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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...

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...

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...

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”....

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”. ...

This time Dr Mindel van der Laar (MvdL) and Prof Kristof De Witte (KW) caught up with Gloria Bernal (GB) who will shortly defend her thesis “On improving education opportunities: preferences and performance of high school students in response to scholarships, information and co-education”...

The European Commission today released the European Innovation Scoreboard 2021, which was prepared and coordinated by our researchers Hugo Hollanders and Nordine Es-Sadki, with contributions from Adriana Rantcheva.  This year’s European Innovation Scoreboard is based on a revised framework, wh...

This time we catch up virtually with Maria Espinosa Romero, who will shortly defend her thesis on "The shadow of hierarchy in marine fisheries governance". Her research at UNU-MERIT contributes to the designing of policies that supports the sustainable development of fisheries....

Bruno Martorano, United Nations University; Francesco Iacoella, United Nations University; Laura Metzger, Harvard Kennedy School, and Marco Sanfilippo, Università di Torino Chinese investment in Africa has helped spark economic growth and improve social outcomes across the continent. Yet Chinese pro...

Two researchers from UNU-MERIT have won this year’s Best Paper Award from the Journal of Economic Psychology. The winning article, ‘Gender attitudes in the Arab region – The role of framing and priming effects’ was co-authored by among others Micheline Goedhuys and Eleonora Nillesen. Using survey da...

Three UNU-MERIT researchers contributed to the UNESCO Science Report 2021: Luc Soete and Hugo Hollanders among others co-authored the chapter on the European Union, while Shuan Sadreghazi wrote the chapter on Iran. In a preface to the 750-page document, UN Secretary-General António Guterres said: &#...

“Hello everyone. First of all, I’d like to thank Julieta for having invited me to deliver this keynote and the MPP team for organizing this wonderful event. I’m honoured and delighted. Recent events have given credence to a buzzword used to describe certain markets: VUCA, as in Vol...

The impacts of COVID-19 have forced researchers to adapt quickly to working under unprecedented restrictions. Here we discuss a new toolkit for Remote Data Collection, gathering researchers’ solutions on everything from replacing face-to-face interaction to greater use of secondary data. The t...

Two professors and a Master’s alumna from UNU-MERIT have won the RWB Jackson Award 2021, for the most outstanding English-language article published in the Canadian Journal of Education. The award went to an article entitled, The Use of a Multidimensional Support Model to Examine Policies and Practi...

A unique partnership between the United Nations University and Maastricht University in the south of the Netherlands, our Master in Public Policy and Human Development features seven specialisations. See our new video interviews for the inside track on all the above. ...

Walking 4 SDGs UNU-MERIT staff and students travel virtually to Instituto Terra, Brazil, in support of SDG13 Enter keywords...

European member state security forces, supported by the European Border and Coast Guard Agency, known as Frontex, have pushed back around 40,000 refugees attempting to cross national borders during the pandemic, according to an investigation based on UN reports and records kept by NGOs. These action...

“The Philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways. The point is however to change it” reads the tombstone of Karl Marx in London quoting one of his works. Of course, this applies not only to the worldly philosophers but to economists as well. And in homage to his call, most of our ar...

There is no doubt that COVID-19 has significantly impacted our lives, including schools and education. Temporary closures of school buildings have highlighted how factors outside school systems affect schools’ capacity to meet students’ needs and support academic achievement. For example, elementary...

The World Bank launched its Development Impact blog on 1 April 2011, and has since published exactly 1500 posts. To celebrate turning 10, the editors of the blog decided to replace its meteor logo with something that better captures the aim of development research: i.e. to inform on the range of pot...