News

The essay competition ‘Inside the Black Box‘ asked students to join the debate on Official Development Assistance (ODA) and to come up with ideas on how to improve it. Pushing further, it was a campaign to reach policymakers who may be able to restructure ODA. We spoke with Education Dir...

Dr. Aziz Atamanov graduated September 2011 from the PhD programme in Public Policy and Policy Analysis here at the School of Governance. He soon joined the World Bank, first as a consultant on the Central Asian region and, since 2012, on data management, poverty and shared prosperity analysis on the...

The World Bank’s goal of cutting extreme poverty to less than 3% by 2030 is not achievable, says poverty expert Dr. Richard Bluhm. Development goals should be more realistic and policies should aim to build up institutions that promote inter-ethnic trust and long-term economic growth. World Bank Pre...

Maastricht University has been ranked the second fastest-rising young university in the latest Times Higher Education World University Rankings. The study highlighted seven universities under the age of 50, drawing on data from the last four years of the World University Rankings. Only institutions ...

“Policies to promote entrepreneurship among poor and marginalised groups are politically appealing but generally not the most effective… increased efforts should be made to help promising and established enterprises expand, produce higher quality goods and connect to global markets,̶...

Ecuador’s new ‘Vice-Minister, Technical Secretary for the Eradication of Poverty’, Andrés Mideros Mora, is an MPP alumnus and current PhD fellow at UNU-MERIT. In this brief interview, we ask how his studies in Maastricht helped his career, about the background to his role, and what...

On 1 March 2015, 15 mid-career professionals started the GPAC2 programme to obtain a PhD in Governance and Policy Analysis. This year’s group is made up of eight women and seven men, representing all continents: four European, two Asian, two African, three North American, three South American ...

“We need to be more transparent and clear about what development money is used for and that it actually goes into development work.” Dr. Melissa Siegel Gender, inequalities, security and migration are the guiding themes of the EU ‘Brainstorming on Challenges for International Coope...

Dr. Khalid Koser has been appointed Executive Director of the Global Community Engagement and Resilience Fund (GCERF), the first global effort to support local, community-level initiatives aimed at strengthening resilience against violent extremist agendas. Dr. Koser, also extraordinary Professor in...

“We are here because we are interested in the issue of innovation and development, innovation and productivity, and to what extent innovation can help countries like India to get out of their underdevelopment… to catch up with the richer countries.” Prof. Pierre Mohnen The 8th Conference...

Providing jobs may increase stability and avoid future violence, especially in low and middle-income countries. But do employment programmes really have this impact? We will study this question for a set of post-conflict countries in Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East. A new project co-run by UN...

Ahead of the UN Climate Summit in Paris (COP21) set for December 2015, Prof. Shyama V. Ramani was asked to give a lecture as part of the “Economists Facing Climate Change” series. Here she explains the links between poverty and climate change: what the problems are and how we — globally —...

Two graduates from our Master’s programme in Public Policy and Human Development (MPP) were honoured at Maastricht University’s 39th anniversary ceremony on Friday 16 January 2015. Here they share their background stories and hopes for the future. Best Master’s thesis 2014 Lorraine Wong ...

Last week NASA tested its latest spacecraft, the Orion, at a cost of US$370m. The perfect test flight brought the USA one step closer to a manned mission to Mars, now scheduled for 2030. Conquering this new ‘frontier’ says a lot about a country, yet this and other kinds of innovation are...

The head of our Migration and Development group, Dr. Melissa Siegel, today joined a briefing for government officials at UN Headquarters in New York. She spoke about “migration as a development enabler”, giving particular attention to destination countries. In her presentation Dr. Siegel...

December 2014 marked the official start of renovations of the former Sphinx HQ in Maastricht. This will become the new home of UNU-MERIT from autumn 2015. At a landmark event, Director Bart Verspagen and City Councillor Gerdo van Grootheest symbolically demolished a wall to initiate the works. Vacan...

Linking education with innovation was a key part of our latest DEIP workshop, held in the Dominican Republic in the heart of the Caribbean. Our event, co-hosted with the Inter-American Development Bank and the Ministry of Higher Education, Science and Technology, brought researchers face-to-face wit...

Prof. Jo Ritzen was recently made a Doctor Honoris Causa by the University of SS. Cyril and Methodius (UCM) in Trnava, Slovakia. The degree was conferred during an international conference entitled, ‘Marketing Identity – Explosion of Innovations’. Jo Ritzen (Heerlen, 1945) is professoria...

Microsimulations are extremely important for testing various policies: from environment to health, tax-benefits to transport. Our recent conference covered the state-of-the-art in behavioural, spatial and static microsimulation thanks to the contributions of experts from Europe and beyond. At the co...

Jargon alienates readers and increases confusion and conflict, particularly on issues of global concern. To address this problem, UNU-MERIT began work on a “jargon busting” glossary back in 2012. Now, having won a PREMIUM proposal from Maastricht University, it will turn this glossary in...