About us

The pandemic reaching Central Europe in early March forced us to review our plans and reschedule our favourite project, the Antall József Summer School. As our programme is based on community building, professional networking, as well as alternative educational forms are often used during the programme, organising the event on-line was not an option for us. We know that events like this depend on a lot of factors and we also know that making plans or organising international travelling is not easy in these days, but we are full of hope that we can meet personally (respecting strict health measures) and discuss current questions in person with the help of our internationally acknowledged experts.

The Antall József Autumn Seminar is not replacing the Antall József Summer School—it is an alternative for it, making possible for outstanding young experts to come to Budapest and learn more about Central Europe under the umbrella of an almost ten-year-old educational programme, the Antall József Summer School. Therefore, the aims and mission of AJAS are the same with AJSS, just the name and the dates are different this year.

Launched in 2013, the Antall József Summer School is a twelve-day programme focusing on one of the most important regional partnerships of Europe, the Visegrad Cooperation. Through traditional and more interactive forms of education, including lectures, workshops, debates, roundtable discussions, and short trainings, the event series, organised annually, provides a profound analysis of the Visegrad Cooperation’s history, economy, energy policy, foreign and security policy, and sustainable development policy, as well as its business and innovation-related activities.

As the Antall József Summer School, the Autumn seminar is also more than a two-week alternative educational programme. As talent management is a crucial part of AJKC’s portfolio, the Antall József Summer School is structured in a way so as to serve this mission, too. Our aim is to support talent and give opportunities to young experts who are keen on developing professionally. The fifth anniversary of the AJSS in 2017 provided us with the chance to establish the AJSS Alumni Society and launch our AJSS Alumni Leadership Programme and the Alumni Leadership Talks Series. 

The AJSS Alumni Society is a network of participants of the previous instalments of AJSS. The majority of our former participants are either successful researchers or faculty members at various universities in Europe or North America, or they are building their career in public administration, diplomacy, or the private sector. 

The Alumni Leadership Forum is an event organised in every two years to support outstanding former participants in their professional career. Our aim with the programme is to address those academically or professionally advanced former participants who have leadership potential and further aspiration to rise. In addition, we aim to develop a hub of talented young experts with high potential, who are dealing in their work with the Visegrad Cooperation and the broader Central and Eastern European region. During the Alumni Leadership Programme, we give them the opportunity to meet important decision makers, develop their leadership skills, and initiate new projects together.

The Alumni Leadership Talks Series is an event organised annually as part of AJSS. Every year, we invite our former participants to attend AJSS as speakers and lecturers and present their results.

Operating since 2010, the Antall József Knowledge Centre (AJKC) is a Budapest-based non-governmental organisation with an educational, publishing, and research profile. The Knowledge Centre’s main objectives, in line with the Antall philosophy, are talent management and providing students and young professionals with wide-ranging practical knowledge through various events. The Knowledge Centre is a think tank conducting research in topics such as the Visegrad Cooperation, the future global role of the US, China, and the Middle East, security policy, sustainable development, as well as technological and social innovation.

Our institution operates three international departments—dealing with the EU and the V4, Transatlantic relations and security policy, and Asia and Africa—a thematic department—focusing on talent management and innovation,—two regional offices in Pécs and Győr, as well as the Brussels Office, all of which are working toward strengthening institutional relations both at the national and international level, developing scholarship and internship programmes, and boosting professional cooperation via international conferences, workshops, and event series.

The publishing activities of AJKC involve releasing professional publications, scientific works on political and social sciences (with special regard to security policy and international relations), as well as university textbooks.

The European Union and the Visegrad Cooperation are one of the cornerstones of the Knowledge Centre’s activities, given the fact that József Antall, the first freely-elected Prime Minister of Hungary who served from 1990 to 1993 and the namesake of the institution, initiated the revival of the V4 partnership and considered European integration as a factor playing a key role in the future of Hungary.

The EU-V4 Office organises various educational and professional programmes to a wider international audience, including workshops for both students and experts, EU career orientation presentations, and negotiation-simulation competitions. The Office also aims to release books and publications and conduct research that focus on the EU and the V4 Cooperation. Establishing and maintaining good relations with the institutions of the German- and French-speaking countries, as well as building a network that covers all of Europe and all Brussels-based EU institutions are the major objectives of the Office.