The CERGE-EI Foundation's Distance Learning Program (DLP) offers a range of bachelor's and master's-level courses to universities across Eastern Europe and Central Asia, in line with its mission to strengthen economics education in the region. Launched in Spring 2020 with four courses and four partner institutions, the program has grown steadily. Today, we live-stream courses to more than twenty-five institutions in fourteen countries each semester.
The objective of DLP is to provide courses which could be difficult for many institutions to offer, either because of insufficient student demand or because of a shortage of faculty with relevant expertise. Among our most popular courses are Financial Markets, Behavioral Economics, Development Economics, Environmental Economics, and Innovation Economics, and International Trade.
The EU-based faculty (main instructors) are western-qualified and teach DLP courses online in English. They are supported by faculty or PhD students at participating institutions (local instructors): a longer-term objective of the project is to aid local capacity-building.
The simultaneous participation of students from several universities fosters interaction among students from different countries and allows them to experience an international classroom from their home environment.
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Regional Partnership Through the International Visegrad Fund
In Fall 2024, the CERGE-EI Foundation and the Economics Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences expanded the Distance Learning Program into a new project co-financed by Visegrad+ Grants from the International Visegrad Fund. The project develops localized course materials: regional instructors adapt content to the context of students at partner institutions, with support from CERGE-EI mentors. In Fall 2026, the project was awarded Visegrad+ funding again, allowing this work to continue with a second round and new courses.