Organized by the Institute of Advanced Studies Kőszeg (iASK) and the Institute for Social and European Studies (ISES), in cooperation with the University of Pannonia.

Since 1996 the international summer university has been a great opportunity for experts, activists, practitioners, policy makers, researchers, social scientists and students to meet and discuss contemporary challenges and international cooperation.

The International Summer University will focus on the creation, accumulation and dissemination of new knowledge. Through a multidisciplinary approach, we will engage with the complex relationship between political, ideological, economic and cultural dynamics of integration and disintegration in Europe. Politicians, social scientists, practitioners, cultural heritage experts and artists will ensure an exciting experience for participants. We invite students to apply who are interested in local, national, regional, and transnational processes in a diverse and changing European space.

30 years have passed since the fall of the Berlin Wall and former communist countries from Central and Eastern Europe took the path to (re)democratization. The process of EU accession began initially with enthusiasm and optimism in the early 1990s, as it was seen as paving the way towards a united, democratic Europe. However, the EU has faced and is facing both internal and external challenges (monetary crisis, unequal economic integration, migration crisis, Brexit) which put into question the very idea of liberal democracy. Some of the leadership of the Visegrad Four are increasingly at odds with EU leadership, and the ghosts of the 1990s haunt the Western Balkans candidate states. Increasing cleavages and conflicts on complex issues (economic convergence, security and migration) have resulted in sharpening divisions between North and South, East and West.

The idea behind this year’s summer university is to reevaluate the achievements and challenges of CEE and Western Balkans in the last 30 years with discussions between senior scholars, who have lived through and researched the transitions in CEE, and young researchers/students who face the current challenges intellectually and existentially. The envisioned outcome is a publication of an edited volume containing essays written by the young scholars as a result of these discussions, containing historical overviews of the developments in the last 30 years and visions of the future in the next 30 years.