Last week at UNU-MERIT, we held our first-ever PhD Research Week, an intensive five-day event where we gathered all of our full-time and part-time PhD fellows together in person to present their research to each other and to staff members. But it wasn’t only about work – the group also enjoyed a social evening out bowling!
Here’s what some of our attendees had to say about this memorable week:
Prof. Dr. Bartel Van de Walle, Director
Many credits are due to Micheline, Mindel, Soha and the entire team for putting this together. In the different sessions I attended, I experienced a wealth of different perspectives in terms of research topics and methods, many of which spanned the two units in the institute. I heard so many exciting and high-quality presentations – on a wealth of topics such as artificial intelligence, e-governance, circular economy, humanitarian innovation, and global value chains, to name a few – and there were great discussions and comments from fellow PhD candidates and researchers from the institute. Not to mention all the inspiring conversations in between and after the sessions. Oh, and the highlight of the week was when I got to unleash the bowling skills that I didn’t know I had!"
Dr. Rasmus Lema, Associate Professor
Preparing for the presentation and thinking about how to transform ideas and findings into a digestible format also helped to reflect on our progress and structure our work. Moreover, it was not only our presentations that were useful. Listening to our colleagues gave us a better understanding of the diversity of research in our institute. It provided us with academic stimulation that could challenge or extend our methods or theories.
Lastly, the Research Week was a wonderful moment to engage with so many colleagues in person in Maastricht, especially our non-resident PhD fellows, and to feel this sense of community again!"
Teresa Janz, PhD Fellow

Yannick Valentin Markhof giving his presentation, ‘Have COVID-19 vaccination campaigns been misinformed? Cross-country evidence from survey and administrative data in Sub-Saharan Africa.’
Yannick Valentin Markhof, PhD fellow
Curious about UNU-MERIT’s PhD programme on Innovation, Governance and Sustainable Development?
There are just 13 days left to apply to our programme if you want to start your PhD in September 2023 (application deadline: 28 February 2023)!
Read more about the exciting full-time and part-time PhD options available at our institute here.
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The opinions expressed here are the author’s own; they do not necessarily reflect the views of UNU.
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Maastricht University/H. Pijpers