Teaching Fellows

The CERGE-EI Teaching Fellowships program is designed to address the issue of poor economics education at universities in the CEE/fSU region, one of the most significant barriers to development. By providing salary subsidies, teacher training courses, active mentoring and research support, the program has influenced tens of thousands of economics students since its inception in 2007.

Poor instruction engenders future thinkers, voters, and leaders with distorted or no understanding of modern economic principles. Young people are robbed of a quality education that can aid them in thinking critically about the problems facing their societies. This subsequently impedes the prospects for greater openness, growth, and prosperity in this important part of the world.

The CERGE-EI Teaching Fellows program targets three groups of potential instructors: 

(1) recent Ph.D.s who are interested in long-term academic careers in the region,

(2) Ph.D.s who are employed by private industry or Central Banks and government ministries who can be enticed to teach on a part-time basis, and

(3) advanced current graduate students. It offers supplemental income, preliminary training in classroom teaching (often lacking for university instructors), and extensive connections to the resources and affiliations at CERGE-EI.

Designed to have a maximum impact on economic literacy, the program focuses on basic undergraduate courses at universities in the region. Participants are drawn from CERGE-EI students and alumni as well as students and alumni from other western-oriented programs in the region including the International School of Economics (ISET) at Tbilisi State University, the Kyiv School of Economics (KSE), Central European University (CEU) and CASE-Kyrgyzstan.

In the first year, 2007-08, eleven CERGE-EI Teaching Fellowships were awarded. The response from the teachers and the universities they served was overwhelmingly positive, and each year since, the program has expanded through by the generosity of an anonymous donor to include more Teaching Fellows serving more undergraduate colleges and universities. By the end of Spring 2014, over 60,000 undergraduate students from 63 universities in 21 countries will have participated in modern market economics courses taught by over 100 different CERGE-EI Teaching Fellows, many of whom have been teaching for more than five years. A comprehensive listing of courses taught can be seen here.

Each year a number of three-year post-graduate fellowships are offered to graduates of Western European or North American universities who wish to return to Central and Eastern Europe of the former Soviet Union to assume full-time undergraduate teaching positions. These are referred to as Career Integration Fellowships and applications are accepted to support university teachers all over the CEE/fSU region. For more information institutions interested in hosting a Teaching Fellow or graduates interested in applying for a fellowship should contact: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .