By Luk Van Langenhove and Luc Soete, former directors of UNU-CRIS and UNU-MERIT Hans van Ginkel, who passed away on Thursday, 27 July 2023, was a formidable figure by any standard. He was also one of those rare individuals who knew he could make a difference − and so he did through his times in charge of the largest Dutch university, Utrecht University, and the smallest international university, the United Nations University (UNU). Intellectual, managerial and entrepreneurial Intellectually, Ha...
Lynn Mytelka, who passed away on 17 February 2021 at the age of 78 following a chronic illness, was director of UNU-INTECH – today UNU-MERIT – from 2000 to 2004. Lynn had the difficult task of following in the footsteps of Charles Cooper, the founding director, but nonetheless brought to the institute great practical development expertise and much closer relations with other UN networks in the fields of trade, industrialisation and technology transfer. Doing so she laid the foundations of a Unit...
On 6 May 2014, Prof. Dr. Wil Albeda passed away at the age of 88. Albeda had a rich career as a national politician and university professor. In Maastricht, he was the founding dean of the School of Economics, which, in 1988, became the home of the research institute MERIT, which he strongly supported from the very beginning. Albeda also played a large role in the establishment of UNU-INTECH, leading negotiations with then UNU Rector Dr. Soedjatmoko to establish the institute in Maastricht. In 2...