Center for Policy Studies

The Center for Policy Studies (CPS) 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 strengthening local capacity for critical policy analysis and pursues research and publication that is interdisciplinary and carried out with partners in the global policy community, particularly in Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. CPS cooperates with institutes and researchers from Europe and beyond on a wide range of projects within eight broad research programs (see following). Each program benefits from expertise by CPS staff and a network of external researchers, and usually includes several ongoing research projects.

Areas of Research

• Equality and Social Justice

CPS has been active from its launch 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.

• European Public Policy

European integration, its drivers and consequences is a broad theme that cross-cuts many of the center's projects, either in terms of an empirical focus on one or several European countries or in terms of an interest in the mechanisms through which the EU and its institutions impact on policies and policy processes in the member states and neighboring countries.

• Policy Actors and Governance

The main focus of CPS research within the larger governance field is on non-traditional policy actors and government accountability and transparency related policy issues.

• Rural and Regional Policy

Should rural development be pursued through regional policy? This research field explores current overlaps, institutional changes and the implications they have for the development of the countryside.

• Social Policy

CPS has started to address some outstanding issues related to social policy. Inter-ethnic relations, minority rights and social, economic and political inclusion of minority ethnic groups are broad issues that are brought up by a number of activities of CPS and crosscut its various investigations.

• States and Markets

The research area focuses on cultural encounters in the European economy, economic policy and sciences in the context of post-socialist transformations and economic and cultural globalization, and contributes to comparative inquiries on the transformations of the labor relations and the governance of multinational companies and their subsidiaries in different sectors in Central and Easter Europe.

The Policy Documentation Center (PDC)

CPS has published several volumes of policy research, runs its own policy paper series and offers an on-line library of policy documents from Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union: the Policy Documentation Center.

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.

External links

• The Center for Policy Studies
• The Policy Documentation Center
• The Department of Public Policy, Central European University
• Central European University