Through its rich interdisciplinary curriculum, CEU facilitates academic dialogue, emphasizing respect for, and sensitivity to, differences among people and ideas. Educational innovation is part of the university's continuing contribution to the region as well as to other countries experiencing emerging democracies.

Brochures: Please click here to find the latest brochures for each degree-granting school, department, or center.

Department of Cognitive Science

The Department of Cognitive Science is a thriving interdisciplinary department, which offers a PhD program with a comprehensive range of rigorous coursework and active research experience. It is a research-based training program that specializes in, but is not limited to, the study of the social and biological bases of cognition. Research topics include cooperation, communication, social learning, cultural transmission, joint action, developmental social cognition, neural bases of cognition, strategic decision making, visual cognition, statistical learning, and cognitive neuroscience.

Students take courses in cognitive psychology, philosophy of mind, cognitive anthropology, computational and biological cognition, vision and linguistics. They receive practical training and join the research programs in the laboratories of the members of the department.

The student/faculty ratio for the Department of Cognitive Science is 3:1.

Department of Economics and Business

The Department of Economics and Business is dynamic and expanding, well established as a leading economics department in the region, with faculty members from top American and European universities.

The department offers Master's and doctoral programs in economics.

The department trains future economists from the region and beyond, providing them with an understanding of the functioning of markets and the role of the state in a market economy. Rigorous coursework includes core economic theory (microeconomics and macroeconomics) and econometrics, as well as the study of many applied fields, including labor economics, health economics and economics of education, industrial organization, monetary economics, international economics, law and economics, comparative institutional economics, corporate governance, and economics of transition.

The student/faculty ratio for the Department of Economics and Business is 7:1.

Both general academic and specialized knowledge in a variety of related fields are offered. Emphasis is on an interdisciplinary approach to solving environmental problems; leading environmental academics from around the world contribute to both the taught curriculum and fieldwork. Focus is on international or trans-boundary problems in sustainable environmental development.

The department also serves as a focal point in a network of collaborating scientists and environmental professionals from developed and developing countries worldwide.

The student/faculty ratio for the Department of Environmental Sciences and Policy is 7:1.

Department of Gender Studies

The Department of Gender Studies meets the growing demand for expertise in gender issues by providing both Master's and doctoral level programs in gender studies, as well as serving as a base for non-degree studies and other activities in the field.

The department attracts students from a wide range of disciplines in the social sciences and the humanities, and focuses on integrative and comparative approaches in gender studies. A rich variety of intertwined scholarly interests (such as gender and (post) state-socialist studies, nationalism, theory, cultural studies, transnationalism, and international political movements) are emphasized. With an important, but not exclusive, focus on Central and Eastern Europe, both the Master's and doctoral programs seek to contribute to the development of socially relevant knowledge based on these approaches, and to critically interrogate past and present developments related to gender in culture and society.

The student/faculty ratio for the Department of Gender Studies is 8:1.

Department of History

The Department of History offers programs of considerable breadth, on both the Master's and the Doctoral level, challenging canons by means of thorough empirical research and cutting-edge methodological and theoretical reflection.

The Department seeks to train future scholars, academic and public leaders and professionals with a broad horizon.

Teaching and research focus is on the history of Central, Southeastern and Eastern Europe and the Eastern Mediterranean, from the 16th century to the present, going beyond these geographical and temporal boundaries in a comparative and interdisciplinary perspective.

Department of International Relations

The Department of International Relations integrates international relations scholarship with regional expertise in both the Eastern and Western parts of the enlarged European Union together with the wider European neighborhood. The department's commitment to international relations theory, in both its traditional and critical forms, and to the two major sub-disciplines of security studies and international political economy, forms the foundation of the program, complemented by a necessary multi-disciplinary approach to the study of the EU and its role as a global actor.

Its highly competitive programs, which attract top-level graduate students from around the world to both the Master's and doctoral programs, provide an enriching environment for study and research on issues that concern today's globalizing world. The faculty includes scholars from international relations, history, law, economics, and comparative politics disciplines.

The student/faculty ratio for the Department of International Relations is 8:1.

Department of Legal Studies

The Department of Legal Studies provides a high level of advanced legal education. Its programs are among the finest in Europe, enabling students to obtain a firm grounding in fundamental legal concepts before branching out into specific fields, such as the law of the European Union, intellectual property, international dispute settlement, international business transactions, fundamental rights protection vis-à-vis the state, and international and European human rights.

The department's Master's program in Comparative Constitutional Law is the only Master of Laws specialization in this subject in the world. The MA program in Human Rights Law remains the first in the region to offer graduate education in international and European human rights law. The International Business Law (IBL) Master's program enables students to become competent participants in international business structures and transactions, and includes a critical examination of the merits and shortcomings of the legal framework that emerged during the period of economic transition within the countries of Eastern and Southeastern Europe.

Department of Mathematics and its Applications

The Department of Mathematics and its Applications offers one of the most recent international Master's programs in Applied Mathematics within the Bologna framework. The programs aim to satisfy the growing demand for well-trained applied mathematicians. Graduates will hold positions in industry, corporations, banks, research institutes, governmental and EU institutions, and a variety of research or academic fields.

The department's doctoral program covers major branches in both mathematics and its applications, and aims to prepare students for a productive academic career.

