Maastricht Negotiation & Conflict Resolution Clinic
The Maastricht Negotiation & Conflict Resolution Clinic is an extracurricular program open to all UM students. You can apply to the program before the 30th of September (of the upcoming academic year) to be an official member. However, even if you do not enroll before the deadline, you're still invited to attend select events that are open to non-members. These events can be found on our webpage.
Obective
It is no longer enough – if it ever was – for universities to simply impasse substantive knowledge to their students. Book knowledge must be complemented with practical skills. Some refer to these skills as soft skills, 21st Century skills or Global Citizenship skills. Regardless of how they are branded, students ought to hone skills such as creative thinking, active listening, empathetic understanding, perspective taking, stakeholder assessment, conflict resolution, and so on.
A formal classroom environment, while conducive to imparting theories, is not particularly well suited for the practicing of these aforementioned skills as the dynamism of the real world cannot be scripted nor emulated within the confines of a classroom. In other words, we need to create a different type of a learning environment to sharpen our soft skills. This is where the Maastricht Negotiation & Conflict Resolution Clinic (formerly the Maastricht Mediation Clinic) comes in.
Events
In furtherance of our goal, we organize negotiation trainings, seminars, and assortment of other events on topics ranging from de-escalating conflicts, finding BATNAs and ZOPAs, the intersection of cross-cultural communication and conflict resolution, culture mapping, and so on. While the MNCRC is embedded within the law faculty, we find inspiration from other fields including but not limited to psychology, behavioral economic, and neurosciences, just to mention a few. If you're interested, come join us!
Contact information
Mark Kawakami
mark.kawakami@maastrichtuniversity.nl