The Rajk László College for Advanced Studies

The Rajk László College for Advanced Studies is in one respect an educational institution connected to the Corvinus University of Budapest, having its autonomy in self-governance, on the other hand, it is also a democratic community of students living together. The college members have the same rights and engagements that other students of the University have, but over and above those they cooperate in fulfilling the own mission of the College's.

The College was founded in 1970 by the students of the university. The main purpose of the College has been ever since to provide members with a wide range of possibilities for professional, social and political self-education and activity. They believe that the basic outline of the mission of the institution established at the time of foundation is still valid, though several elements of its contents have gone through substantial changes. The main elements of the mission have always been

• to provide opportunities for the students to achieve a high professional standard,
• to educate students to be well informed and socially sensitive intellectuals,
• to operate a democratic community and through that to raise the need and to teach the tools for an active citizen's life.

The members of the College named the institution after László Rajk, who was a martyr of the communist regime (although he was a communist himself). This naming was a brave action in the early 1970s, since it expressed a strong critical attitude toward the existing social and political system of the time. This critical way of looking at things remained an essential characteristics of the College and it is always mentioned among the fundamental values held by college members. As a result, the college and its members have played important role in preparing and assisting the transformation of Hungary to a democratic country with a market economy.

In 1995 the members established the John von Neumann Award which is given annually to an outstanding scholar in exact social sciences whose works have had substantial influence over a long period of time on the studies and intellectual activity of our students. The Award was given until now to the following scholars:

• 1995 John Harsanyi (UC Berkeley)
• 1996 Hal Varian (at the time University of Michigan)
• 1997 Janos Kornai (Harvard University and Budapest College)
• 1998 Jean Tirole (University of Toulouse)
• 1999 Oliver Williamson (UC Berkeley)
• 2001 Avinash K. Dixit (Princeton University)
• 2002 Jon Elster (Columbia University)
• 2003 Maurice Obstfeld (UC Berkeley)
• 2004 Gary S. Becker (University of Chicago)
• 2005 Glenn C. Loury (Brown University)
• 2006 Matthew Rabin (UC Berkeley)
• 2007 Daron Acemoglu (MIT)
• 2008 Kevin M. Murphy (University of Chicago)

External links

• http://www.rajk.uni-corvinus.hu/index.php?page=public&c=english
• http://www.tek.bke.hu/
• http://criticalmass.hu/english
• http://hungary.indymedia.org/