Articles
An Outline of CERGE-EI´s Quarter-Century-Long History
CERGE-EI was founded shortly after the Velvet revolution as a modern, US-style center of economics research and graduate education. In 1990, Josef Zieleniec, a member of the Academy of Sciences and later the Czech government minister, together with Czech émigré Jan Švejnar, then a professor at the University of Pittsburgh, considered it essential to establish a world-class educational facility that would serve the entire transition region.
In September 1991 CERGE-EI enrolled its first 12 students, from 7 countries. 25 years later, over 500 graduates from more than 50 countries have earned their graduate degrees here, enabling them to acquire prestigious jobs in academia, central banks, governmental and international organizations or in the private sector.
First-Class Research
Nowadays, CERGE-EI is recognized as a center of excellence in economics research and graduate education. In global research rankings, CERGE-EI stands in the top 5% according to the Research Papers in Economics (RePEc) and the top 10% according to the Social Science Research Network (SSRN). Faculty and researchers maintain a high pace of publication in leading impact-ranked journals, regularly including the top 5 economics journals.
From Graduate Studies and Think-Tank IDEA to Teaching Programs
Today, CERGE-EI receives hundreds of study applications. Its graduate study programs include the flagship PhD in Economics and MA in Applied Economics. However, CERGE-EI has had a strong impact not only by means of providing top education to graduate students, but also through spreading its know-how across the transition region. By means of the Teaching Fellows program, CERGE-EI faculty members, advanced students and alumni have, since 2007, taught about 1,100 courses at 90 universities, educating nearly 57,000 undergraduates of economics throughout Central and Eastern Europe.
Since 2009, CERGE-EI runs a policy-oriented think-tank IDEA. The Institute for Democracy and Economic Analysis (IDEA)conducts applied research, contributes to important economic policy issues and raises its impact among policy and opinion makers. IDEA has published more than 70 policy studies to date. The studies regularly attract the attention of Czech experts and general audiences, thus significantly shaping the policy and public discourse.
On top of that, CERGE-EI serves both the Prague-based academic and general audiences by sharing its academic expertise. Economists, public policy makers, business professionals, students from other schools or the general public can take advantage of its outstanding facilities such as the biggest economics library in the region with over 100,000 items. Various activities have been open to everyone, with hundreds of seminars, conferences, learning and discovery hubs and countless public lectures hosting top experts and academics, including 14 Nobel Laureates.
Goals for the Future
Goals for the years ahead shaped by CERGE-EI´s mission are equally ambitious: to continue in building a recognized center of economics education, expanding the pool of elite economists beyond Central and Eastern Europe, and producing and disseminating top-tier economics research.
To commemorate the anniversary, CERGE-EI shall organize numerous events throughout the entire year, many of which are open to the public.
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