|
Established in 1995, this programme addresses the role of technology in growth and development in both developed and developing countries. A broad coverage of the foundations of technical change, including theoretical, institutional and policy issues, trains students to be active participants in academic and policy debates.
This programme is offered every year - the next intake will be for September, 2009. Teaching and research supervision is done by scholars from UNU-MERIT, while the PhD degree is granted by the University of Maastricht.
The PhD programme has an overall length of four years and is divided into two distinct stages of study. The first stage begins in September of 2009 and lasts six months. During this stage students will take courses in the areas of economics, policy, and the institutional foundations of technical change. The coverage is broad, addressing issues of concern both in developed and developing countries.
Students who achieve distinction in their coursework are invited to prepare a PhD proposal, which includes the identification of a topic, discussion of methodological issues relating to the research, and where appropriate, a discussion of the data resources to be used or developed. The proposal also identifies further areas of formal (class work and workshops) and informal study to be pursued in the course of dissertation research and writing.
Upon acceptance of the proposal, students are admitted to the second stage of the programme, which involves doing the research for and writing a dissertation. While working on the thesis, a student will meet regularly with one or more supervisors for guidance and to assess progress. Upon completion, the student defends the thesis before a committee composed of University of Maastricht and external faculty.
PhD course on Innovation Studies and Development
Introduced in 2006, the interdisciplinary Innovation Studies and Development PhD programme is designed to place a greater focus on problems and choices linked to innovation processes within firms and policy institutions as well as the development and use of new technologies in developing countries. Following a restructuring of the UNU-MERIT training programmes in 2008, this course has been incorporated in the existing PhD programme in the Economics and Policy Studies of Technical Change.
More information
|
