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York-Maastricht Partnership

The York-Maastricht Partnership (YMP) is a major strategic investment between Maastricht University and the University of York, intended to develop a deep and lasting relationship and built around excellent research, teaching and knowledge exchange.

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Research partnerships

The Partnership’s initial focus areas included data science, imaging, health and nutrition, the ‘Global South’ and the future of Europe, and our first funding call led to the launch of nine new research projects between researchers at York and Maastricht across the different academic themes.

We interviewed some of the project leads who received funding from the first YMP investment call to understand more about their research and what they have achieved so far. See this link to read more about the different projects.

We are now developing a new set of focus areas under the broad umbrella of ‘Sustainability’, which will include research collaborations across a range of topics on sustainability and the transition to a circular economy.

More information on the York Maastricht Partnership’s new ‘Greener Future’ Vision, Research Strategy, and the successful projects from the recent funding call will be available soon.

Our research successes to date include the following projects:

MSC lab
Imaging

Data Science

Investigating the key challenges for both technology and society around data and how it is used.

Approved projects

  • A significant investment to support responsible data science, designing new approaches to handling personal data that could restore public trust and confidence in how major corporations handle their personal information. This project aims to build principles of responsible data science by design into the actual software development practices rather than simply producing ethical or regulatory frameworks which developers may or may not follow. 
    1. Professor Michel Dumontier & Dr. Visara Urovi & Professor David Townend & Dr. Jerry Spanakis & Professor Mathieu Segers (Maastricht)
    2. Professor Dimitris Kolovos & Dr. Nicholas Matragkas & Professor Delaram Kahrobaei (York)
  • A project investigating how to improve public trust in health data institutions, exploring approaches to the dilemma between the social utility gained by exploiting personal health information and individual privacy concerns. 
    1. Dr. Peter Schröder-Bäck (Maastricht)
    2. Professor Stephen Holland (York) 

Future of Europe

Our research takes advantages of the twin perspectives of Maastricht and York: both geographically European but with national governments, which take very different political approaches to Europe.

Approved Projects

  • A project to explore European sovereign debt practices in order to develop principles of financial ethics and institutional design for sovereign debt policies conducive to European integration.
    1. Dr. Janosch Prinz (Maastricht)
    2. Professor Alan Thomas & Dr. Martin O’Neil & Dr. Marco Meyer (York) 
  • A series of research events to investigate the constitutional challenges arising from the use of a number of regulatory techniques in the EU.
    1. Professor Mariolina Eliantonio (Maastricht)
    2. Dr. Kathryn Wright (York) 

 

The Partnership has previously also funded a range of smaller Europe-focused research bids, including work on:

  • Europe and the future of global rules and multilateralism. 
    1. Dr. Hylke Dijkstra (Maastricht) 
    2. Dr. Jappe Eckhardt (York)
  • European democracies in crisis: voices, actions and reactions from below. 
    1. Dr. Kai Heidemann (Maastricht)
    2. Dr. Tom O'Brien & Dr. Alejandro Pena & Dr. Sara de Jong (York)
  • The impact of Brexit on the governance and operation of EU agencies. 
    1. Dr. Annalisa Volpato (Maastricht) 
    2. Dr. Kathryn Wright (York)
  • Independent fiscal institutions in EU member states five years after the fiscal compact. 
    1. Dr. Diane Fromage (Maastricht) 
    2. Dr. Michal Horvath (York)
  • Ten years of the EU Eastern Partnership: democracy promotion, economic governance and geopolitics. 
    1. Dr. Giselle Bosse (Maastricht) 
    2. Dr. Simona Davidescu (York)

Global South

Bringing together Maastricht’s and York’s centres of excellence in global development that will investigate development transformations in the context of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals and their challenge of ‘Leaving No One Behind’.

Approved projects

  • Investigating development transformations in the context of the Sustainable Development Goals and the challenge of ‘Leaving No One Behind'. 
    1. Professor Valentina Mazzucato (Maastricht)
    2. Professor Jean Grugel (York)
  • Work to discuss and develop problem-based learning exercises in the teaching of global challenges in culturally diverse classrooms to coincide with the launch of York’s BA in Global Development and Maastricht’s BA in Global Studies in 2020/21.
    1. Dr. Lutz Krebs (Maastricht)
    2. Professor Henrice Altink (York) 

Health & Nutrition

Covering a broad range of research areas including agri-tech, child wellbeing, health sciences, nutrition and health economics.

European Doctoral Summer School

The York-Maastricht Partnership supports the European Doctoral Summer School, which is a collaboration between the University of York, the University of Münster and Maastricht University. The annual event provides personal and professional development and skills training, in a cross-cultural and multi-institutional series of workshops.

