Think Tank Young Professional Development Program

Open Society Foundations’ Think Tank Young Professional Development Program

Human capital is the biggest asset of each and every think tank. In securing reliable and high-quality researchers, think tanks compete with much more powerful competitors, i.e. governments, state agencies, private companies, banks, and consulting companies. The region’s think tanks, therefore, have to devise special motivation strategies to retain existing staff and attract new talented individuals to opt for this career. Despite being present in the public life, think tanks constitute a small part of civil society and are often not the first choice to fresh graduates who are interested in embarking on research/policy careers.

With this initiative the Think Tank Fund aims at supporting up to 15 “returnees” per year to assume posts in think tanks interested in attracting young staff. With these activities, young and talented people should be helped to enter the region’s think tanks, provide additional capacity building with talented returnees getting engaged in policy-relevant research, analysis, and advocacy under the guidance of experienced staff, and assist think tanks in recruiting new talent into their ranks.

The Think Tank Young Professional Development Program intends to attract recent graduates of MA and PhD programs in the social sciences and humanities to selected think tanks in Central and Eastern Europe, South Eastern Europe, and the former Soviet Union, giving them an opportunity to gain first-hand policy research and advocacy experience at a renowned think tank in the region. The program is designed to benefit both young returning professionals and their host organizations. It enables participating think tanks to recruit young researchers originally from the region who recently graduated from universities in the OECD countries, including the Central European University in Hungary. Depending on a research topic, individual programs at hosting organizations will last up to six months and start from November 2014.