Knowledge 2 Knowledge Entrepreneurship, Côte d’Ivoire, is a one-year capacity-building training programme to help knowledge institutes in Côte d’Ivoire to foster an entrepreneurial mindset and skills in their students. The project hopes to achieve a lasting positive and tangible impact on job creation in a country and world region faced with high levels of youth unemployment. While Africa is the only region where the youth population will continue to grow, over one in five youth are not in emplo...
This series tracks news and views from our ‘Evidence-Based Policy Research Methods’ (EPRM) course. Many participants work at the highest of levels, both nationally and internationally, including for other sections of the UN system. In normal times, they come to the City of Maastricht in the Netherlands for this unique blended learning programme, covering a total of three weeks in class and 10 weeks online. … In this blog post, I discuss the gender gap in the LAC region and explain how digi...
In late 2020, the International Monetary Fund launched a Youth Fellowship Contest to give aspiring young leaders a chance to share their views on COVID-19 responses and global efforts to build back better – towards a greener, fairer and more inclusive recovery. Out of around 700 submissions from around the world, our EPRM alumna Krithiga Narayanan – a multi-platform journalist from India – was chosen to be one of 26 IMF fellows from 25 countries. She joined a range of bloggers, journalists, comm...
The current pandemic is a fork in the road, highlighting the need for more sustainable economies and more resilient societies – a fact reflected in pledges made by the European Commission, the G20 group of nations, and various national governments to ‘build back something better’. In the policy brief below, we explain how a Bauhaus initiative can help build socially stronger and fairer societies when combined with a low-carbon economy. We were inspired by the plea for ‘a new European Bauhaus for...
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 at the Circular Economy in cities of the Global South, before Tamara speaks about policies that are helping refugees rejoin the labour market. … How does your research relate to entrepreneurshi...
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 butterflies are declining globally, their numbers now in freefall. Climate change, habitat loss, industrialised agriculture, and the use of harmful chemicals form a deadly cocktail that threatens their s...
Recent economic theories posit that entrepreneurs are the missing link between abundant knowledge stocks and economic growth. Knowledge is uncertain; therefore, every entrepreneurial idea tested by a new firm is, in fact, market experiment. Innovative entrants introduce new products, develop new markets and drive technological evolution in regions. Lower entrepreneurial activity leaves some commercial possibilities unexplored and therefore may be detrimental to economic growth. For instance, res...
The idea that we are living in an entrepreneurial age, experiencing rapid disruptive technological innovation on a scale amounting to a new “industrial revolution” is a pervasive modern myth. Scholars have written academic papers extolling the coming of the “entrepreneurial economy”. Policymakers and investors have pumped massive amounts of funding into start-up ecosystems and innovation. Business schools, universities and schools have moved entrepreneurship into their core curricula....
Universities are increasingly entrepreneurial, working with partners across borders while navigating ever-more-complex international, national and regional policies. In an ideal world, universities would lead the “ecosystem of knowledge” in which researchers, business leaders and policymakers come together to tackle an array of complex issues – issues like the circular economy and green technology, equal opportunity for decent work and quality education, and city resilience and sustainable urban...
The ‘Strategic Innovation’ pilot programme, which aims to help entrepreneurs make strategic choices and prioritise them — so that they can really start innovating — kicks off this month in Maastricht and surrounding areas. An initiative of the Maastricht-based institute UNU-MERIT, Strategic Innovation is partly supported by Economic Cooperation South Limburg (ESZL). The programme focuses on Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) in sectors such as tourism & recreation, manufac...