News

Peacekeeping Training: Torn Between Complexity and Time

Stakes are always high in peace operations, so decent training is vital for the various roles of peacekeepers, the implementation of the mission mandate and for ensuring operational unity, coordination and coherence. ...
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UNU Action Debate: Global Challenges Prize 2017

The UN wants to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030. But, as many of us are acutely aware, the SDGs are not only ambitious but also complicated. A kaleidoscope of grand visions, the 2030 Agenda aims to rebuild our world from the ground up, in a work plan covering everything from the en...
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Students ‘Solving’ Hunger: NASPAA-Batten Simulation 2017

Hunger and food security are two of the most pressing issues for the UN – issues only made harder by climate change and armed conflict. Against this backdrop, UNU-MERIT joined a global challenge: to draft and debate a plan in support of SDG#2 — and end hunger. Higher education is changing: tra...
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Sons of Iraq: Mosul will only recover if we heed the lessons of the US invasion

After months of fighting, Iraqi Security Forces have finally regained control of the eastern half of Mosul, the last urban stronghold of Islamic State in Iraq. They are now advancing on the city’s west. The recapture of the northern Iraqi city will be a strategic victory for Iraq and its internation...
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Libya is not Turkey: Why the EU Plan to Stop Mediterranean Migration is a Human Rights Concern

EU leaders have agreed to a plan that will provide Libya’s UN-backed government €200 million for dealing with migration. This includes an increase in funding for the Libyan coastguard, with an overall aim to stop migrant boats crossing the Mediterranean to Italy....
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Operation Peace: Challenges to Peacekeeping in the 21st Century

Set amid a rapidly changing backdrop, our roundtable discussed the many systemic challenges to UN peacekeeping. The session was part of the ‘Future Force‘ conference held in The Hague, 9-10 February 2017, co-organised by Ortrun Merkle, Diego Salama and Pui-hang Wong of UNU-MERIT. Speaker...
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Women aren’t failing at science — science is failing women

Female research scientists are more productive than their male colleagues, though they are widely perceived as being less so. Women are also rewarded less for their scientific achievements....
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How migrant women are leading locally in France, Spain & beyond

Today nearly half of all migrants are women – women migrating not just as partners and dependents but also as independent agents in search of work and opportunities. Yet, once they arrive, they are often marginalised and prevented from enjoying their rights....
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Brexit Fallout: A ‘European Knowledge Union’ to the Rescue?

Brexit will hurt both the Brits and the Continental Europeans, no matter how the negotiations unfold. Some of the divorce pains will be in terms of cold hard cash. But the worst damage could come from Brexit undercutting the very soul of the EU – i.e., the gradual increase in understanding each othe...
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The Many Sides of Doctorhood: Academic, Medical, Personal, Professional

A PhD can be a game-changer for your career, especially at a research institute or international organisation. But not for everyone. Paul Caldron, one of our recent GPAC2 graduates, is a medical doctor approaching the end of his career – and in many ways he valued personal over professional developm...
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Mygration Story: For the simple love of Canada

My father’s great grandparents had come from Indonesia and my mother’s great grandfather had come from mainland China in search of a better life. I therefore also wondered whether I had a future in Iloilo City in the Philippines or if I would also need to become a migrant in order to have a better f...
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Science reporting for global truths — ‘R&T’ Panama 2016

Taking a stand for evidence-based approaches, we delivered a course on Science Reporting at the City of Knowledge in Panama, 12-16 December 2016. The workshop title, ‘Reach & Turn’, referred to reaching out, turning heads, and shifting mindsets – in many ways the core of communications....
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Dear World Economic Forum: Everyone needs quality education!

The World Economic Forum (WEF) is taking place in Davos, Switzerland, and the issues being discussed include education, gender and work. A world away, the work of PhD Fellow Brenda Yamba considers child carers and high school attendance in Southern Africa — particularly how they manage, despit...
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Maastricht University Rises Up the Global Rankings

Maastricht University (UM) has risen to 4th place in the 2016 Times Higher Education (THE) ‘150 Under 50’ ranking for the best young universities in the world. Having held 6th place for the last three years, UM said it was “proud to have its continued efforts, for example toward in...
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Mining in Kyrgyzstan: APPAM Minority Report 2016

‘Public Policy & Governance Beyond Borders’ is the guiding theme of this year’s Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management (APPAM) international conference, to be held in Brussels on 13-14 July 2017. We are now delighted to announce that MGSoG/UNU-MERIT (Maastricht U...
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Colombian PhD fellow wins prestigious Dutch scholarship

PhD fellow Gloria Bernal, from our GPAC2 cohort 2017, has won a scholarship from the Netherlands Fellowship Programme (NFP). One of only two beneficiaries from Maastricht University in the 2016 round, she currently works as a teacher at the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana in Bogotá, Colombia. ̷...
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Go For Action Research

Shyama V. Ramani, Professor of Development Economics at UNU-MERIT, has been working on the issue of sanitation since the tsunami of December 2004. It all started as a charity project to build toilets for women in a small coastal village in Tamil Nadu, her home state in the southernmost part of India...
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Is Technological Innovation Making Society More Unequal?

A joint post by Prof. Wim Naudé and Dr. Paula Nagler. — Society has perhaps never been more unequal than at present, in terms of the distribution of income and wealth. Within-country income inequality (as measured by the Gini coefficient) is, according to the UN Development Programme, “more un...
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UNU Researcher Becomes Professor at University of Khartoum

In December 2016, the University of Khartoum in Sudan, East Africa, approved the promotion of Dr. Samia Satti Osman Mohamed Nour to the status of full Professor of Economics. Prior to this, she gained a PhD in Economics from Maastricht University in 2005 and remains an Affiliated Researcher at UNU-M...
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Can Better Research Help the World Food Programme in Sudan?

Takahiro Utsumi is one of our many students who also works for another UN organisation — in this case the World Food Programme (WFP) in Khartoum, Sudan. He came to Maastricht for our unique course on Evidence-Based Policy Research Methods (EPRM), to improve his everyday work and long-term career as ...
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