• The Capacity Development Office (CDO) of UNU-MERIT / Maastricht University

      The CDO provides career-enhancing training for policymakers and practitioners. Our programmes are designed to help participants influence and implement policy related to the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.

       

      Open Access Courses

      On this website, you can explore all our open access courses, which cover a wide range of topics. New courses will be continuously added. Stay updated by following UNU-MERIT's LinkedIn account for the latest information.

      Our courses are offered in three different ways:

      • Open access: The course materials are publicly available on this website, allowing you to engage in self-guided learning. You can find a list of our courses below.
      • Instruction led offerings: These courses are regularly scheduled for synchronous learning and guided by experienced tutors. For information about our current offerings, please visit the CDO website.
      • Tailored offerings: our courses can be customized to meet your personal or organizational needs, with guidance from an experienced instructor. For more information, please contact us at vis@merit.unu.edu.

      Discover the full range of CDO offerings here.

      For support and questions, please contact vis@merit.unu.edu

      All the courses in this website were funded by the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science

Available courses

Policy Brief Toolkit

Ethics in Research

Machine Learning for Policy

ML4P challenges participants to think critically about the application of machine learning in public policy, through assignments based on current policy challenges.

Network Science and Economic Complexity for Policy

NEC4P is an online course on Network Science, and in particular its application to the novel field of Economic Complexity to study trade and innovation networks and global value chains. The project will aim at students that want to build quantitative skills and understand the role of different countries in the global network.

How to Communicate Research through Policy Briefs

The training assists in translating academic research into short, easy-to-read policy briefs as well as developing targeted dissemination strategies for the briefs.