INTRODUCTION

The International and Regional Studies Institute (IRSI) of the University of Szeged was founded under the name European Studies Centre in 1998 with Phare support as part of a national network, based on the agreement between the Delegation of the European Commission to Hungary and the Hungarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The most important tasks of IRSI are:

1. Providing European Union modules (community law, economic and political integration, history of the institutional system, etc.) within already existing training programmes, fields of specialisation on graduate and postgraduate level;
2. Offering EU courses in postgraduate education;
3. Training experts and organising further education for them;
4. Research programmes (doctoral and professorial researches);
5. Organisation of events, conferences on different EU related subjects;
6. Cooperation with research groups dealing with the European Union in Hungary and abroad;
7. Keeping in touch with central and local governmental organisations and NGOs, (foundations, ITDH, regional agencies, etc.), cooperation building in European Union related subject;
8. Contribution to the planning and implementation of projects.

Our objective is to educate experts speaking several languages, properly informed about European Union matters, who can represent the interests of their employer, their own enterprise or the country, in an environment changed by EU accession.

A further aim of IRSI is to operate as an intellectual workshop that ensures wider publicity for the up-to-date political, economic and social aspects of integration following the European Union accession of Hungary.