Center for Policy Studies


The Center for Policy Studies is an academic unit within Central European University, dedicated to improving the quality of governance in Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union by the provision of independent public policy analysis and advice.

CPS Profile

The center believes that the experiences of post-socialist transition can be usefully shared with countries enduring great social transformation, but that the translation of these local experiences requires a sound appreciation of policy contexts. The center is committed to strengthen local capacity for critical policy analysis and to pursue research projects and publication that draw on its existing multi-disciplinary resources from law, economics, political science and sociology but also from its connections with open society driven partners. The center conduct interdisciplinary research projects in cooperation with both Central European University and external partners from Europe and beyond on a wide range of topics within four broad research programs. Each program benefits from expertise of CPS staff and a network of external researchers, and usually includes several ongoing research projects. Its research is comparative, methodologically diverse and policy oriented, and provides critical perspectives on the formulation, production and implementation of public policy.

Areas of Research

Since its launch, CPS has been active in the broader field of social diversity and policy responses to status based inequalities. Research and capacity building efforts within the center have mainly concerned gender, disability, ethnicity and race and multiple disadvantages resulting from the intersection of these inequality grounds. The activities within the unit focus on a series of topics such as educational segregation, policy responses to intersecting inequalities and violence against women including domestic violence and trafficking, theory and practice of gender mainstreaming, the impact of the economic crisis on equality policies, radical right ideologies and their implications for equality policies. The center addresses these topics both as research themes and as subjects for policy analysis and capacity building. Since 2003, the center carried out various research projects under the research field. As of 2019, there are four ongoing research projects: Gender Equality Academy , Future Challenges to Education Systems in Central Eastern European Context , Building Resilience Against Violent Extremism and Polarisation and Employment of non-local temporary workers and its impact on local industrial relations in the Hungarian automotive industry.https://cps.ceu.edu/research/local-industrial-relations The details and related publications are available and updated on the CPS website.
CPS advocates that good governance needs to address contemporary forms of representation and participation which are pertinent to the responsiveness of state and private institutions but also the institutional basis for vulnerable people to claim rights and services. The unit's research examines how non-traditional policy actors shape policy processes, how implementation agencies consultative bodies combine state and non-state actors, and offer voice for vulnerable groups and how transnational advocacy networks influence policy development.
The CPS applies its cross-sectoral and multi-actor approaches to address outstanding issues of social policy development in European and post-socialist contexts, often embedding those issues in wider global debates. The Center has developed expertise and gained recognition in investigating interethnic relations in educational systems and policies. It has engaged in larger comparative research projects on European labor markets with special attention to labor market integration of different vulnerable and often discriminated social groups, such as the Roma, migrants, and refugees. Inter-ethnic relations, gender equality, and intergenerational justice issues are investigated in the context of shifting care regimes in Europe. The CPS is also engaged in studying the transformation of labor relations, labor representation, and the governance structure of multinational companies and their subsidiaries in Central and Eastern Europe.
CPS believes that uneven economic development is a cross-cutting field which analyses processes which create major spatial inequalities within between countries. With a special focus on urban/rural divides and the creation of left behind zones, this field of research offers a comparative study of domestic, national and European policy responses.

Publications

CPS Books

The book collection of institutional publications of the Center for Policy Studies include the volumes edited and published by the Center for Policy Studies.
CPS academic staff also publish books through renown publishers, and here they take a very active role in the preparation of volumes, in editing, and in the overall preparation of the manuscript for publication.
This database of public policy documents from Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union is the largest of its kind, with over 1500 papers from over 60 institutes from over 25 countries. The PDC covers a wide range of public policy topics. The majority of papers are produced by think tanks and research institutes although the PDC also includes studies and proposals from several international programs.