27. 1. 2025
On 6 and 7 February 2025, META-UN, a global outreach project under the 4EU+ Alliance, will host its launch conference. META-UN’s aim is to establish a framework and an interface for cutting-edge research and educational activities with direct input from United Nations (UN).
META-UN is organised by Flagship 2 in collaboration with HUM:Global at the University of Copenhagen.
Multilateralism and the UN system that have gradually evolved during the 20th century and that the world highly depends on to solve urgent global crises are under increasing pressure. That is why the META-UN global outreach project has taken the initiative to establish a dialogue forum and science-policy exchange with the UN to find out how new research and education can respond to this challenge.
To understand the current challenges of the UN and multilateralism, META-UN will work with three themes:
The history and historical heritage of the UN
Contemporary challenges for global governance
Challenges to UN decision-making and international law.
The UN will act as sparring partner and provide input and insight to what would be valuable to them and create most impact.
“The themes will help us understand and analyse past experiences, current governance and policy development. For example, in order for the UN to make the institutional reforms that are required to deal with future challenges, they need to fully understand their history and heritage. In addition, we need to better understand the underlying challenges for global governance, UN decision-making and international law to find out how we can help analyse these issues. It’s an interesting project where interdisciplinarity is key. META-UN will involve the humanities, social sciences and law, as the three project themes are specifically related to these scientific areas. However, we are also open to ideas and suggestions on how academics from other disciplines can contribute to the project,” says Associate Professor Morten Rasmussen, Co-chair of META-UN’s Scientific Committee and Co-chair of Flagship 2.
The overall aim of META-UN is to provide a hub for interdisciplinary critical research, meta-reflections about the UN system and ongoing dialogue with the UN to create global impact and, hopefully, to strengthen the UN system.
“This project is quite unique in several ways. First, our collaboration with the Geneva Science-Policy Interface, which is part of the University of Geneva, gives us crucial knowhow of how to work with the UN system. Staff at the UN will give us insight into what they see as valuable knowledge for them to address global challenges. Based on these input, META-UN will do cutting-edge research and organise educational activities that aim at updating and broadening our knowledge on global governance, UN decision-making and international law. Second, academic staff from all eight member universities in the 4EU+ Alliance will be investing their time and expertise in this outreach project, which has the potential to create significant global impact,” says Haakon Ikonomou, Co-Chair of META-UN’s Scientific Committee and Director of HUM:Global at the University of Copenhagen.
Concrete results of the work under META-UN could, for example, be educational offers such as student internships at the UN, shared master courses, PhD summer schools and, perhaps, a future master’s degree programme.
“The interface that META-UN wants to create is to ensure mutual trust and a long-lasting dialogue with the UN system about global governance and policy exchange. In this way, META-UN can organise educational activities that focus on solving the underlying problems that cause the pressure on multilateralism and the UN system. Such educational activities could potentially create a whole new generation of graduates and experts with updated specialist knowledge about policy exchange and global governance better suited for today’s and tomorrow’s challenges,” says Associate Professor Morten Rasmussen.
The META-UN scientific committee is interested in expanding the project to include other disciplines than those already involved in the project, as challenges to the UN system easily could involve other scientific areas.
“We invite researchers and students from across disciplines and with an interest in the UN system to join forces with META-UN. We can provide a framework for research and educational activities as well as facilitate joint research projects across the universities in the 4EU+ Alliance”, says Associate Professor Morten Rasmussen.
The launch conference will take place on 6 and 7 February at the UN office in Geneva, Palais des Nations. For the first time in 4EU+ history, a project brings together researchers and academic staff from all eight universities in the Alliance. Speakers and participants include staff from all member universities, experts from outside the alliance and UN staff. Read the full conference programme.
If you are interested in attending the conference, or if you have project ideas relevant to the META-UN outreach project, please contact Associate Professor Morten Rasmussen, Co-chair of the META-UN Scientific Committee, via email: morenra@hum.ku.dk.