Civic Education Project (CEP) was an international non-profit organization founded in 1991 by a group of professionals and scholars from America. It was based at

Central European University Central European University (CEU; , ) is a private research university in Vienna. The university offers graduate and undergraduate programs in the social sciences and humanities, which are accredited in Austria and the United States. The univ ...

. It specialized in supporting of promotion of pluralism and international standards in

social sciences Social science (often rendered in the plural as the social sciences) is one of the branches of science, devoted to the study of society, societies and the Social relation, relationships among members within those societies. The term was former ...

education Education is the transmission of knowledge and skills and the development of character traits. Formal education occurs within a structured institutional framework, such as public schools, following a curriculum. Non-formal education als ...

transition countries A transition economy or transitional economy is an economy which is changing from a centrally planned economy to a market economy. Transition economies undergo a set of structural transformations intended to develop market-based institutions. T ...

. Beginning in 1991 with the support from

George Soros George Soros (born György Schwartz; August 12, 1930) is an American investor and philanthropist. , he has a net worth of US$7.2 billion, Note that this site is updated daily. having donated more than $32 billion to the Open Society Foundat ...

through his

Open Society Institute Open Society Foundations (OSF), formerly the Open Society Institute, is an American grantmaking network founded by business magnate George Soros. Open Society Foundations financially supports civil society groups around the world, with the s ...

(OSI), lecturers were sent to teach at eight universities in

Czechoslovakia Czechoslovakia ( ; Czech language, Czech and , ''Česko-Slovensko'') was a landlocked country in Central Europe, created in 1918, when it declared its independence from Austria-Hungary. In 1938, after the Munich Agreement, the Sudetenland beca ...

. This Visiting Lecturers program was expanded throughout Eastern Europe over the next several years. In 1996 the mission of the CEP was enhanced by the addition of the Eastern Scholars program, which assisted regional universities by funding local scholars and encouraging them to stay in academia. The CEP was successful, but in 2003, the OSI, the major funding source of the CEP, suggested that the CEP and Higher Education Support Program-HESP, a similar organization created by the OSI, merge. An independent evaluation was completed and recommendations for a possible merger were made, but the Board of Directors did not move ahead with the merger and, in the absence of their major funding source, decided to cease operation of the CEP in the post-communist countries in 2004.

References

External links

Official website

{{Authority control Non-profit organizations based in Chicago