Central European University

Central European University (CEU; German: Zentraleuropäische Universität; Hungarian: Közép-európai Egyetem) is a private research university in Vienna, Austria. The university offers graduate and undergraduate programs in the social sciences and humanities, which are accredited in Austria and the United States. The university also has a non-degree research and civic engagement presence in Budapest. It is a member of The European University of Social Sciences and Europaeum.

CEU was founded in 1991 by Hungarian-American investor and philanthropist George Soros, who provided it with a $250 million endowment in 2001, making the university one of the wealthiest in Europe, especially on a per-student basis. The university is considered elite and prestigious.

The university was founded in Central Europe because of a perceived need for an independent and international university for the region, in light of the Revolutions of 1989 and concomitant democratisation. A central tenet of the university's mission is the promotion of Austrian-British philosopher Karl Popper's idea of open society, a result of its close association with the Open Society Foundations.

History

Early years (1989–1993)

CEU evolved from a series of lectures held at the Inter-University Centre Dubrovnik in Dubrovnik, Yugoslavia, (now Croatia). In Spring 1989, as historic change was gathering momentum in the region, the need for a new, independent, international university was being considered. The minutes of the gathering held in April 1989 record a discussion among scholars such as Andorka Rudolf, Hanák Péter, Tardos Márton, István Teplán, Miklós Vámos and Miklós Vásárhelyi from Budapest, William Newton-Smith and Kathleen Wilkes from Oxford, Jan Havránek, Michal Illner and Jiří Kořalka from Prague, and Krzysztof Michalski and Włodzimierz Siwiński from Warsaw.

In 1989–90, a serious attempt was undertaken to establish Central European University in the Slovak capital of Bratislava, but it fell through due to nationalist politicians' opposition.

The university was founded in 1991 in response to the fall of the Socialist Bloc. The founding vision was to create a university dedicated to examining the contemporary challenges of "open societies" and democratization. The initial aim was to create a Western-modeled yet distinctly Central European institution that would foster inter-regional cooperation and educate a new corps of regional leaders to help usher in democratic transitions across the region. CEU was set up in Budapest, Prague, and Warsaw.

The idea of a tri-city (Prague-Budapest-Warsaw) international graduate school was supported by then Czech President Václav Havel, Hungarian President Árpád Göncz and Polish historian Bronislaw Geremek, who later became Polish Foreign Minister.

The university was originally located mostly in Prague, and held its first classes there with around 100 students from 20 countries. Because of "political and financial conflict between its founder and [the] Czech government", represented by then prime minister Václav Klaus, in January 1993 it was moved to Budapest. The university's presence in Prague ended in 1997.

Budapest (1993–2017)

In its second decade, CEU broadened its focus from regional to global, with a special emphasis on democracy promotion and human rights around the world. It has since developed a distinct academic approach, combining regional studies with an international perspective, emphasizing comparative and interdisciplinary research in order to generate new scholarship and policy initiatives, and to promote good governance and the rule of law. CEU has extended its outreach and financial aid programs to certain areas of the developing world.

CEU began the region's first master's degree programs in gender studies and environmental sciences. The CEU Center for Media, Data and Society (now the newly independent Media and Journalism Research Center) is the leading center of research on media, communication, and information policy in the region. Soros was one of the largest contributors to CEU’s endowment, pledging $202 million to the university’s endowment in 2005, which was valued in 2010 at $880 million. On 14 October 2007, George Soros stepped down as chairman of CEU Board. Leon Botstein (president of Bard College, New York), who had previously served as the vice-chair of the board, was elected as new chairman for a two-year term. George Soros is a Life-CEU trustee and serves as honorary chairman of the board.

Organization

As of 2024, the university is composed of 13 academic departments and 17 research centers, in addition to the Doctoral School of Political Science, Public Policy and International Relations.

