Central European University (CEU) is an internationally recognized institution of post-graduate education in social sciences and humanities. It serves as an advanced center of research and policy analysis and facilitates academic dialogue while preparing its graduates to serve as the region's next generation of leaders and scholars.

CEU seeks to contribute to the development of open societies in Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union by promoting a system of education in which ideas are creatively, critically, and comparatively examined. However, it has also become clear over the last decade that Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union are not the only parts of the world experiencing the development of more open societies. In response to this spreading democratization, the university continues to focus on individuals and organizations in the region while extending the CEU Fellowship Program worldwide.

CEU has an absolute charter from the Board of Regents of the University of the State of New York , for and on behalf of the New York State Education Department. It is accredited by the Commission on Higher Education of the Middle State Association of Colleges and Schools and has been recognized by the Hungarian Parliament as a Hungarian non-state university. CEU ‘s unique combination of American, Western European and regional intellectual and academic traditions enables to university to place central emphasis on the shifting boundaries between the local and the universal in the theoretical as well as the practical aspects of research and teaching.