3 questions with our expert Julieta Marotta for the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women According to UN Women, almost one in three women and girls have been “subjected to physical and/or sexual intimate partner violence, non-partner sexual violence, or both, at least once...
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