Consortium Members

Central European University is an undergraduate- and graduate-level “crossroads” university where faculty and students from more than 100 countries come to engage in interdisciplinary education, pursue advanced scholarship, and address some of society’s most vexing problems.

CEU is accredited in the United States, Austria, and Hungary, and offers English-language bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral programs in the social sciences, the humanities, law, management, and public policy. Located in the heart of Central Europe―in Vienna and Budapest―CEU has a distinct academic and intellectual focus, combining the comparative study of the region’s historical, cultural, and social diversity with a global perspective on good governance, sustainable development, and social transformation.

The CEU Democracy Institute strives to enable the renewal and strengthening of democratic and open societies through world-class research, collaboration across academic and professional disciplines, teaching and learning via the free exchange of ideas, and public engagement on a local, regional, and global scale.

The Department of Political Science offers a unique curriculum covering almost all areas of political studies and offers in-depth expertise in the comparative politics of Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. Representing a comprehensive range of academic approaches and expertise, faculty address questions of political philosophy, democratization and regime change, constitutional politics, political economy, media, voting behavior, party politics, human rights and Europeanization, in a comparative manner.

The project team at the Central European University is led by Zsolt Enyedi, Professor at the Department of Political Science and Senior Researcher at the CEU Democracy Institute.

The CEU team includes: Elena Basheska, Éva Fodor, Michael Ignatieff, Erin K. Jenne, Dimitry Kochenov, Seraphine F. Maerz, Zoltán Miklósi, Bálint Mikola, Andres Moles, Péter Radó, Liliia Sablina, Carsten Q. Schneider, Dorottya Szikra, Balázs Trencsényi, Balázs Vedres, Franziska Wagner and Mehmet Yavuz.

Charles University in Prague (CUNI), founded in 1348, is the largest university in the Czech Republic, a leading academic institution in Central Europe and the highest-ranking university in the new member states of the EU according to the QS World University Ranking 2019. Internationalization has been a long-term priority for CUNI. It has been running integrated degree programs and playing the leading role in the 4EU+ Alliance, Erasmus Plus, RTDI Framework programs, and 19 MSCA Initial Training Network programs. Additionally, the university has been developing strong expertise in project management, coordinating 21 large projects, and has been a co-beneficiary of another 81 projects.

The Faculty of Social Sciences, founded in 1990, has a significant experience in RTDI Framework programs. It is currently the coordinator of the MSCA-RISE action on Global Excellence in Modelling of Climate and Energy (GEMCLIME, GEOCEP) and the Systemic Risk Institute (SYRI) – National Recovery Program EXCELES. The faculty currently counts five institutes (Political Science, Sociology, Area Studies, Economics, and Journalism) and more than 4,000 full-time students.

The project team at the Charles University is led by Petra Guasti, Associate Professor at the Department of Political Science at the Faculty of Social Sciences.

The Charles University team includes: Jaroslav Bilek, Tomas Cirhan and Michel Perottino.

The Sciences Po was created because its founder, Emile Boutmy, wanted to build from scratch an institution of higher education that the elites of the time lacked. One hundred and fifty years later, Sciences Po has become an international research university with 14,000 students. The foundation of its education remains driven by the same vocation: to better understand the world in order to change it for the better.

Sciences Po stands out for combining approaches and confronting different worldviews. This tradition of diversity and multidisciplinary approach makes it an active participant in public debates, a forum where thought meets action.

The university’s overarching mission is to educate future leaders in the public and private sectors who are also open-minded and enlightened citizens capable of changing the world and transforming society.

Sciences Po’s international dimension was established in its founding documents. Driven by this vocation for nearly 150 years, today Sciences Po stands out as a world-class university, with internationally recognized degrees and research, a multicultural community, and a worldwide network of partners.

The project team at Sciences Po is led by Jan Rovny, Associate Professor at the Center for European Studies and Compared Politics (CEE).

The Sciences Po team includes: Jean-Philippe Cointet, Elena Cossu, Caterina Froio and Romain Lachat.

The Scuola Normale Superiore (SNS) is one of Europe’s leading research institutions, the best Italian university, and among the best 50 universities in Europe and the best ten in the world according to “per capita performance,” which takes the size of the institute into consideration (Academic Ranking of World Universities 2016). The Faculty of Political and Social Sciences is a regular recipient of European and international grants (FP7, H2020, Europe for Citizens and Volkswagen Stiftung) as principal coordinator and partner.

Its staff composed of national and international academics includes some of the leading European scholars of social movement studies, political participation, and political communication. It and also hosts the COSMOS (the Centre for the Study of Collective Action in Europe).

The project team at the Scuola Normale Superiore is led by Manuela Caiani, Associate Professor in Political Science.

The SNS team includes: Karlo Kralj and Hans-Jörg Trenz.

