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  • Education sub-menuEducation

    With a strong emphasis on student-centered learning, critical literacy, and liberal arts and sciences education, OSUN creates diverse global classrooms of students who learn from each other and collectively develop a culture of dialogue and debate.

    • Teaching
      • Birkbeck Summer School
      • Center for Liberal Arts and Sciences Pedagogy (CLASP)
      • Developing Teaching Professionals
      • Global History Lab
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      • Hannah Arendt Humanities Network
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    • Curricula
      • CORUSUS
      • Economic Democracy Initiative
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      • Human Rights Program
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      • Strengthening the Core
      • Transnational Politics
      • Transnational Feminism, Solidarity, and Social Justice
  • Research sub-menuResearch

    OSUN promotes collaboration across its partner institutions, including the codesign of research projects, to explore issues of global and local relevance through socially engaged research, interdisciplinary collaboration, or comparative research.

    • Research Projects
      • The Democracy Institute
      • Economic Democracy Initiative
      • Engaged Scholarship
      • GEOHUB
      • Global Institute of Advanced Study
      • Global Observatory on Academic Freedom
      • Interruptrr
      • Open Society Research Platform
      • Research Creation Initiative
      • Senior Projects
    • Fellowships
      • Chatham House Academy Fellowships
      • Global Scholars Academy
      • Modular Doctoral Program
  • Access sub-menuAccess

    OSUN expands access to higher education by creating new pathways for underserved communities. Academic integration and connected learning bring educational opportunities to students beyond OSUN’s brick-and-mortar campuses.

    • Teacher Education
      • Enhanced Network Teacher Education Capacity
      • Hubs for Connected Learning Initiatives
    • Education Pathways
      • Collaborative for Liberal Education for Adolescents
      • English Learner Success in Content Classrooms
      • Hubs for Connected Learning Initiatives
      • Microcollege for Just Community Leadership
      • OLIve
      • Roma Equity in Higher Education
      • The Socrates Project
  • Civic sub-menuCivic Engagement

    With a belief in the public purpose of higher education, civic engagement across OSUN promotes best practices and bold new initiatives to help students, faculty, and institutions realize their full potential as community actors and educators.

    • Student Engagement
      • Global Commons
      • Global Debate Network
      • Global Fellows
      • Get Engaged Conference
      • Online Arts Workshop
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      • Student Life Initiatives Project (SLIP)
    • Engaged Learning
      • Certificate in Civic Engagement
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      • Engaged Senior Projects
      • OSUN Science Shop
      • Solve Climate by 2030
  • News sub-menuNews, Events, + Opportunities

    OSUN offers myriad opportunities and events to undergraduate and graduate students, researchers and scholars, and faculty. News and features provide updates on project impacts and the people involved.

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  • About sub-menuAbout OSUN

    OSUN aims to educate students for tomorrow’s global challenges, fostering critical thinking and open intellectual inquiry to strengthen the foundations of open society amid the current authoritarian resurgence.

    • About OSUN
      • Our Vision
      • Who We Are
      • What We Do
      • Member Institutions
      • Themes
      • Annual Report
  • Search
Main Image for Open Society Research Platform

Open Society Research Platform

Research Menu
  • Research Projects
    • The Democracy Institute
    • Economic Democracy Initiative
    • Engaged Scholarship
    • GEOHUB
    • Global Institute of Advanced Study
    • Global Observatory on Academic Freedom
    • Interruptrr
    • Open Society Research Platform
    • Research Creation Initiative
    • Senior Projects
  • Fellowships
    • Chatham House Academy Fellowships
    • Global Scholars Academy
    • Modular Doctoral Program
As a political and philosophical concept, “open society” has its origins in the work of Henri Bergson and Karl Popper, which gained momentum and sparked active debate in the post-war period. In recent years, however, the idea(l) of open society has moved to the margins in public debate, academia, and policy literature. The Open Society Research Platform (OSRP) is devoted to this multi-faceted concept because it is essential to OSUN’s mission and because the ideal of open society can serve as a much-needed compass to orient our thought and inspire action in the contemporary world.

Our Work in 2021-22

The OSRP seeks to identify the multiple and often diverging applications of the concept of open society in theory and practice; to offer a rigorous analysis of the scholarly discussions around this complex idea; and to probe the institutional and political implications of different open society discourses. We expect that our work will help revitalize the debate on open society, making it more vibrant and relevant to today’s challenges. 

OSRP supports and contributes to inter- and trans-disciplinary scholarly research and public debate on open society as an intellectual and policy tool, albeit with a critical orientation.

The first step of a sophisticated analysis of open society is to generate a detailed picture of the current state of academic research on the concept and its practical application. Our first year is guided by three specific purposes: 
 
1. To map academic and public debates on the concept of open society and to develop a comprehensive picture of research in the social sciences and humanities since the end of the Cold War. 

2. To map open society’s operationalization in organizational and institutional contexts and to analyze how this contributes to the re-interpretation of the concept.

3. To map the scope of open society, addressing the question of whether or not open society “travels beyond the West” and if there exists something like a “global open society.”

This year, OSRP is hosting a series of workshops in which new insights on open society can be exchanged. Our reading group for OSUN graduate students connects mid-20th century thinkers, such as Popper, Arendt, Polanyi, or Benjamin to today’s formidable challenges. A major conference near the end of 2021 will bring together leading and emerging scholars from various disciplines to discuss dimensions of open society. 

OSRP Website

Opportunities and Events

Leadership

Volha Biziukova, CEU
Christof Royer, CEU

For more information, email us at:
[email protected] 
[email protected]

Open Society University Network
For more information contact: 
[email protected]