We are very happy to announce that Prof Kristof de Witte, our chair in Effectiveness and Efficiency of Educational Innovations, has been named Laureate of the Academy – Humanities 2020 by the Royal Flemish Academy of Belgium for Science and the Arts. This is the academy’s most prestigious award and is only the second time that the award has gone to an economist. Kristof, who is based at KU Leuven across the border in Belgium, explains how: “As an educational economist, I examin...

The current pandemic is a fork in the road, highlighting the need for more sustainable economies and more resilient societies – a fact reflected in pledges made by the European Commission, the G20 group of nations, and various national governments to ‘build back something better’. In the policy brief below, we explain how a Bauhaus initiative can help build socially stronger and fairer societies when combined with a low-carbon economy. We were inspired by the plea for ‘a new European Bauhaus for...

How can Latin America and the Caribbean build back better after COVID-19? A new article, under the auspices of the Inter-American Development Bank, provides a series of reflections and initial public policy guidelines on how science, technology and innovation can help the region exit the crisis while laying the foundations for economic recovery. Does gender matter for promotion in science? A new paper evaluates the careers of scientists at the French Institute of Physics, and finds that male and...

Is innovation everywhere and can it be accurately measured? A new book  inspired by a new internationally agreed definition of innovation seeks to improve policy, monitoring and evaluation by studying every sector in the economy. Does religion promote environmentalism? A new cross-country study finds that religion promotes individuals’ willingness to contribute money while dampening protests against environmental protection — and these findings are most pronounced in low-income countries. ...

While the end of the crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic is not yet in sight, there is growing focus on the ways and means to build back better, by resetting the way we produce, consume, socialise and interact. What are the possibilities of tomorrow, and how can countries leverage them to reset their economies in the post-COVID world? The Future Possibilities Report 2020, which was released in partnership with the UN75 initiative, sets out to answer that question by identifying six transforma...

How has the COVID-19 lockdown affected business performance in Ghana? A new paper investigates informal enterprises in two urban centres, and finds that gender gaps are likely to grow in terms of performance. How do Global Value Chains affect export quality? A new paper looks at export upgrading in the context of economic development, and finds that GVC integration tends to improve export quality. However, it is developed countries that benefit most clearly from ‘forward’ and ‘...

The 2020 edition of the European Innovation Scoreboard shows that the EU’s innovation performance continues to increase at a steady pace and that the EU has kept its innovation lead over the USA. The report was written by Hugo Hollanders, with contributions from UNU-MERIT researchers Nordine Es-Sadki, Iris Merkelbach and Aishe Khalilova. This year’s edition is the first since the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union, resulting in a small negative effect on the innovation scor...

Overwhelmed by the constant negative reports from government authorities and medical experts, one day I started to look for positive news to cheer myself up. Luckily, I soon realised that many new initiatives support a new way of collaborative business across sectors. As UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said: “We are in this together – and we will get through this, together”. Civil society and the private sector have rapidly come up with many innovative ideas and have been supporting people...

When it comes to research output in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, what are the roles played by gender and race — and what are the implications for PhD fellows and their supervisors? A new paper finds productivity variations in South Africa of between 10-20%. For the mining industry in Latin America and the Caribbean, how far is innovation linked to commodity prices? A new study finds that mining firms increase exploration and R&D investments when mineral prices rise...

The PhD was a process of transformation: to validate my skills and research while becoming a part of a community. I wanted to have that sense of purpose, that discipline and that network – these were all-important to me on my PhD journey. For me it was different when I started from when I finished. When I started the PhD, I was teaching at the University of Pristina in Kosovo, and I was trying to develop my research skills, get a PhD and become a researcher and lecturer. Then in the meantime, wh...