Hungary: Visegrad Scholarship at Blinken OSA Archivum
The Visegrad Scholarship at Blinken OSA Archivum (Budapest, Hungary) supports 8-week research stays (shorter stays pro-rated) for scholars and socially engaged artists working with the Archivum’s Cold War and post-Cold War collections. Each grant is 3.000,00€, intended to cover travel, accommodation and living costs.
Next application deadline: July 25, 2026 (for the 2026/2027 academic year).
For 2026/2027 the overarching theme is “Naming Reality”, focusing on how political and social realities were described, obscured, contested, and documented during the Cold War and after 1989. The call encourages projects on truth-telling, censorship, propaganda, samizdat, dissidence, ideological language, critical/grassroots archiving, human rights monitoring, expert knowledge under information shortages, and the post-1989 re-evaluation of socialist-era diagnoses. Applicants should explicitly connect their project to this theme and identify relevant Blinken OSA holdings (subfonds and series, as specifically as possible).
Eligibility: applicants must hold an MA in the social sciences or humanities (no citizenship restriction). The program particularly welcomes socially engaged artists, journalists, scholars at risk, and refugees of conscience. The scholarship can support diverse outputs: academic work (articles, PhD theses), as well as novels, films, exhibitions, plays, and other research-based artistic projects. Artistic projects must be clearly research-based and feasible with OSA collections; the Archivum supports research, not production.
Required application materials (all in one merged PDF, submitted via the online Application Form):
Application letter in English, specifying the expected period of stay and how you found out about the scholarship.
Research description/plan in English (about 800 words), including: introduction; current stage of research; key literature; preliminary hypothesis; research questions; identification of relevant Blinken OSA documents/collections. Artists must also attach a portfolio and clearly indicate the collections used.
Curriculum Vitae.
Proof of advanced-level English (unless native speaker or holder of a degree from an English-language institution).
Names and contact details of two referees (no letters required).
The Blinken OSA Archivum is a major archive of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and related Cold War and post-Cold War collections (including Soviet Red Archives, Samizdat Archives, Soviet Research Department, Western Press Archives, propaganda film collections, records on the 1956 Hungarian Revolution, human rights documentation, Roma and disability-related collections, and various dissident and NGO archives).
Key contacts and information:
Academic coordinator: Ioana Macrea-Toma – macrea-tomai@ceu.edu
Administrative coordinator: Katalin Gadoros – gadoros@ceu.edu
Program details and application form: https://archivum.org/academics/visegrad-scholarship-at-osa