By Tatenda Zinyemba (postdoctoral researcher, UNU-MERIT) Over the past three decades researchers have explored various aspects of the impact of the HIV pandemic. One focus area has been children who have lost their parents to AIDS. Less attention has been given to children who are raised by parents living with HIV. This group has become much bigger as more people have access to antiretroviral therapy and are therefore expected to raise their children. Our research in Zimbabwe looked at the effec...

Here’s what participants have to say about our EPRM revamp Last semester, the Capacity Development Office at UNU-MERIT made changes to its flagship Evidence-Based Policy Research Methods (EPRM) programme based on feedback from its participants, who are working professionals from across the globe looking to enhance their ability to engage with research for better policymaking. While in essence the programme stays the same, some elements are now linked better to participants’ needs. So, what’s new...

New research article highlights three tips In light of new AI (artificial intelligence) technologies such as ChatGPT affecting education, Louis Volante, affiliated professorial fellow at UNU-MERIT, co-authored a recent article offering educators research-informed pathways on how to harness AI to promote research, writing and critical thinking skills in secondary schools. In the research article “Leveraging AI to enhance learning,” Volante and his two co-authors Christopher DeLuca and Don A. Klin...

A post by Cristina Mancigotti, Capacity Development Coordinator at UNU-MERIT’s Capacity Development Office  Students consider dropping out of courses for a number of reasons, but our research shows that peer discussions and local context examples during class sessions can increase engagement and completion rates in online courses.   Challenges for online students and educators During the course of an interview, we were not surprised to hear a student telling us that they considered droppin...

New pilot programme provides online certification to professional education – and enhanced employment value As a working professional, Joshua Antwi from Ghana was unable to enroll in UNU-MERIT’s full-time Master in Public Policy and Human Development (MPP) programme, despite his desire to acquire some of its taught skills in order to apply them to his career.   On Thursday 15 June 2023, Antwi celebrated his completion of a different route to achieving his goal: graduating from a short cour...

Prof  Dr Jo Ritzen is an Honorary Professor at UNU-MERIT and Maastricht University. He served as Minister of Education, Culture, and Science of the Netherlands from 1989 to 1998, becoming the longest-serving Education Minister in the EU. Subsequently, he was appointed Vice-President of the World Bank (1998–2003) and President of Maastricht University (2003–2011). His current research interests revolve around trust in government and sustainability issues, and he is also leading an initiative to i...

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 memorable event on many fronts. The event was moderated by Academic Programme Director Julieta Marotta and Professor Franziska Gassmann, and included talks from the MPP student ambassador, student gove...

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 Practices for Immigrant Students across Canada, co-authored by Louis Volante, Camila Lara, Melissa Siegel et al. The article sets out the urgent case for ministries and departments to develop a stand-alone ...

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 schools can only successfully deliver online education if children have an adult or responsible caregiver with them or they have a reliable internet connection. There is a large body of research that...

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 (GPAC²). This time we catch up virtually with Gillian McFarland, who will shortly defend her thesis on ‘Doing policy in further education: An exploration of the enactment of the GCSE resit poli...