Both the MS and the doctoral programs are carried out jointly with the Alfred Renyi Mathematics Institute of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (HAS). In addition, the department's faculty is complemented by outstanding scholars from abroad, including: Haim Brezis (Paris VI and Rutgers); Carsten Carstensen (Humboldt University, Berlin); Constantin Corduneanu (University of Texas at Arlington); and Peter D. Lax (Courant Institute, New York).

The student/faculty ratio for the Department of Mathematics and its Applications is 4:1.

Department of Medieval Studies

The Department of Medieval Studies offers multidisciplinary courses on both the Master's and the doctoral levels to medievalists from diverse backgrounds (history, art history, archaeology, philology, philosophy and theology). The program focuses on late antique and medieval civilization in Europe (c. 300-1550 AD), dealing with different methods of communication, migration of peoples, mobility of objects, texts, and ideas in the larger medieval oikumene, including Asia and North Africa. Students are provided with a broad grounding in these areas as well as training in advanced research methodology with special reference to interdisciplinary, comparative and supranational issues.

The student/faculty ratio for the Department of Medieval Studies is 7:1.

Nationalism Studies Program

The program engages students in empirical and theoretical study of issues of nationalism, self-determination, problems of state-formation, ethnic conflict, minority protection, language and citizenship rights and constitutional design in ethnically-divided societies. Drawing upon the supranational milieu of CEU, the program encourages a critical, non-sectarian and interdisciplinary stance toward the study of nationalism.

An international teaching staff representing a wide range of disciplinary expertise including history, social theory, economics, legal studies, sociology, anthropology, international relations and political science provides a high quality learning experience. A wide selection of courses are offered to provide students with a complex theoretical grounding and advanced training in the methodology of applied social science.

Center for Network Science

The Center for Network Science at Central European University provides an organizational platform for research in network science, with a special forcus on applications to practical social problems.

Network science, as a maturing field, offers a unique perspective to tackle complex problems, impenetrable to linear-proportional thinking. The concept of networks has come to pervade modern society – in our everyday experience we routinely use online social network services, we hear reports on the operation of terrorist networks, and we speculate on the six degrees of separation to celebrities and presidents. The science of networks is emerging as a scientific discipline that examines exactly these kinds of interconnections. It aims at explaining complex phenomena at larger scales emerging from simple principles of making network links.

The Center for Network Science translates these ideas into research projects - faculty at the Center won several major grants, from European Union and US funding agencies. The Center also offers a Certificate PhD program, joint with other departments at CEU.

Department of Philosophy

The Department of Philosophy offers a comprehensive program, covering the major areas of philosophical study, leading to Master's and doctoral degrees. The MA programs are designed to give broad and thorough training in all major fields of philosophy, with the possibility of deeper acquaintance in a chosen field. The department's doctoral program aims to train professionals prepared to undertake academic careers, as researchers or university teachers.

Both MA and doctoral programs promote a scholarly attitude that combines historical and analytical approaches in philosophy. Curricula are designed so that students are required to study each of the major fields of contemporary philosophy. A specialization in history of philosophy is also available. Graduates gain the rare ability to conduct a dialogue across the dividing lines occasionally fragmenting the philosophical discipline.

Department of Political Science

The Department of Political Science invites students wishing to develop the analytical skills necessary to achieve excellence in their areas of study. With original scholarship, basic and applied research, and creative instructors constituting an essential core upon which to draw, graduate work at the department attracts an outstanding selection of uniquely qualified students from throughout the region and the world.

The department's curriculum is unique within Europe, 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, the department's 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 student/faculty ratio for the Department of Political Science is 5:1.

SCHOOL OF PUBLIC POLICY

The School of Public Policy (SPP) is a multidisciplinary institution focused on the study of global public policy issues both in theory and in practice. Through excellence in teaching and research, SPP aims to create an educational experience that involves not only the acquisition of skills and knowledge but also the cultivation of a mindset that emphasizes entrepreneurship, innovation, cultural awareness and commitment to the public good.

SPP's two-year professional degree program offers a balanced academic curriculum consisting of core, specialization, and elective courses and practical skill modules. In addition to completing the coursework, students are required to engage in a practical experience and perform a team-based policy research project.

Department of Sociology and Social Anthropology

The Department of Sociology and Social Anthropology offers an integrated program aiming to go beyond the disciplinary boundaries between sociology and anthropology, asking new questions about social analysis, regionalizations, and of sociology and anthropology as disciplines.

The department is committed to a non-Eurocentric perspective. By analyzing the complex process of globalization at both the macro- and micro-level, students learn to recognize the global and the local as mutually constitutive processes.

They are further equipped with a critical and comparative perspective on our contemporary world through a broad range of courses: social theory; place making; post-colonialism; research methods; urban processes; meanings and practices of gender; social inequalities; dynamics of power and resistance; and the cross-border flow of people, ideas and commodities within the structures of the globalizing world.

In addition to CEU's resources, the department draws upon an international network of scholars, providing students with the opportunity to broaden their intellectual horizons.

The student/faculty ratio for the Department of Sociology and Social Anthropology is 6:1.

Doctoral School of Political Science, Public Policy, and International Relations

The Doctoral School of Political Science, Public Policy, and International Relations (consisting of the Departments of Political Science, Public Policy, and International Relations and European Studies) offers a doctoral program in political science accredited in the US. It has five areas of specialization: political theory, comparative politics, international relations and public policy. Students come from 36 countries and the student/faculty ratio is 3:1. Faculty members come from more than 15 countries. Some of our recurrent visiting professors include Herbert Kitschelt, Friederich Kratochwil, and Philippe Schmitter.