About the Centre

The Centre of Excellence in Social Sciences is one of the activities which is being carried out as part of the MEiN programme “Excellence Initiative – Research University” (IDUB). The Centre is ideally suited to the objectives of the IDUB programme, which endeavours to improve the quality of research at the largest Polish universities. Ultimately, the Centre will be a platform that enables interdisciplinary (and crossdisciplinary) research done by representatives of the social sciences at the University of Warsaw, which is an important institution implementing social research in Central and Eastern Europe, and a partner to similar institutions abroad, such as IIASA, Institut für Höhere Studien, the JRC Centre for Advanced Studies, and the Max Planck Institute.

Objectives

The primary objective of CESS is to coordinate interdisciplinary research activities in the field of the social sciences, which are being carried out at the University of Warsaw.

CESS aims to be an institutional platform for supporting research that

• is in accordance with current international trends in the social sciences, in particular those relating to the most important present-day challenges, i.e., inequality, mobility and migration, demographic changes, political changes, digital revolution, mediatisation and systemic risk (among others);
• is open to others (including researchers from outside of the University of Warsaw);
• has the potential to compete with the best scientific activities on a global scale, and also at the level of international grant competitions;
• leads to the creation of scientific publications with global reach;
• is distinguished by its exemplary methodological level;
• has a dimension which goes beyond the organisational units at the University of Warsaw.

The aim of CESS is not to conduct research independently, but to support the development of the best individual researchers at UW and research teams — above all, researchers who aspire to excellence, especially in their methodological and practical competencies, as well as individual researchers and teams who are using advanced quantitative methods.

Activities

CESS will perform its activities through the following:

1. initiating and supporting research at its earliest stages, such as by organising competitions to finance projects for individual researchers and new teams;
2. improving the competencies of the best researchers, through providing funds for researcher mobility, mentoring, and including the best foreign researchers in research teams;
3. increasing the methodological competencies of all interested researchers, i.e., by providing methodological workshops with the best specialists from Poland and abroad, which will be made available to employees and doctoral candidates at the University of Warsaw;
4. supporting and promoting young, promising researchers – employing post-doc researchers on a full-time basis, granting scholarships to students and doctoral candidates, recruiting people from outside the University of Warsaw (post-docs), especially those with experience at foreign universities;
5. activities to promote CESS as a platform which brings together social science researchers (especially with quantitative interests), through organising seminars, international conferences, and summer schools.

Regulations

The Center of Excellence in Social Sciences operates in accordance with the Regulations approved by the Programme Manager of the “Excellence Initiative – Research University” Programme.