News

Migration researcher wins 1.5m euro grant from the European Research Council

Dr Katie Kuschminder has won a ‘Starting Grant’ from the European Research Council. Designed for postdocs with between two and seven years’ experience, the 1.5 million euro grant will enable Katie to form her own research team, which will focus on reintegration governance for migra...
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Director Bartel Van de Walle: From mathematician to concrete decision maker

Prof. Bartel Van de Walle assumed the directorship of UNU-MERIT on 1 September 2020, and during his first day in office led an interactive welcome talk with staff online and in person. He then took time out to speak with the United Nations Regional Information Centre in Western Europe (UNRIC), contr...
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In Memoriam: Ibrahima Sory Kaba

It is with deep sadness that we bring you the news that our colleague and friend Ibrahima Sory Kaba passed away on 1 September 2020, at the age of 32. Ibrahima started at UNU-MERIT as a PhD fellow, and completed his PhD thesis entitled ‘Aggregate Fluctuations and Development: Essays on Macroeconomic...
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UNU marks milestone 45-year anniversary

Forty-five years ago today ― on 1 September 1975 ― the United Nations University (UNU) commenced operations in Tokyo with a staff of fewer than 30 individuals and an annual budget of just over 3 million USD. Today, UNU has grown into a global organisation with a presence in more than a dozen countri...
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Mygration Story: Life as a double refugee

Ongoing war and conflict, starting in the late 1970s, have made Afghanistan a major emigrant country. For more than four decades, most Afghan families, including my own, have migrated either internally or externally, mainly for safety....
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Once a destination for migrants, post-Gaddafi Libya has gone from transit route to containment

Amid profound instability unleashed with the Libyan civil war and rival factions vying for power, conditions facing the roughly 650,000 migrants who remain in Libya have been dire. Those living in the community are vulnerable to extortion, violence, and slave-like work conditions, while migrants hel...
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Future Possibilities Report 2020: How to build back better?

While the end of the crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic is not yet in sight, there is growing focus on the ways and means to build back better, by resetting the way we produce, consume, socialise and interact. What are the possibilities of tomorrow, and how can countries leverage them to reset t...
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How research on entrepreneurship can drive positive change: Latest news from our PhD fellows

As a research institute, UNU-MERIT has some of the brightest minds investigating the topic of entrepreneurship. In this brief Q&A, PhD fellows Maria Tomai and Tamara Kool describe how entrepreneurs can drive positive change, particularly in the fields of migration and sustainability. Maria looks...
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Mygration Story: On grit and gratitude

I am one of the latest people in a long line of around 130 years of continuous migration in my family – a privilege to which I owe many of my accomplishments. My mother is Iranian and my father is German. Although I was born in Germany, I was still a baby when my parents decided to migrate to Paragu...
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The UN’s vision for a digital future: ‘Will our dignity and rights be enhanced or diminished?’

‘Digital technology is shaping history. But there is also the sense that it is running away with us. Where will it take us? Will our dignity and rights be enhanced or diminished? Will our societies become more equal or less equal? Will we become more, or less, secure and safe? The answers to t...
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Teaching online: A steep learning curve with some success – but missing the personal passion

By June 2020, teaching online has become second nature for most of us at Maastricht University – or so you would think. We’ve done it for three months now. Teachers have been trained on how to deal with the various platforms, while students have been explained why we had to move online and why they ...
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EU Innovation Scoreboard 2020: Switzerland overall leader, Sweden most innovative EU Member State

The 2020 edition of the European Innovation Scoreboard shows that the EU’s innovation performance continues to increase at a steady pace and that the EU has kept its innovation lead over the USA. The report was written by Hugo Hollanders, with contributions from UNU-MERIT researchers Nordine Es-Sadk...
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Putting the bees back in business: Student entrepreneur wins place on national development programme

A post by Brendan Joy, a student on our MSc. in Public Policy and Human Development, who just won a place on a social enterprise programme in Ireland. NB, the next deadline for applications to our UN-backed double-degree Master’s programme is 15 July 2020. … Bees and other pollinators like but...
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‘Trust is a vital commodity’ in a pandemic: How one Dutch coalition is matchmaking solutions online

Overwhelmed by the constant negative reports from government authorities and medical experts, one day I started to look for positive news to cheer myself up. Luckily, I soon realised that many new initiatives support a new way of collaborative business across sectors. As UN Secretary-General Antonio...
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Cut short by COVID-19: My research secondment to South Africa

I flew into Pretoria, South Africa, in March 2020 – just when COVID-19 was becoming a fully-fledged international crisis. Working under the umbrella of the CatChain project, I aimed to access and use the confidential firm-level dataset managed by the National Treasury of South Africa (NT). This is a...
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A time to talk and a time to act: Master’s study tour of Geneva 2020

When students meet policymakers in Geneva “After visiting so many UN institutions and international agencies, it was refreshing to be welcomed in a small office and engage in an open and inspiring discussion about children’s rights.” — MSc student Zoë Rouwhorst Enter keywords...
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In Memoriam: Wolfgang Scholz (1950-2020)

Our institute has received the sad news of the passing away of Wolfgang Scholz in early June 2020. Wolfgang was a key member of the ILO team that collaborated with the Economics Department at Maastricht University to start a mid-career Master’s programme in Social Protection for social security prof...
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Mygration Story: ‘The PhD was as much adventure as research’

An enduring goal of Migration Studies is to explain why people migrate: why some move and others do not. While the reasons to explain the migration of an individual are going to be different from those to explain an aggregate flow of many hundreds, if not thousands, of individuals, no individual is ...
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A living interface between science and policy: PhD alumni share their experiences

The PhD was a process of transformation: to validate my skills and research while becoming a part of a community. I wanted to have that sense of purpose, that discipline and that network – these were all-important to me on my PhD journey. For me it was different when I started from when I finished. ...
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‘Two sides of the same coin’: Combining journalism with policy work on the EPRM programme

As a journalist who is part of a news research team, I am required to produce extensive and in-depth news articles on varied topics like policy, development, human rights, environment and law. Hence I applied to study the Evidence-Based Policy Research Methods course at UNU-MERIT, a research and tra...
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