How to master the art of compromise? “So these would be my last words to you as future policymakers: Try to see a compromise not as a watered down opinion, but as a very strong common ground.” Lilianne Ploumen Enter keywords...
It is with great sadness that we bring the news that our good friend and colleague Eddy (Adam) Szirmai passed away early last Saturday, 11 January 2020. Eddy was recovering from extensive surgery that he underwent more than a year ago, and although the treatment was generally considered successful, severe complications arose at the end of last year. Eddy was a true intellectual, born in an immigrant family with strong intellectual roots. During the 1960s and 1970s, he studied economics, history,...
"Breakthrough innovations often emerge from a combination of different types of knowledge from different areas… The next step is to track these innovations via relevant data sources and comparative indicators.”...
As the world’s largest online and user-generated encyclopaedia, Wikipedia is an education medium used by students across the word. However, as with textbooks and educational materials in any society, Wikipedia suffers from great divisions and has the potential to shape our view of the world. For every four articles about men, just one article exists about a woman – and just 10% of content creators and editors on Wikipedia are women. Even more worrying is that the trend is declining: UNU-MERIT re...
The next deadline for scholarship applications to our ‘Evidence-Based Policy Research Methods’ (EPRM) programme is 21 March 2018. In this post we hear from recent participant Gilbert Riboni. … As part of reinventing myself after a 21-year career in a high-stress job, I was looking to reengage in some sort of activity that would bring me back into contact with the international community. My previous career afforded me opportunities to travel abroad and work with governmental and orga...
Governments worldwide have pledged to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030. But given the scale of the task, not even national governments can manage alone. This has sparked a new phenomenon: whereby non-governmental players – from start-ups to social enterprises to multinationals – are aligning strategies and working toward the same sustainable ends. This new reality is also an opportunity to study how these supposedly ‘selfish’ players can be corralled for the common good. ...
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...
How international is Maastricht? According to the City Council of Maastricht, there were 16,933 non-Dutch residents registered in the city, as of 31 December 2015 — making up 13.8% of the population. Non-Dutch citizens living in Maastricht come from a diverse range of countries. In fact, 153 nationalities knit together the fabric of Maastricht today. A diversity of languages are also spoken in Maastricht – at least 63. Excluding non-Dutch citizens originating from a country where Dutch is ...
Dr. Melissa Siegel has been appointed Professor of Migration Studies at Maastricht University from August 2016. She has also been appointed Co-Director of the Maastricht Center for Citizenship, Migration and Development (MACIMIDE) from 1 September 2016. She joins Professors Gerard-Rene de Groot and Maarten Vink as MACIMIDE Co-Director. Dr. Siegel is Head of Migration Studies at the Maastricht Graduate School of Governance and a Senior Researcher and Migration and Development research theme leade...
As Maastricht University enters Period 4 of the 2015/2016 Academic Year, University College Maastricht (UCM) is offering a new course on migration led by the Migration Studies Group at UNU-MERIT, including Melissa Siegel, Özge Bilgili, Michaella Vanore and myself, Katie Kuschminder as the Course Coordinator and Developer. The course was added to the Bachelor’s options in late 2015, and now has more than 80 students enrolled. Here are three key reasons why it is important to study migration: 1. M...