The mission of the John Lukacs Institute for Strategy and Politics

As of 1 January 2024, the John Lukacs Institute for Strategy and Politics was established at the Ludovika University of Public Service under the auspices of the Eötvös József Research Centre. Three former institutes of the University, the Institute for American Studies, the Institute for Strategic Studies and the Institute for Strategic and Defence Studies decided to continue their research in this new framework.

The intellectual legacy of the Institute's namesake, the Hungarian-born historian John Lukacs, is invaluable to the field of history. As a renowned lecturer in the history department of Chestnut Hill College in Pennsylvania and visiting professor at Columbia, Johns Hopkins and Princeton Universities from 1946 until his death in 2019, Lukacs taught several generations and influenced both American and European historians and political thought through his thought and works. Throughout his career, he insightfully commented the developments in the international political system and the changes in great power relations.

The John Lukacs Institute aims to preserve this academic legacy and to enhance our comprehension of the current escalating competition among major powers, the underlying factors influencing international politics from a Hungarian standpoint. The Institute’s research activities and publications provide a better understanding of the complexities of international security policy, those of the transatlantic relations in particular.  As an academic entity of the University, the Institute finds it particularly important to disseminate its research findings in the international academic and educational networks.

The mission of the John Lukacs Institute is to organise and implement strategic research and programmes affecting Hungary's international relations. The Institute’s experts focus on the historical understanding of systemic change in global power relations, interpreting power rivalries, and the drawing of strategic and security policy conclusions. The Institute runs separate research programmes to organise specific priority research, with a particular focus on the Americas Research Programme and the Strategic Defence Research Programme, and the newly launched China and the Indo-pacific Region Research Programme. The Institute also organises international consultations, conferences and workshops.

The other priority training project is the College of Visegrad+ programme, the long-term goal of which is to develop a college of leadership training at Ludovika, focusing on young people from the Visegrad Cooperation countries. In the short term, by organising small weekend camps, it aims to give young people and future leaders from the Visegrad countries a better understanding of each other's culture, history and views on current challenges, thus promoting a better understanding of each other and closer and more constructive cooperation in the future.