Collegium Intermarium: a new university connecting academics from Central Europe

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Collegium Intermarium is the first university registered in Poland after the great reform of the higher education system. Its mission is to build a platform of co-operation between academics from the countries of the Intermarium region. Multilingual study courses will start in October.

The flagship subject at the university is law. In addition, an English postgraduate LL.M. course on the subject of human rights was launched, the first of its kind in Central Europe. Following the model of Anglo-Saxon universities, the university plans a broad scholarship programme that will exempt outstanding students from all kinds of tuition fees.

Collegium Intermarium will be opened by the Minister of Education, Science and Higher Education Przemysław Czarnek during the inauguration conference on 28^th May. Among the panellists of the event, there will be leading politicians from our region, including the former Czech President and Prime Minister Vaclav Klaus, the Polish Deputy Prime Minister Piotr Gliński and the Hungarian Minister of Justice Judit Varga. The conference will also be attended by the world’s most outstanding intellectuals, such as Rod Dreher – the author of The Benedict Option and John Paul II’s adviser, Princess Ingrid Detter de Frankopan, Lady Caroline Cox sitting in the UK’s House of Lords, the Polish sociologist Andrzej Zybertowicz and the French philosopher Chantal Delsol. Representatives of the judiciary will also take the floor, including Tamas Sulyok – the president of the Hungarian Constitutional Tribunal and Francisco Javier Borrego Borrego from Spain – the longtime judge of the European Court of Human Rights.

The university lecturers also include András Lánczi – the rector of the Matthias Corvinus University in Budapest, the French law theoretician Gregor Puppinck, and the Croatian philosopher and parliamentarian Stephen Bartulica. Classes will also be conducted by judges of the Polish Supreme Administrative Court and common courts and by experienced legal practitioners.

– Collegium Intermarium was founded as a response to the deepening crisis of academic life. It refers to the classic perception of the university as a space of free debate and courageous search for truth. Each student will learn in the tutoring system under the eye of an experienced mentor – a research worker from Poland or abroad. We bring the best study and research organisation practices that have been used for many years, for example, in the United States,’ stresses Tymoteusz Zych, the rector of Collegium Intermarium.

The new university will be based on the experience of expert organisations and think tanks, including the Ordo Iuris Institute, whose experts are members of the teaching and research staff. Apart from education, its task is to create a platform for international debate and bold research concerning key social, legal and economic challenges that our region faces.

In addition, already in the first year of its operation, the university launches a specialised postgraduate study course addressed to experienced lawyers that deals with such subjects as new evidence gathering techniques, contractual negotiations and public procurement orders. The university also offers a rhetoric study course addressed to participants of public life.