Institute for Advanced Study at Central European University
Hungary
The Institute for Advanced Study at CEU (IAS CEU) is pleased to invite applications for Affiliated Fellowships for the academic year 2026/27. Scholars from all research areas of the social sciences and humanities, broadly defined, may apply for this status. Affiliated fellows typically use their own funding or external fellowships to spend their research period, or parts thereof, at IAS CEU. The stay of Affiliated fellows varies between a minimum of 3 and a maximum of 6 months; fellowships run for the 3-month short fall semester (October-December), the 5-month fall semester (October-February) or the 6-month spring semester (January-June).
IAS CEU is an independent Institute for Advanced Study based at the Budapest site of Central European University. CEU operates at two locations, with the main campus in Vienna and several research institutes and centers in Budapest. Located in the heart of one of Central Europe's most attractive cities, IAS CEU seeks to benefit from this arrangement and to be part of the rich academic life and research generated in both places. The Budapest site hosts, besides the IAS, a part of the CEU Library, the Blinken OSA Archivum, the Democracy Institute, the Center for Ethics and Law in Biomedicine, and the Summer University (SUN), as well as various research units and non-degree education programs. For further information, please refer to the Institute's website at https://ias.ceu.edu.
The Budapest site provides a stimulating environment in which fellows can devote themselves to research and share their work with peers through weekly seminars and other community programs. Fellows have access to all CEU facilities, including seminar and conference space, computer services and library resources. They benefit from CEU’s vibrant international atmosphere, its strong regional ties in Central and Eastern Europe and its international scholarly networks. CEU facilitates the fellows’ engagement with CEU and with the Hungarian and Austrian, the regional and international scholarly communities by encouraging collaborative projects, organizing joint public lectures and related activities.
In accordance with all fellowships at IAS, Affiliated Fellows are expected to be in residence in Budapest during their affiliation with the Institute, participate in the intellectual life of the Institute and pursue their research agenda. As CEU is in the process of transformation, our fellowship programs are meant to contribute to the formation of a Global Invisible University framework as an innovative new format coordinated by CEU’s Budapest site. This framework builds on the Global Forum organized by the Democracy Institute, as well as CEU’s engagement with different groups of scholars and students at risk (including the Invisible University for Ukraine and various Southeast European and Southeast Asian academic networks among others). It seeks to rethink the relationship of research, education, and civic engagement in a transnational manner and reinforce CEU’s links to individuals and institutions defending academic freedom and seeking to develop innovative strategies in autocratic contexts.
Eligibility, qualifications, experience:
- Applicants must hold a Ph.D. or equivalent in the social sciences or humanities at the time of their application.
- Only those with publications in internationally recognized scholarly outlets will be considered.
- Applicants are expected to be able to communicate fluently in English as this is the working language of the Institute and CEU.
- Full time CEU employees and students are not eligible to apply for 5 years after the end of their studies/contract (degrees must have been received and contracts must have ended by December 31, 2020 or earlier).
- Part-time/temporary employees of CEU are not eligible for 1 year after their contract ends (their contract must have ended by December 31, 2024 or earlier).
- Former fellows of IAS CEU are not eligible to apply again for a period of 7 years. Applications at an earlier stage may be considered only in exceptional cases.
- Reapplication is possible only 3 times within a period of 5 years.
- All nationalities are encouraged to apply. However, please be informed that the eligibility of applicants who require a visa for their stay in Hungary may need to be assessed on an individual basis.
Terms and conditions:
Affiliated fellows do not receive a stipend and may or may not receive housing from the Institute. They may receive office space based on availability. Fellows are responsible for their own travel and health care provisions.
How to apply:
All applications must be submitted through our online application system: Prepare your application package: create a single pdf file no larger than 12 MBs containing all your application documents. The name of the pdf file should contain your name and the type of fellowship you are applying to, example: Doe, Jane_Affiliated.pdf. Your application package should contain the following documents: • A cover letter (explaining why you would like to stay at the Institute and how you would contribute to the intellectual life at IAS CEU, as well as a paragraph engaging with the questions of the interplay of research, education and the civil sphere in the context of global autocratic attacks; max 1,000 words) • The abstract of your research project (max. 150 words) • A description of your research project (min. 1,000 - max. 2,500 words; the reference list is not included in the word count) • A CV (max. 5 pages) • A list of your most important publications, including up to 5 items for junior applicants and up to 15 items for senior applicants. • For junior applicants ONLY: name and email address of two referees (for potential reference).
For additional questions, please send a email to IAS_applications
ceu [dot] edu (IAS_applications[at]ceu[dot]edu)