News

A joint post by Dr Rasmus Lema (UNU-MERIT) and Dr Clovis Freire (UNCTAD) Hydrogen will play a crucial role in the mounting global efforts to decarbonize our economic systems in the coming decades. Many developing countries have the potential to influence the hydrogen economy, which may provide one-f...

MPP Closing Ceremony Another Year Complete: We congratulate our 2021-2022 cohort on completing the programme! Enter keywords...

A team of UNU-MERIT researchers composed of Maximilian Bruder, Thomas Baar, Prof Shyama Ramani & Cristina Garcia Santos authored a literature review on humanitarian innovation commissioned by the evaluation department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands. The report’s aim is to ...

UNU-MERIT is launching a scholarship to offer a non-EU citizen the opportunity to join the Master of Science in Public Policy and Human Development. To start the first year of the scholarship, UNU-MERIT has donated 20,000 euros towards its creation and we are now looking for wider support to contrib...

Day 5: Symposium 19 May 2022 Day 3 17 May 2022 Day 2 16 May 2022 Day 1: Policy Action Lab 13 May 2022 Photo credits: H. Pijpers / UNU-MERIT / Maastricht University...

UNU-MERIT: Fifteen Years of Partnerships This is the story of UNU-MERIT, our purpose, how we work – and the people who made us  Enter keywords...

In April 2022, UNU joined other UN entities in endorsing a UN System pledge on the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration (GCM). In this blog series, members of the United Nations University Migration Network (UNU-MN) and guest contributors reflect on the equitable and evidence-based...

How to choose a topic for your master’s thesis? “Few assignments can be as intimidating at university as writing a thesis,” acknowledges Master’s student Lais Bonetto. How do you pick your topic and how do you conduct your research? Find out what motivated Lais and her fellow students in their choic...

Register to participate in the May Event Series here. A series of landmark events will be held during May to celebrate the fifteenth anniversary of the first collaboration between the United Nations University, Maastricht University and the MERIT Foundation, which led to the creation of UNU-MERIT.  ...

 UNU-MERIT · Director’s Crossover: Bartel Van de Walle & Edeltraud Guenther In this month’s episode of the Director’s Corner, Prof. Bartel Van de Walle is joined by Prof. Edeltraud Guenther, Director of UNU-FLORES, our sister Institute in Dresden, Germany. They talk about the ...

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...

Researchers of UNU-MERIT, the Maastricht Sustainability Institute and the Department of Chemical Engineering of Maastricht University have obtained a 1.5 million euro grant to contribute to an EU-funded project on plastic packaging recycling.  The EU is allocating a total budget of 9.6 million euros...

Dr Rasmus Lema joined UNU-MERIT as an Associate Professor in January 2022. Rasmus’ broad research interests cover structural change and development, new and emerging technologies, and global value chains and innovation systems. He currently investigates economic development opportunities and constra...

A joint post by Dr Julieta Marotta & Abigail Daley “Because women have an incredible amount of power that should not be ignored when it comes to building a sustainable future.” International Women’s Day gives us a yearly moment to reflect on gender equality and remind ourselves of our progress a...

A colleague, friend and trusted advisor to many of us across the institute, Prof. Gabriela Dutrénit has worked with UNU-MERIT for decades, as a lecturer on our DEIP innovation workshops, and as a member of our International Advisory Board. In this brief portrait, Howard Hudson interviews Prof. Dutré...

A new paper co-authored by Prof. Luc Soete brings business and science perspectives to the most pressing global issues of our time. Set against the macro backdrops of climate change and the coronavirus pandemic, the authors investigate ‘technological sovereignty’ and ‘knowledge saf...

The circumstances are still what they are: a lot of colleagues have either had COVID or are still suffereing from it. So the institute is still mostly closed down, there are not many people around, so maybe it’s good that we try to take cover for the next few weeks. Nonetheless, despite the usual CO...

Two new flagship programmes from UNU-MERIT, coming under the banner of ‘Comprehensive Innovation for Sustainable Development‘ (CI4SD), feature in the first ever UN Climate Change Innovation Compendium, in chapters focusing on the Green Economy and on Capacity Strengthening. … We li...

In July 2021, several European countries including Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands were affected by catastrophic floods, causing deaths and widespread damage. Such extreme weather events are expected to increase in both frequency and severity in the coming decades, according to the latest repor...

Migrant returnees arrive to El Salvador from Belize, with the support of the IOM’s Assisted Voluntary Return Program. © IOM 2020 / Elena MONTOYA It is commonly understood by return and reintegration practitioners that the type of return, namely whether a person returned voluntarily or not, can influ...