Academics

Admission

In 2025/26, the acceptance rate of the university was 39% for bachelor's programs, 56% for master's program, and 10% for doctoral programs. As of 2019, 1217 students were enrolled in the university, of which 962 were international students, making the student body the fourth most international in the world.

CEU offers doctoral programs in 13 different subjects and master's programs in 37 different subjects, in addition to 3 interdisciplinary bachelor's programs. All programmes at CEU have a heavy research focus, and all courses are delivered in small, seminar-style classes, emphasising a low student-faculty ratio of 7 to 1.

Rankings

The university is considered elite and prestigious. Until the 2019–2020 academic year, CEU was exclusively a postgraduate university and therefore not eligible for general world university rankings. Two new bachelor's degree programs were introduced in the 2020–2021 academic year. It is ranked 239th in QS World University Rankings in 2027.

Regardless of this limitation due to the intentionally small size and specialised nature of the university, CEU has consistently performed well in subject rankings produced by various publishers. CEU has particular strength in disciplines such as political science, international relations, philosophy, history, and public policy, among others.

In 2014, the university's Economics department was ranked 8th in Europe by the European Research Council, based on research excellence. Of the three European Research Council Starting Investigator Grant that came to Hungary two were awarded to CEU faculty.

CEU's Department of Legal Studies was ranked first in Central Europe by the Czech newspaper, Lidové noviny. The survey included Austrian, Czech, German, Hungarian, Polish, and Slovak universities.

Accreditation

CEU is organized as an American-style institution, governed by a board of trustees, with a charter from the Board of Regents of the University of the State of New York, for and on behalf of the New York State Education Department. In the United States, CEU is accredited by the Middle States Commission on Higher Education. In Hungary, CEU is officially recognized as a privately maintained and operated university. The university was accredited by the Hungarian Accreditation Committee in 2004. In Austria, CEU is recognized as a private higher education institution, pursuant to section 7 of the Decree on Accreditation of Private Universities (PU-AkkVO). Central European University Private University (CEU PU) is accredited by the Agency for Quality Assurance and Accreditation Austria.

Facilities

Library

The CEU Library was opened in 2016, in Budapest, and was designed by O'Donnell & Tuomey. It has a large English-language print collection of more than 150,000 documents and over 50,000 e-journals and 200,000 e-books.

Institute for Advanced Study

The Institute for Advanced Study at Central European University (IAS CEU) is a research institution in Budapest, Hungary. Established in 1992 as Collegium Budapest, it was originally planned for social sciences. It was dissolved in 2011, while the activities of the Collegium have since been continued on a smaller scale by the newly founded Institute for Advanced Study at Central European University. The CEU IAS is currently based in the Marczibányi Palace in the city center of Pest, October 6 Street.

At the same time as the founding of the CEU IAS, CEU also took over the Raoul Wallenberg Guest House in Buda, which had previously belonged to the Collegium. The guest house was built in 1999 with funds from the Swedish Knut och Alice Wallenberg Foundation and the Swiss Landis & Gyr Foundation. The guest house is named after the Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg.

Press

The CEU Press is the largest English-language publisher in Central and Eastern Europe. Since its founding in 1993, it has played an important role in publishing books on the economic, social, and political transformation of the region, including titles by Hungarians or on Hungarian themes. Four of its top-10 best-selling books worldwide are related to Hungary.

Archives

The Blinken Open Society Archives (OSA) at CEU is a Cold War research facility, holding over 7,500 linear meters of material, 11,000 hours of audiovisual recordings and 12 terabytes of data related to communist-era political, social, economic and cultural life. OSA's collection includes an extensive archive of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty transcripts and reports, along with a large collection of underground samizdat literature and materials from Central and Eastern Europe under communism. The archive also houses a growing collection of documents and audiovisual materials on international human rights and war crimes.

International relations

Graduate students of CEU and University of Vienna could attend courses at the partner institution, and transfer their credits towards their degrees at their home institution. CEU and Bard College run a joint master's program in international relations.

