News

On 14 December 2016, UNU HQ in Tokyo hosted ‘Paradoxes in Higher Education‘, a conversation with Professor Luc Soete, Chairman of the EU Research, Innovation, and Science Policy Experts High Level Group and former Director of UNU-MERIT. Investments in education are essential for the sust...

A joint post by Shivani Achrekar and Dr. Mindel van de Laar. In e-learning courses, fully online or blended, the biggest challenge for course providers is to ensure retention, allowing participants to finish their online course. While sign-up rates can look promising, drop-out rates are often high, ...

I identify strongly as a migration researcher. So I sometimes feel inadequate next to all my colleagues who can brandish intriguing migration histories from their own lives. My story seems parochial by comparison: I was born and raised in Oslo, Norway, and so were both my parents. I still call Oslo ...

Gender is often seen as an isolated one-dimensional issue, rather than for what it is – a multilayered concept touching all of society, including research and policy. Why are we highlighting this today? Because 25th November is the United Nations’ International Day for the Elimination of Violence ag...

In 2013, India became the fourth country in the world (after Russia, the United States and the European Union) and the only emerging nation to launch a Mars probe into space. But it remains part of the group of 45 developing countries with less than 50% sanitation coverage, with many citizens practi...

The inaugural Public Policy in-house conference, 21 October 2016, was an opportunity for four members of the 2016/2017 MPP cohort to present their analyses of key policy issues from their home countries. The presenters were selected based not only on quality but also on diversity, region, and topic ...

Trump may lose, but will that be the end of ‘Trumpism’? As I write this in late October 2016, Washington DC is a divided city in a divided country. I am struck by the imminent sense of disaster — and the clearest sign of this is what we DON’T see, just days before the election on 8th November....

By Dr. Özge Bilgili and Veronika Fajth In today’s world, international migration not only affects those who are on the move but the vast majority of the global population. In this new era of hyper-connectedness, many of our actions have transnational ramifications, reaching many other people across ...

The Journal of Population Economics, an independent and international quarterly journal that publishes original theoretical and applied research in all areas of population economics, has been hosted by the ‘POP Centre‘ at UNU-MERIT since April 2016. Issue 1/2017, published on 29 October ...

Like most Americans, I have a pretty mixed up immigrant background: in my case from Sweden, Poland, Romania, Ukraine and Russia. My mother’s family emigrated from Sweden during the ‘great wave’ of migration between the 1880s and the 1920s....

“We should… recognize the United Nations for what it is – an admittedly imperfect but indispensable instrument of nations working for a peaceful evolution towards a more just and secure world order.” These words, written over half a century ago by Former UN Secretary-General, Dag Hammarskjöld, remai...

This year’s 19th European Health Forum Gastein (EHFG) took the guiding theme of ‘Demographics & Diversity in Europe – New Solutions for Health’. As the leading event of its kind, the Forum aims to develop European health policy with input from national and regional authorities and decisionmaking...

After months of campaigning the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) has elected Mr António Manuel de Oliveira Guterres of Portugal to serve as the ninth UN Secretary-General. Much has been made of his personal qualities and professional qualifications — but what can be said of the election ...

Hans-Erik Edsand from Sweden has won the Best PhD Student Paper Award at the 2016 ‘Globelics’ Conference in Indonesia, for his work on ‘Technological Innovation Systems and the Wider Context: A Framework for Developing Countries’. “The Technological Innovation System (T...

I was born in Aachen, a child of a German mother and a Palestinian father. As a German, I am the owner of the most ‘powerful passport’ in the world -- a passport that grants me the freedom to travel and visit the most beautiful places around the globe. Yet, my Palestinian roots were seeded in Gaza, ...

Master's student Nassim Abba recently completed an internship at the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs. We asked him and his internship supervisor Ms. Nicole Maes how the Master's programme in Public Policy and Human Development prepares students to take up positions as interns, trainees and eventu...

The world is an unfair, unequal, insecure and unhealthy place for about half its population. Around 30% of ‘us’ have no access to adequate healthcare when needed, and 40% face a complete or near-complete loss of income security when a personal or a national economic crisis strikes. At least a third ...

A country’s ability to close the fiscal gap is based on its tax revenue, and there are three clear reasons for this. First, since the UN General Assembly unanimously adopted the 2030 Agenda, implementation is mainly the responsibility of the countries themselves, not NGOs or the private sector....

The upcoming UN Summit for Refugees and Migrants holds the promise of progress. But ahead of the summit, communications staff are pushing a warped view of migrant diversity. Even the International Organization of Migration (IOM) is straying from its mission to uphold the human dignity and well-being...

This is the sixth post in our series ahead of the UN Summit for Refugees and Migrants, 19 September 2016. The full series covers several key aspects of migration: from governance and health, to environment and culture, to development and forced migration. A round-up post will follow shortly after th...