ISSUE 40: NOVEMBER 2005-FEBRUARY 2006

FRONT PAGE | ARCHIVE |

Merger complete and UNU-MERIT is open for business

A new UN University research and training centre focusing on innovation, technology and development formally came into existence on January 1.

The new centre, to be known as UNU-MERIT (Maastricht Economic and Social Research and Training Centre on Innovation and Technology) is the result of a cooperation agreement between UNU and Maastricht University.

The opening of UNU-MERIT follows a one-year transitional period during which the two universities decided how to integrate their respective research institutes – UNU Institute for New Technologies (UNU-INTECH) and Maastricht Economic Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (MERIT). Professor Luc Soete, founding director of MERIT and joint director of UNU-INTECH and MERIT during the transitional phase, is the first director of the integrated institute.

The main purpose of merging the two Maastricht-based institutes was to pool their intellectual resources and realise synergies in their research content and organization.

UNU-MERIT’s research base will rise to nearly 60 research staff and 40 PhD researchers in 2006, making it one of Europe's most significant research and training centres in science, technology and innovation studies. It will also be one of the largest research and training centres of UNU, with the potential to contribute significantly to UNU’s goal of resolving the pressing global problems of human survival, development and welfare.

UNU-MERIT will work to achieve three overarching goals:

1. To become a world class research centre of academic excellence attracting the best researchers from all over the world;
2. To become a crucial policy think tank on knowledge policies at the global, national and regional level, in the developing as well as developed world;
3. To become a major international academic and policy training centre providing both PhD training and PhD supervision as well as policy training to students and civil servants from developing and developed countries.

Over the past year, a common mission and research programme have been developed for the integrated institute. The programme is organized around five thematic areas:

• Micro-based evidence research on innovation and technological change;
• The role of technology in growth and development;
• Knowledge and industrial dynamics;
• Innovation, entrepreneurship and development; and
• The governance of science technology and innovation.

© 2006  United Nations University