Last week, a delegation from the City Council visited UNU-MERIT to explore ways to further our partnership. The City’s delegation comprised Ms Anita Bastiaans, Alderman for Welfare, Diversity, Civic Integration, Euregio and Europe; Mr Johan Pas, Alderman for Housing, Education, Student City & Welfare; Mr Florian Wijnants, Policy Officer. UNU-MERIT’s Director, Prof Bartel Van de Walle, delivered a presentation of the Institute’s Strategic Plan (2021-2025), where he outlined our research agend...
The United Nations University-MERIT (UNU-MERIT) and the Enrico Fermi Study and Research Center (CREF) have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) outlining a framework for a groundbreaking collaboration that will apply physics models to economics. In November, a delegation of UNU-MERIT, led by Director Prof Dr Bartel Van de Walle, visited CREF in Rome to sign the MoU and outline a way forward. Researchers from both institutions presented a sample of their work and co-created the next steps ...
Register to participate in the May Event Series here. A series of landmark events will be held during May to celebrate the fifteenth anniversary of the first collaboration between the United Nations University, Maastricht University and the MERIT Foundation, which led to the creation of UNU-MERIT. Since that original collaboration, UNU-MERIT has become the UN’s go-to innovation institute, undertaking research and training in order to mobilise knowledge, education and policy and unlock the full ...
This week our new director Bartel Van de Walle met regional governor Theo Bovens, ahead of UN Day on 24 October 2020. The two leaders discussed the state of the province and the planet, how to ensure young people are listened to and empowered, and how our staff and fellows are ambassadors for the UN. Below is a transcription of their discussion, lightly edited for clarity. What does 75 years of the United Nations mean for you? Bartel Van de Walle: First of all, the UN is already 75! I think that...
No matter how much we like to think of ourselves as informed consumers, the majority of us do not fully understand the complexity of the arrangements needed to get even the most basic commodities to our tables safely, reliably and with any luck, tastily. The journey of the humble cornflake from corn seed to the breakfast table requires a tangled web of research, forecasting, analysis, logistics, contracts and legal compliance. Yet for some 820 million people around the world, that complexity int...
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...