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Introducing more skilled employees into the economy is an important path to development for many middle income countries. That’s why increased and improved training at the top end of the education level – PhDs – is considered so vital. Many countries encourage students to pursue their PhDs abroad in...

The EU’s innovation performance continues to improve, but further efforts are needed to ensure Europe’s global competitiveness. That is, according to the 2018 European Innovation Scoreboard (EIS), co-authored by Hugo Hollanders  and Nordine Es-Sadki. This year’s edition reveals a p...

Since the beginning of this month, European, Canadian and Mexican steel and aluminium are now also subject to import tariffs in the US of 25% and 10% respectively due to so-called “national security” concerns. It is not as yet a trade war but if the unilateral measures of the United States are not l...

On average in 2017, a person became displaced every two seconds. Figures further indicate that a staggering 68.5 million people were displaced by the end of that year — and of that number 25.4 million were refugees. The majority of refugees flee to neighbouring countries; which tend to be among the ...

The number of families migrating via the central Mediterranean, the world’s most dangerous migration route, is actually quite low. In 2017, 74% of arrivals in Italy were men, 11% women and 15% children; a striking 91% of children arriving were unaccompanied. There are several reasons why so few fami...

You defend your PhD on 19 June 2018. Can you briefly describe your thesis? My research looks into strategic planning within Palestinian local governments. It considers the conditions, factors and dynamics that shape the design, launch and roll out of local strategic plans within fragile contexts. Th...

A guest post by EPRM student, Dessislava Ivanova. Most people, especially those with full-time jobs, think long and hard before enrolling on a research training programme. There are many reasons to hesitate. Maybe the last time you studied was years ago; perhaps you’re very busy with your career; or...

Ahead of World Day Against Child Labour, a new policy brief by Prof. Franziska Gassman and Eszter Timar weighs up the costs of child poverty in the Balkans. The brief covers deprivation in terms of education, health, and social mobility, before laying out the potential of social protection in buildi...

A survey co-led by researchers at UNU-MERIT has found that women’s economic empowerment in Tunisia remains low, in spite of a nationwide strengthening of legal protections. There was progress, however, on women’s leadership and time use thanks to improvements in education and training. T...

Do you know gender? I thought I did. I knew what it basically meant: man and woman, boy and girl, lion and lioness etc. And I had helped women and girls all my student and professional life as a social activist and was confident that I knew what had to be known. So I felt safe. That was until as a U...

 “Does having women in power empower women per se?” This was the bold question put to Helen Clark, former chief of UNDP, during a one-hour debate co-hosted by UNU-MERIT and Maastricht University — and it was a question that got a suitably robust response! PhD fellow Ibrahima Kaba,...

A joint post by Dr. Mindel van de Laar and Katerina Triantos. There’s a first time for everything. Recently, in partnership with the Dutch government and the SURF organisation, we’ve developed online courses to help students choose their tracks (the basic idea is that if they’re better informed from...

UNU-MERIT offers a weekly digest highighting the week's most important Innovation and Technology stories. You can read the newsletter online or subscribe to the e-zine, which is sent out every Friday. Check out this week's headlines....

Latin American countries have long been major exporters of mineral resources and are therefore some of the main recipients of mining investments. It is no surprise, then, that the region showed strong economic performance during the last commodity boom super-cycle. However, there are few world-class...

Canada is consistently one of the top 10 destination countries for international migrants. More than 7.5 million foreign-born Canadians entered the country through the immigration process, according to 2016 Census data — representing more than one in five Canadians and more than one third of school-...

I would define my family in light of the lasting integration of Europe, which began with three Catholic Founding Fathers in 1945. When a handful of visionaries – Adenauer, De Gasperi, and Schuman – put us on the path to an integrated Europe; to the peaceful borderless region that we live in today....

A joint post by Praem Mehta and Katie Kuschminder The human rights violations and targeted violence against Rohingya communities in Rakhine State, Myanmar have forced over 687,000 people to flee to Bangladesh since 25 August 2017. As of 30 March 2018 there are now more than 898,000 Rohingya refugees...

In 2017, the United States Federal Communications Commission (FCC) announced the end of net neutrality in the USA. The decision was taken unilaterally by FCC Chairman Commissioner, Ajit Pai, and other unelected board members, without consulting key actors from civil society. This decision was and is...

The Earth’s climate is changing and human action is the leading cause, according to 97% of peer-reviewed research papers. Yet this ‘climate change consensus’ is increasingly challenged by populist media and politicians, who distort research and cherry pick data. Media may be part of the ...

Seven years into the war, Syria has seen over 400,000 casualties and more than 5 million refugees. Those still in the country suffer from chemical attacks and brutalities from all belligerent actors, with no end in sight. The question after so many years of bloodshed: isn’t it time for the UN to ste...