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Winter Newsletter 2022-2023 4 days left to submit abstracts to socio-economics conference The UNESCO Chair on ‘ST&I Policies for Sustainable Development in Latin America’ at UNU-MERIT is offering an award of EUR 2500 to the three best papers to be presented at the Mini-Conference 9: Rethinking Science in Latin America at the End of Times: Policies, Controversies, and Futures, part of a larger socio-economics conference taking place on 20-22 July 2023 in Rio de Janeiro. Interested researchers can submit their abstract by 28 January 2023 to valverde@merit.unu.edu and m.menendezdemedina@maastrichtuniversity.nl – more details here.
PhD programme application deadline in February
Applications are invited from highly motivated and talented fellows, especially from the Global South, who want to join a thriving and collaborative community of scholars focusing on pressing global challenges, including climate action, the digital transformation, poverty and inequality, and particularly their impact on human and economic sustainable development. Thinking about applying? You can learn more about the programme by joining an online Zoom session on 13 February; more details here.
MPP Scholarship crowdfunding campaign
Thanks to crowdfunding donations, UNU-MERIT was able to grant the very first MPP Scholarship to Lammert Petter from Ecuador last year and we would love to do the same again this year.
See our crowdfunding page to find out more! |
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Upcoming events Wed 25 January at 14:00 CET - Online Migration Seminar: The Russian Narration of the Deportation of Crimean Tatars in 1944 by Dr. Olena Snigyr
Thur 26 January at 15:00 CET: Online launch event for the book 'Norms, Gender and Corruption - Understanding the Nexus' by Dr Ortrun Merkle and Ina Kubbe (editors)
Mon 30 January at 16:00 CET – PhD defence: ‘Strategy Implementation and Decision Making in the Broader MNC Network’ by Sophie Gysan Keep an eye on the ‘Future Events’ page on our website for our full events calendar. |
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Alumni activities Join us via Zoom for the next Alumni Coffee Chat with Alex Holst on Friday 27 January at 13:00 CET!
Alex is a Senior Policy Manager at the Good Food Institute Europe, an international non-profit organisation helping to build a more sustainable, secure and just food system by transforming meat production. Since joining GFI in 2019, he has been working with EU and UK policymakers on mobilising public research funding, creating an evidence-based regulatory path to market, and ensuring fair labelling rules for plant-based, fermentation-made, and cultivated meat, eggs, dairy and seafood.
Chat with Alex, find out about his career journey after completing his MPP in 2015 and ask any questions you may have about building a career in policy advocacy. Please register here for the Coffee Chat.
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Key updates from recent months Computational Innovation Lab launching soon UNU-MERIT is creating a new research line in the institute, focusing on the design, development and use of new data, modelling and simulation methods and techniques for improving our understanding of comprehensive innovation – an area we refer to as computational innovation. The Computational Innovation Lab, to be launched in April 2023, will serve as UNU-MERIT’s new institutional expertise centre on data, AI and computational modelling to strengthen UNU-MERIT’s strategic agenda on comprehensive innovation for sustainable development (CI4SD). Drawing upon the research expertise of the institute, the Lab’s mission is to provide actionable data and computational models for research, education and policy-making on CI4SD. Learning from extreme climate events The Flood Knowledge Summit (FKS), organised in July 2022 as part of the Climate Resilience Initiative (CRI), brought together a range of voices from policymakers to affected citizens to share experiences, engage in dialogue and facilitate mutual learning. The CRI has been created by UNU-CRIS, UNU-EHS and UNU-MERIT to forward understanding of the impact of extreme climate events in Belgium, Germany and The Netherlands and, where possible, to find solutions based on experiences in Europe and from across the global south. The FKS considered how a multi-stakeholder approach can help build societal climate resilience, increase collaboration and minimise risk and damage caused by the climate emergency. Research Network on Ukrainian Migration launched The Research Network on Ukrainian Migration (RNUM) was launched with a major event in November 2022. The initiative aims to bring together institutions and researchers working on Ukrainian migration to cooperate on new research, information dissemination, seminars, and the acquisition of new funding and more. RNUM, by taking a comparative approach, will tackle issues around mobility from and within Ukraine as well as issues of reception, integration – including social, economic and labour – remittances, return and reintegration, recovery, development and related topics. Long-term demographic perspectives for Ukraine and the rest of Europe will also be researched and discussed under the guidance of Prof. Dr. Melissa Siegel, Professor of Migration Studies, UNU-MERIT. |
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Further news from the institute
Remembering Michael Cichon It is with great sadness that we learned of the death of Michael Cichon over the Christmas holidays. Michael had a long-standing relationship with UNU-MERIT as an honorary professor and the driving force behind establishing the master’s programme in Social Protection Financing, launched in 2001. His friends and colleagues will sorely miss him, and the thoughts of the institute are with his family at this sad time. A tribute to Michael (written by Dr Zina Nimeh) can be found here. UNU-MERIT partners with International Telecommunications Union UNU-MERIT has signed an agreement with the International Telecommunications Union for joint capacity development activities and has formally become one of ITU’s Academy Training Centres! This means that UNU-MERIT will directly contribute to building knowledge and skills among professionals in the ICT field, thus enabling them to contribute to – and fully participate in – the digital transformation. For more details, see our website post here. |
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Until next time! We hope you've enjoyed reading about some of the latest UNU-MERIT news and we look forward to hearing from you with any comments or questions you may have - for general enquiries, you can email info@merit.unu.edu or call +31(0)433884400.
Otherwise, you can follow more of our news on our Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube pages. |
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