The SWPS University (USWPS) is the first private university and a highly regarded psychology and social sciences center for research and learning in Poland. SWPS University is dedicated to teaching and research. It runs 35 undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral degree programs for over 17,000 students in its five campuses located in major Polish cities (Warsaw, Wrocław, Sopot, Poznań, and Katowice). With 24 modern research centers and laboratories that conduct interdisciplinary local and international research projects, and nearly 600 authors of scholarly papers affiliated with SWPS University, it is one of the most active research universities in Poland.

The Center for the Study of Democracy, which is a structural unit of the Institute of Social Sciences, conducts research in the field of theory of democracy, models and the quality of democracy, civic participation and political innovation, social movements, and political attitudes and views. It collaborates with numerous research centers in Poland and abroad, as well as with non-governmental organizations. Along with the scientific activity, the center aims at identifying good practices that facilitate the functioning of the public sphere.

The project team at the SWPS University is led by Radosław Markowski, head of the Center for the Study of Democracy.

The USWPS team includes: Adam Bodnar, Ben Stanley, Piotr Zagórski and Marta Żerkowska-Balas.

The German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMF) is a non-partisan policy organization committed to the idea that the United States and Europe are stronger together. It champions the principles of democracy, human rights, and international cooperation, which have served as the bedrock of peace and prosperity since the end of the Second World War, but are under increasing strain. GMF works on issues critical to transatlantic interests in the 21^st century, including the future of democracy, security and geopolitics, as well as technology and innovation. By drawing on and fostering a community of people with diverse life experiences and political perspectives, GMF pursues its mission by driving the policy debate through cutting-edge analysis and convening, fortifying civil society, and cultivating the next generation of leaders on both sides of the Atlantic.

Founded by Guido Goldman in 1972 through a gift from Germany as a tribute to the Marshall Plan, GMF is headquartered in Washington, DC, with offices in Berlin, Brussels, Ankara, Belgrade, Bucharest, Paris, and Warsaw.

The project team at the German Marshall Fund of the United States is led by Dániel Hegedűs, Senior Fellow at the Engaging Central Europe program.

The GMF team includes: Nicolas Bouchet and Zsuzsanna Végh.

GMF participates in AUTHLIB through its European and EU-registered arm, the Transatlantic Foundation (TF). Based on the cooperation agreement between TF and GMF, the Transatlantic Foundation trades as the German Marshall Fund of the United Sates.

The University of Oxford is a world-leading center of learning, teaching, and research, and the oldest university in the English-speaking world, laying claim to nine centuries of continuous existence. Oxford was ranked first in the world in the Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings for 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, and 2022. The Department of Politics and International Relations at the University of Oxford is one of the largest of its kind in the world. Its success in building a vibrant research culture has been internationally recognized. Politics and International Relations at Oxford was ranked first in the world in H-INDEX citations by QS in 2020.

It is ranked first for research overall in the most recent THES global university rankings for politics and international studies, consolidating its position as one of the top four in the world that it has held in the QS rankings since 2017. The department is distinguished by its commitment to addressing the most significant and salient questions and challenges in politics and international studies with the most appropriate methods and approaches.

The project team at the University of Oxford is led by Stephen Whitefield, Professor of Politics, DPIR Rhodes Pelczynski Tutorial Fellow in Politics at Pembroke College.

The University of Oxford team includes: Giuliano Formisano, Spyros Kosmidis and Zofia Stemplowska.

Founded by Duke Rudolph IV in 1365 as the Alma Mater Rudolphina Vindobonensis, the University of Vienna is one of the oldest and largest universities in Europe with about 89,000 students enrolled across 184 degree programs. The University of Vienna aims at strengthening its position in interdisciplinary and internationally visible fields of research, and its researchers have been recipients of over 100 European Research Council grants since 2007.

The Department of Communication conducts research on processes in public communication (via the media) and their infrastructure conditions, as well as their impact on society and individuals. From a comparative perspective, these include system and organizational research, journalism research, historical media research, and research into media content and impact. The use and further development of methods for empirical media and communication research are particularly key focuses, especially with respect to computational communication science.

The Department of Government covers a wide range of political science topics in Austrian and comparative politics. Research and teaching mainly focus on political competition and elections, governments and coalitions, political protest, and the politics of remembrance. Its research is concerned with political behavior, political actors, such as political parties and politicians, political institutions, and the processes governed by these institutions as well as their outcomes.

The project team at the University of Vienna is led by Hajo Boomgaarden, Professor of Methods in the Social Sciences, Dean of the Faculty of Social Science, and Sylvia Kritzinger, Professor of Methods in the Social Sciences at the Department of Government.

The University of Vienna team includes: Marvin Stecker and Marta Vukovic.