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 sho...

  UNU-MERIT affiliated researcher nominated for thesis-based educational game In 2016, Irina Burlacu de Paoli (UNU-MERIT PhD alumna and external lecturer at Maastricht University’s Summer Programme in European Studies) created the Mobility Era Game, a research-based financial literacy board game. In the same year, she also founded Researchista, a platform that helps package research findings into creative, tangible learning tools. The Mobility Era Game is currently the number-one educ...

“Good morning class!” “Good morning professor, how are you?” With these words teachers generally open teaching sessions in African classrooms, but today they were also the opening words at the Africa-Europe Conference on Higher Education Collaboration at the European Commission, 25 October 2019. In short, education fuels development. In sum, higher education for African Master and PhD students prepares the experts and leaders needed for the sustainable development of African countries. While SDG...

Universities are increasingly entrepreneurial, working with partners across borders while navigating ever-more-complex international, national and regional policies. In an ideal world, universities would lead the “ecosystem of knowledge” in which researchers, business leaders and policymakers come together to tackle an array of complex issues – issues like the circular economy and green technology, equal opportunity for decent work and quality education, and city resilience and sustainable urban...

Maastricht University (UM) has risen to 4th place in the 2016 Times Higher Education (THE) ‘150 Under 50’ ranking for the best young universities in the world. Having held 6th place for the last three years, UM said it was “proud to have its continued efforts, for example toward internationalisation, affirmed in this new THE ranking”. According to the THE website, these rankings celebrate “young universities that have made a great impact on the global stage in years...

On 14 December 2016, UNU HQ in Tokyo hosted ‘Paradoxes in Higher Education‘, a conversation with Professor Luc Soete, Chairman of the EU Research, Innovation, and Science Policy Experts High Level Group and former Director of UNU-MERIT. Investments in education are essential for the sustainable growth and development of a country. But are governments making the right decisions regarding their educational investments? One of the paradoxes of higher education is that in developed count...

Each year we join the institutional and policy meetings of the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management (APPAM). At this year’s event, the topics mainly focused on promoting justice through research and practice — but the most poignant session for me was on cultural competency in public policy education. At first, coming from the Dutch and UN system, I thought our institute would be doing rather well. We’re based in a free and democratic country and our staff and s...

Haiti is back in the news, following reports of vote rigging in its recent presidential elections. As the population struggles with further instability, part-time PhD fellow Corinne Bossé shares her research on this troubled Caribbean nation — research focusing on diaspora engagement, higher education and economic development. ••• Years after the earthquake of 2010, Haiti’s infrastructure remains crippled; it also has to cope with a massive outflow of highly educated people who would other...

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 currently in the top 200 were eligible. This year’s rankings are as follows: 1. Nanyang Technological University, Singapore 2. Maastricht University, the Netherlands 3. University of Warwick, the UK 4...

Within higher education, a popular way to cut costs and boost competitiveness is to merge institutions. Over the last few decades, Australia, China, Europe and the USA have all witnessed mergers of higher education institutions (HEIs), mainly to bring economies of scale. Yet the question remains: what is the best size to ensure the highest competitiveness and quality of output? Our new working paper, co-authored by Dr. Nyasha Tirivayi, attempts to answer these questions. Most universities and co...