CEU has partnerships and student and/or faculty exchange agreements with Columbia University, Cornell University, Stanford University, University of California, Berkeley, University of Toronto, China University of Political Science and Law, École des hautes études en sciences sociales, ESSEC Business School, LMU Munich, Technical University of Munich, Eötvös Loránd University, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, European University Institute, Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies, Hitotsubashi University, among others.

Controversies

Resources

In 2002, George Soros was found guilty of insider trading in France and fined $2.3m, the profit he had made on the alleged scheme. In 2006, he lost an appeal in France's highest court, then took the case to the European Court of Human Rights, where, in 2011, he lost again. In consequence, Soros planned to appeal to the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights.

Epstein Files mentions

In 2026, with the revelations of the Epstein files, CEU's move to Vienna was revealed as an interest of the disgrace sex offender. Diplomat Terje Rød-Larsen wrote to Epstein about the university's move to Vienna, saying: "As you saw, my good friend Sebastian Kurz (31 years old!) was elected Austrian chancellor and will soon form his government. I texted him last week, and I think we are now in an excellent position to help CEU move from Budapest to Vienna. I have some great news about the situation from the highest circles in Hungary. I am having lunch with Michael Ignatieff, the university’s rector, in London next weekend.” Other messages report lunches between Michael Ignatieff, then CEU rector, Rod-Larsen, and Leon Botstein, Bard president.

Bogus self-employment of PhD candidates

In May 2026, Austrian magazine Profil reported that doctoral researchers at Central European University allege CEU has put them in a situation of bogus self-employment ("Scheinselbstständige" in German). This is defined by Austrian law as directing people who act as employees to register for insurance and pay taxes as self-employed, in order to deny them work benefits. Profil showed internal documents, leaked to the magazine, that show how PhD candidates are instructed to fill social security forms as self-employed, making claims about their work that directly contradict CEU's own Doctoral Regulations. The university's website confirms that PhD candidates have to register as self-employed in Austria. According to the report, CEU classifies PhD candidates as self-employed while formally forbidding them to find work outside the university without written authorization, and in this way the university "outsources tax responsibility to doctoral students and circumvents minimum standards".

According to CEU's Student Union President, interviewed in the report: "We are de facto integrated into the hierarchical structures of our institutes. We may not engage in any other employment outside the CEU without obtaining written permission. We also need permission to take vacation or leave Vienna for any reason“. In another point of the interview, she concluded: "This is clearly not self-employment. Rather, the current system amounts to denying workers' rights to highly qualified workers who contribute significantly to CEU academic standards“.

People

Alumni

As of 2023, 18,667 students from 151 countries have graduated from CEU, the majority of whom went on to be employed in business, education, research, or government.

Among the university's alumni in law and government are the former President of Georgia, Giorgi Margvelashvili as well as the first Romani woman Members of the European Parliament Lívia Járóka and Monica Macovei, former Georgian Minister of Defense Tinatin Khidasheli, chairman of the Slovak Party of the Hungarian Coalition József Berényi, Azerbaijani opposition politician Ilgar Mammadov, and former Croatian Minister of Justice Orsat Miljenic. The international spokesman of the Hungarian government, Zoltán Kovács, is also an alumnus of CEU.

Central European University also has alumni who are academics in the social sciences, environmental sciences, and humanities. Jaroslav Miller, professor of history and rector at Palacký University, Előd Takáts, professor and rector at Corvinus University of Budapest, political scientist Tomasz Kamusella, Virág Blazsek, associate professor at the University of Leeds School of Law, historian of religions Andrei Oișteanu, vice-president of the Polish Academy of the Sciences Paweł Rowiński, and Serbian political scientist Srđan Cvijić are alumni.

The university also has alumni in the fields of art and activism, including Azerbaijani dissident Rashadat Akhundov, Hungarian LGBTQ+ activist Dorottya Rédai, and filmmaker Dylan Mohan Gray.

Эх сурвалж: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)