News

Migration scholars Dr. Marieke van Houte and Prof. Arjen Leerkes authored a report on how different Western European countries deal with the deportability and effective non-deportability of rejected asylum seekers. The report, which was commissioned by the Van Zwol committee appointed by the Dutch g...

In my dissertation, I am looking at the link between a popular form of social protection – cash transfers – and child nutrition. Previous research has shown a mixed effect, sometimes positive, sometimes no effect, so I was interested in investigating this issue in more detail. I was also interested ...

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It was a pleasure to present our SMART choices and SMART tools project at the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management (APPAM) Spring Conference – particularly the development and roll out of our tailor-made toolkits. Following a discussion on the employability of public policy graduate...

“What I discovered about myself during the Europe For Citizens conference in Malta is that I actually know something about migration,” said Adam Hussain, a British student on our Master’s programme at UNU-MERIT. “I was able to spread the knowledge that I have acquired to people who do not stud...

With the post-world war international institutions eroded and under threat, a “strong and united Europe” standing alongside the United Nations, has never been more essential, said UN chief António Guterres in Germany on Thursday. The Secretary-General was in the ancient continental capital of Aachen...

In May 2019, the Intergovernmental science-policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) released a summary report for policymakers, “suggesting that around 1 million species already face extinction, many within decades, unless action is taken to reduce the intensity of drivers of b...

Uganda’s refugee policy is praised worldwide as it is different from other hosting countries: refugees can stay in settlements or they can decide to move to a city. In both cases, they can seek employment anywhere. Yet, only in the first scenario do they receive humanitarian assistance and a piece o...

Every year in mid-June, students on our Master of Science in Public Policy and Human Development (MPP) are finally ready to immerse themselves in their Master’s thesis. Digging into the materials, it quickly becomes clear: a good Master’s thesis starts with a good literature review. But what e...

Policies that cut school expenditures under the premise of “doing more with less” can also contribute to a decrease in high school graduation rates that could easily cancel out those savings. Shutterstock A joint post by Profs. Louis Volante, Jo Ritzen et al. Recently, the Ontario government propose...

Ride the butterfly, fight the good fight, square the circle – these were just a few of the metaphors at play at the latest SDG Global Festival of Action. UNU-MERIT’s SITE4Society team joined the conference on 3 May 2019, in partnership with our sister institute UNU-FLORES. Put simply, our event aime...

A new report for the World Food Programme (WFP), co-authored by Prof. Franziska Gassmann and Eszter Timar, presents the findings of three country case studies – Armenia, the Kyrgyz Republic and Tajikistan – and provides a general overview of social protection and safety nets issues in relation to fo...

Since 2000 when the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) launched a global academic benchmark for measuring student outcomes by testing 15-year-olds, many global education systems have been impacted by what sometimes looks and feels like a race to rank high. When the OECD la...

Charlotte Mueller’s PhD research focuses mainly on the African nations of Ethiopia, Sierra Leone and Somalia — and she has travelled to all these countries over the last three years to collect data. Yet, as a European researching African issues, she is acutely aware of various Eurocentri...

The United Nations University in the Netherlands (UNU-MERIT) is pleased to announce an agreement with the World Food Programme to provide long-term monitoring, evaluation, analysis and policy guidance in support of WFP’s work with refugee and vulnerable communities in Kenya. Worth USD $2 million ove...

Peacebuilding is an arduous challenge — one that demands creative and comprehensive solutions. ‘Solutions’ that are all too often built on sand. ‘Solutions’ that are only really sustainable when built inclusively, from the ground up, with various actors. In April 2019, ...

In increasingly diverse societies, teaching must recognise the importance of affirming students’ cultural backgrounds in all aspects of learning. Shutterstock A joint post by Prof Louis Volante, Dr  Christopher DeLuca, and Prof  Don A. Klinger Classrooms in many parts of the world are increasingly d...

My session with the MPP students focused on IOM and the data work that we do at the Global Migration Data Analysis Centre in Berlin, including on migration governance indicators. We also had the opportunity to discuss how their degree could help them find internships and jobs at IOM and other intern...