Central European University

Central European University is a private research university with campuses in Vienna and Budapest and a mission centered on advanced teaching, research, and public engagement in the social sciences, humanities, law, public policy, business, environmental studies, network science, and related fields. Founded in 1991, the university was created to support open societies and democratic transformation in Central and Eastern Europe after the end of the Cold War. Its academic structure includes undergraduate, master’s, and doctoral education, with English as the language of instruction and a strongly international student body and faculty. The university’s work combines degree education with research institutes, policy-oriented scholarship, and civic engagement. CEU offers programs through units such as the School of Public Policy, the Department of Environmental Sciences and Policy, the Department of Economics and Business, and the CEU Democracy Institute. It also operates the Open Society Archives in Budapest, a major repository for records on the Cold War, communism, human rights, and the history of the Open Society Foundations. In Vienna, CEU has developed its main teaching and research base while maintaining a presence in Hungary. Central European University serves graduate students, researchers, and professionals from many countries, with a particular historic connection to Central and Eastern Europe and broader transnational policy and academic communities. Its institutional profile emphasizes interdisciplinary inquiry, academic freedom, and research addressing public problems, including governance, inequality, sustainability, media, nationalism, and democratic resilience. The university is accredited in the United States and Austria, giving it a distinctive cross-border identity among European higher education institutions.