News

A post by Riesa van Doorn, a student on our MSc. in Public Policy and Human Development … Today, on the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, let’s remind ourselves that violence against girls and women persists in every country in the world. According to the World H...

As director of a PhD programme with part-time professional participants who actively choose to study, I often hear myself saying that I have the best students. A programme with adults who re-enter education for the sake of learning and joy brings a student population that is mature, diverse, enthusi...

Post-pandemic, should we move away from resource extraction and accelerate moves to a circular economy? What new economic policy theories and approaches should we entertain? And how might these innovations more effectively address pre-coronavirus issues such as social and economic inequality? A Chat...

Our ‘Dual Focus PhD’ series tracks the working lives of our part-time PhD fellows. Many work at the highest of levels, both nationally and internationally — and in normal times they come to Maastricht in person for our unique PhD Dual Career Training Programme in Governance and Policy Analysis (GPAC...

In October 2020, a team led by Stanford University’s John Ioannidis published an update of their ranking of the top 2% scientists in the world in the journal PLOS Biology. High up the ranking are several researchers from Maastricht University’s School of Business and Economics, with the innova...

Our ‘Dual Focus PhD’ series tracks the working lives of our part-time PhD fellows. Many work at the highest of levels, both nationally and internationally — and in normal times they come to Maastricht in person for our unique PhD Dual Career Training Programme in Governance and Policy Analysis...

We are very happy to announce that Prof Kristof de Witte, our chair in Effectiveness and Efficiency of Educational Innovations, has been named Laureate of the Academy – Humanities 2020 by the Royal Flemish Academy of Belgium for Science and the Arts. This is the academy’s most prestigiou...

This is an extraordinary moment in world history. While it is too early to assess the global impact of the Black Lives Matter movement, emerging evidence indicates that it has made significant progress. The first significant impact of the protests has been the toppling of Confederate and slavery-rel...

Since the end of World War II, the United States of America has been the leading voice in the promotion of human rights, equality and non-discrimination. In fact, from 1933 to 1945, it was the US First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt who spearheaded the drafting and negotiations of the Universal Declaration ...

Empowering people to manage their own money with a one-off cash payment could have an enduring impact on homelessness, if the “beautifully surprising” results of a Canadian initiative are anything to go by. The New Leaf Project, a scheme led by Vancouver-based Foundations for Social Change (FSC) saw...

MPP alumnus Rodolpho Zannin Feijó joined the first online edition of the Maastricht University Alumni Week last month as a guest speaker from his home city of Curitiba in Brazil. During a lively conversation with current and prospective students, he shared his experience as head of the city’s Intern...

This week our new director Bartel Van de Walle met regional governor Theo Bovens, ahead of UN Day on 24 October 2020. The two leaders discussed the state of the province and the planet, how to ensure young people are listened to and empowered, and how our staff and fellows are ambassadors for the UN...

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 brie...

No matter how much we like to think of ourselves as informed consumers, the majority of us do not fully understand the complexity of the arrangements needed to get even the most basic commodities to our tables safely, reliably and with any luck, tastily. The journey of the humble cornflake from corn...

UNICEF Kyrgyzstan has just released two new reports co-authored by Franziska Gassmann and Eszter Timar: a multidimensional poverty assessment for the Kyrgyz Republic, and a position paper on social assistance for poor families with children. The first report proposes a national multidimensional pove...

While the rise of populist politicians in the Europe and the US gets a lot of attention from the media and researchers alike, the drivers of the populism taking hold in emerging and developing economies still receives relatively little scrutiny. In a new working paper we provide new evidence tracing...

A new report out from the International Labour Organization features contributions from five researchers at UNU-MERIT. Along with the ILO’s youth employment specialist Drew Gardiner, Micheline Goedhuys collaborated with Alison Cathles, Chen Gong, Michelle González Amador and Eleonora Nillesen....

I was eight years old when I learned that ‘we’ are guests in Syria, the country where I spent 34 years of my life before I moved to Europe and became a recognised citizen of the Netherlands. The story traces back to the year 1948, when both my grandparents were forcibly eradicated from their home in...

Is it possible for politics and science to influence one another yet remain separate? To what extent should scientists be made accountable for the research that informs policy? What is the appropriate apparatus to mediate these issues? And what is the role of the media in shaping the public’s unders...

A report out today from the United Nations Economist Network features contributions from UNU-WIDER’s Carlos Gradín and UNU-MERIT’s Neil Foster-McGregor – respectively writing on inequalities and the emergence of digital technologies. The report examines five megatrends: climate cha...