News

Message from the Secretary-General on United Nations Day 2021

  “Seventy-six years ago, the United Nations was created as a vehicle of hope for a world emerging from the shadow of catastrophic conflict. Today, the women and men of the UN carry this hope forward around the globe. COVID-19, conflicts, hunger, poverty and the climate emergency remind u...
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UNU-MERIT Director’s Corner Podcast — October 2021

This month is interesting for a number of reasons, so maybe I can start with some of the meetings I will have this month. Our UNU Rector is on a European tour. He’s in in Paris already as we speak, but then he will visit UNU-CRIS, our sister institute in Bruges. He will then visit The Hague. He’s un...
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Informal workers in Senegal, Mali and Burkina Faso have been hit harder by COVID-19

A joint post by PhD alumni Racky Balde and Elvis Avenyo. … The COVID-19 pandemic and its associated counter-measures continue to shed light on the social and economic challenges facing African countries. Economic growth in sub-Saharan Africa countries is expected to decline, putting pressure o...
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International Day of Awareness of Food Loss and Waste: Dumpster diving in Germany

The average weight of a pony is 300 kg – and that is roughly equivalent to the amount of edible food wasted every second in Germany alone– totalling around 18 million tons per year. Living in Germany, people have the privilege of buying food products whenever they want from all over the world, and o...
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Why cooperation is key to better city environments

The 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) aims at “Uniting the World to Tackle Climate Change”. While the technical aspects to addressing climate change is more evident in the goals of COP 26, it is time attention is equally paid to the governance of climate change at the metropolita...
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Royal SDG Advocate meets UN in Brussels, pays virtual visit to Liberia

Her Majesty Queen Mathilde of the Belgians paid an in-person visit to UN House in Brussels, the headquarters of several agencies, funds, and programmes of the United Nations in the Belgian capital, as well as a virtual visit to the UN in Liberia, on 23 September 2021. During her meeting with represe...
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PhD candidate wins World Bank fellowship on development economics

PhD candidate Mariajose Silva Vargas has been named a Robert S. McNamara Fellow at the World Bank, where she will be hosted for 2021-22 in the Infrastructure and Climate Change unit, part of the Development Impact Evaluation department, in Washington DC, USA. As a large part of her work, Mariajose u...
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Leiden calling: Alumnus Ayo Adedokun named best lecturer

PhD alumnus and affiliated researcher Ayo Adedokun was awarded the Leiden University Student platform (LUS) teaching prize, for best lecturer of the year, on 6 September 2021. “Teaching is not merely a profession; it’s a calling,” said Adedokun, who was clearly moved upon receiving the award from th...
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New Open Access Handbook on Social Protection Systems

A new Open Access Handbook on Social Protection Systems features contributions from UNU-MERIT researchers Franziska Gassmann, Tamara Kool and Zina Nimeh, as well as alumni Mira Bierbaum, Victor Cebotari and Eszter Timar. This Handbook provides a comprehensive and globally relevant overview of the in...
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New study confirms EU leadership in Open Science

A new report based on a Horizon 2020 monitoring exercise, featuring contributions from UNU-MERIT’s Ad Notten, confirms the continued progress of EU Open Science. With a steady increase over the years and an average success rate of 83% open access to scientific publications, the European Commis...
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Nigeria has democracy but not development: Book review

After struggling for 39 years to develop a fertile ground for democratic governance, Nigeria had its turning point in May 1999 when it became the world’s fourth largest democracy. This came after 16 years of brutal military rule. Despite complaints of fraud by political opposition in each election h...
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Learning from the COVID-19 pandemic: How to better prepare for the next global crisis

Time will tell, but today, one and a half years after the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, the “gloom-and-doom” predictions of worldwide recession, major disruptions in international trade, and rapidly rising unemployment appear to have been exaggerated. As the International Monetary Fund pointed ...
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Novel researchers have a lower chance of winning funding

In a 2012 Nature article, provocatively titled ‘Conform and be funded’, Joshua Nicholson and John Ioannidis showed that few of the most highly cited US biomedical scientists received funding from the country’s National Institutes of Heath. They attributed this to a reluctance at the agency to suppor...
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Master’s closing ceremony, June 2021: Roundup

We held the closing ceremony for our Master’s in Public Policy and Human Development (MPP) on 10 June 2021 to commemorate the past academic year and to celebrate the success of the cohort. After a year of COVID-19, this event brought many students and faculty together for the first time, and was a m...
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What a year with no travel taught us about the future of fieldwork

For many researchers working on projects that spanned international borders, the imposition of travel restrictions as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic necessitated a rapid change in ways of working. Drawing on their own experience and those of colleagues of carrying out fieldwork during the pandemi...
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UNU-MERIT Annual Report 2020

The institute showed its resilience in 2020, with staff showing incredible levels of commitment, strength and resourcefulness, which leaves the institute in a strong position to face the ongoing challenges and to take the opportunities that will be available as the global community looks to ‘build b...
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Knowledge 2 Knowledge Entrepreneurship programme launched in Côte d’Ivoire

Knowledge 2 Knowledge Entrepreneurship, Côte d’Ivoire, is a one-year capacity-building training programme to help knowledge institutes in Côte d’Ivoire to foster an entrepreneurial mindset and skills in their students. The project hopes to achieve a lasting positive and tangible impact on job creati...
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UNU Newsletter on Migration

Our quarterly migration newsletter aims at keeping you up-to-date on our migration activities, events and publications at UNU-MERIT and its School of Governance. You can read the newsletter online or subscribe to the e-zine. Find out more...
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Gender and conflict in Colombia: Rethinking household roles and government policies

This time Dr Mindel van der Laar (MvdL) caught up with Eliana Rubiano Matulevich and her supervising team composed of Prof Melissa Siegel (MS), Dr Ortrun Merkle (OM) and Dr Lisa Anderson (LA). Eliana will shortly defend her thesis on “Essays on conflict-induced displacement and gender in Colombia”....
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Health care system in Kenya: Policy recommendations for a daunting task

This time we catch up virtually with Purity Njagi who will shortly defend her thesis on “Financial risk, vulnerability and equity of access to health care services in Kenya”. ...
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