Call for Course Proposals 

CEU Summer University (SUN) 
Budapest, July 1 – July 31, 2024 

If you are interested in applying to any of our courses as a participant, please visit our course listing here. 

Those who wish to propose a course with a team of faculty for 2024 should follow the guidelines below. (The application process for 2023 is closed.)

Call for Course Proposals 

Program description

The Summer University (SUN) of CEU is the extension of the university’s mission of promoting research, teaching, and social engagement by hosting high-level, research-oriented, interdisciplinary, and innovative academic courses in the social sciences and the humanities as well as workshops on policy issues and professional development. The short, intensive courses, developed and taught collaboratively by teams of distinguished international scholars (including faculty of CEU and OSUN partner institutions), experts and practitioners, are aimed at global audiences including advanced undergraduates, graduate students, junior or post-doctoral researchers, junior faculty, and professionals. The teaching teams' joint expertise is shared with participants in a comparative framework during the summer courses.

SUN courses cater to the various needs of academic and professional development in the social sciences and humanities across a wide spectrum of disciplines. These include anthropology, cognitive science, comparative religion, cultural heritage, environmental sciences, gender studies, history, environmental sciences and policy, international relations, cultural, legal, media and medieval studies, mediation, philosophy, political science, public policy, sociology, etc. The program encourages topics in newly emerging fields.

Past SUN courses addressed topical issues: inequalities, conflict resolution, interethnic relations, migration, nationalism and transnationalism, globalization, human rights, climate change and sustainability, urban development, Romani identities, religion and politics, use of geospatial technologies for environmental decision and policymaking, among others. A segment of courses aimed to develop innovative curricula and pedagogical approaches in traditional disciplines, including medieval studies, philosophy, music, and arts. The courses combine the focus on general theoretical frameworks and approaches to research and application embedded in the context of the countries/regions the course participants come from.
 
The program builds on CEU's recognized academic excellence regional expertise and resources, enhanced by the diverse global network of OSUN partners, and provides space for academic networking between junior and senior scholars from a wide range of institutions and discipline areas, often with long-term outcomes such as collaborative research and teaching projects, joint publications, civic engagement projects, etc.
 
Courses typically last one or two (consecutive) weeks. Based on the CEU credit hour system, each course has a teaching load of 24 hours (1,200 minutes) per week of classroom work, complemented by independent reading and extracurricular activities. 
 
The SUN program is based in Budapest, CEU’s original home, thus supporting its commitment to maintaining a vibrant free space for exchange, debate, and collaboration, continuous access of academic partners globally to its state-of-the-art campus and resources, and active engagement with civil society, intellectual and artistic community partners. Wherever possible, the courses take advantage of the Budapest location through engagement with local scholars, visiting sites and organizations relevant to the course topic, and taking the participants on field trips where they receive first-hand experiences on the issues the course is exploring.

Course Types

The program offers the following type of courses:

(1) research-focused/intensive collaborations co-led by CEU and OSUN partner faculty, with the involvement of further invited faculty and experts. Courses are collaboratively developed and delivered in partnerships among academics and professionals from institutions in the Global South and the Global North; 

(2) policy, professional, and community-oriented programs/courses;

(3) skills-oriented training courses; and

(4) courses that contribute to ongoing OSUN educational and curricular initiatives (such as certificate programs and network collaborative courses) that advance curriculum planning, enhancement, and pedagogical experimentation within these programs. 

Cooperation partner

Since 2020, the CEU Summer University program has been integral to the Open Society University Network (OSUN) and aims to serve the themes- and skills-building needs of OSUN faculty, staff, and students benefitting from the generous support of the Open Society Foundations to developing the courses and enabling the diverse cohorts of participants through a scholarship scheme available to the participants from low-resource contexts. 

We also encourage course teams to create new partnerships between CEU and their academic and professional institutions, networks, foundations, and interested sponsors supporting their fields.

How to submit a SUN course proposal?

Click on the Guidelines to find out more about the program details and on how to design a course that matches CEU’s priorities and funding schemes. For OSUN-SUN collaborative proposals consult the OSUN priorities.

Downloadable required attachments

For detailed instructions please read the Guidelines.

 

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