European Doctoral Summer School 2023

This year's summer school follows the theme, 'Sustainability in research, careers and leadership', and will take place from Monday 19 to Friday 23 June 2023. Find out more about this year's programme and book your place now. 

Funding

There are two main sources of funding available within the York-Maastricht Partnership. 

Travel and workshop fund

There are also smaller funding pots available on a rolling basis for staff at both universities to facilitate collaboration. These are:

  • A travel fund of up to €500 to support visits to each University and cover economy travel, accommodation and subsistence costs.
  • A workshop fund of up to €5,000 to support collaborative events between groups of staff or students at each University that further the Partnership’s research and/or educational initiatives. This might include research workshops, seminars, project planning and longer visits.

 

York-Maastricht Seed Research Funding

The YMP has an annual call for seed funding to support collaborative Greener Future research between Maastricht and York. The recent call has now closed, and selected projects will commence this Summer. The next call will be in Autumn 2023.

Any queries should be directed to ymp@york.ac.uk.

Each University has a devolved budget to cover these activities.

Maastricht University

You can apply for funding using these forms:

You will be asked to provide short details on the proposed visit/activity and financial details. Bids to the workshop fund also require a brief outline of the activity, including objectives and details of how the relationship with York will be sustained following the event. 

University of York

You can find more information on the University of York website.

Successful bids

Successful bidders should also complete a short report on the visit/activity once complete and send it to ymp@york.ac.uk. 

Education

We have a vision to deliver innovative educational programmes. 

MSc in Sustainable Business: Leadership, Innovation & Management (SUBLIM)

The MSc in Sustainable Business: Leadership, Innovation & Management (SUBLIM) is a collaboration between the Maastricht Sustainability Institute (part of the Triple Crown accredited School of Business & Economics, Maastricht University) and the Department of Environment and Geography, the University of York's world-leading centre for teaching and research on sustainable solutions to global environmental issues.  

The programme incorporates teaching from both universities to develop students’ competencies in sustainable development, business innovation, international collaboration, stakeholder participation and communication.

Find out more about the programme, about the group project in collaboration with a business partner, and about the internship experience of a former SUBLIM student.

 

Future joint educational programmes

The collaboration will continue to explore course options following core principles to ensure that all their educational initiatives will be:

  • Truly collaborative learning - programmes will be designed to enable collaboration across national, cultural and educational boundaries(e.g. Bachelors, Masters and PhD students all involved in active collaboration).
  • Interdisciplinary - rather than simply duplicating educational courses which already exist in Maastricht or York, the partnership will identify and explore courses that run across traditional disciplinary boundaries bringing together cross-faculty expertise from both York and Maastricht.
  • High quality and distinctive - programmes will bring together the best academics, and best teaching experience and pedagogy from both universities into new high quality and distinctive courses. 
  • Research-led, problem-based learning (PBL) - programmes will bring together Maastricht and York expertise, marrying up the PBL expertise in Maastricht (and the current PBL centres of excellence in York) with York’s experience in research-led education.
  • Grounded in technology-enabled learning - recognising the hugely important role technology can play in enabling collaboration throughout a programme.
  • Focused on building a sustainable future - collaborative education courses will equip graduates to tackle the big challenges facing society both today and in the future.

 

Governance

The York-Maastricht Partnership is governed by a joint board made up of staff from both the University of York and Maastricht University.

  • Professor

    Rianne Letschert (President, Maastricht University)

  • Professor Pamela Habibović (Rector Magnificus, Maastricht University)
  • Professor Charlie Jeffery (Vice-Chancellor and President, University of York)
  • Professor Saul Tendler (Deputy Vice-Chancellor and Provost, University of York)

The board meets quarterly to approve strategic investments by the Partnership and set the strategic direction for the Partnership.

The board is supported by a Director, Katherine Benson, who leads the Partnership and is responsible for the delivery of the Partnership’s strategy and objectives.

Who we are

Katherine Benson
Acting Director of the York-Maastricht Partnership

Katherine Benson became Acting Director of the York-Maastricht Partnership in 2020, after joining the University of York as a Global Partnerships Manager in 2017. Her role at YMP builds on her experience of working to expand York’s global engagement through developing new research, teaching, and capacity building partnerships.

Before joining the University of York, Katherine worked at the International Strategy Office at the University of Oxford and has a background in research and teaching at several UK universities and with NGOs in the UK and Middle East. Katherine has a PhD in Medieval History from the University of Reading and MA from the University of York. 

Rosa Becker
UM Account Manager of the York-Maastricht Partnership