Intellectual Themes Initiative

CEU has launched the University-wide Intellectual Themes Initiative (ITI) as part of a process to explore and develop a new institutional mission that would take into account the accelerating rate of change of the contemporary world and the overwhelming growth in available information about it. The University needs to educate students and conduct research on how to navigate through this complexity. The challenge ahead is to find the best way to integrate existing resources, use the wisdom of the disciplines and the strengths of separate units in an inspiring and productive academic enterprise. Therefore, the University is seeking to respond by initiating the University-wide Intellectual Themes Initiative and inviting its faculty members, student, administrative staff and external partners to propose joint ideas for tackling complex societal issues.

The University-wide Intellectual Themes Initiative is built around themes that serve as federative platforms encompassing a range of teaching and research activities across the University, as well as civic engagement and outreach initiatives. They have been formulated to address complex issues requiring new interdisciplinary or multi-disciplinary approaches to teaching and research.

For inquiries about the Intellectual Themes Initiate or University-wide Seminar series please write to iti@ceu.edu.

News

Tackling complex societal issues in the modern world is often best done through a multidisciplinary approach. In order to use the most up-to-date resources and to help coax academics out of their disciplinary silos, CEU kicked off the Intellectual Themes Initiative (ITI) in 2015. ITI involves a number of programs including University-wide courses that combine the expertise of academics from different fields. New courses are offered each semester and are open to all CEU students.

For energy transition to succeed, it's not enough to be viable on a technological and economic level, it must also be politically feasible, panelists concluded at a university-wide seminar held April 27 as part of the Intellectual Themes Initiative at CEU.

In recent years there has been an explosion of work on sound by researchers in the social sciences and humanities. Highly interdisciplinary and often undertaken in cooperation with those outside academia, from musicians to professionals, the field of sound studies is increasingly diverse, daring and exciting.

CEU academic staff members are invited to submit proposals for new teaching, research, or civic engagement projects starting in AY 17/18 under the fourth call of the Intellectual Themes Initiative (ITI). The next deadline for submission of project proposals is April 28, 2017.

At the suggestion of the Strategic Development Committee, we would like to mention that ITI is a privileged vehicle for developing and offering university-wide courses.

CEU's Center for Religious Studies (CRS), with the support of the CEU Intellectual Themes Initiative, announces a University-wide Doctoral Seminar series entitled Reason, Unreason and Nature in Religion.

This is a regular 12-session seminar from January 19 through March 2017  with eight external speakers featuring renown international scholars from a range of fields, presenting unique perspectives on the central theme.