European University Institute

The European University Institute (EUI) is an international postgraduate and post-doctoral teaching and research institute and an independent body of the European Union with juridical personality, established by the member states to contribute to cultural and scientific development in the social sciences, in a European perspective. EUI is designated as an international organisation. It is located in the hills above Florence in Fiesole, Italy. In 2021, EUI's School of Transnational Governance, with its graduate and executive programmes, moved to the Casino Mediceo di San Marco, which is a late-Renaissance or Mannerist style palace in the historic centre of Florence. History and member states The European University Institute (EUI) was founded in 1972 by the member states of the European Community. The EUI finds its origins in the advocacy for a European institute at the 1948 Hague Conference and the European Conference on Culture the following year in Lausanne. At the 1955 Messina Conference, when the members of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) gathered to assess that organisation's progress, the German secretary of state, Walter Hallstein, called for the establishment of a training centre for nuclear sciences. The idea remained largely dormant until 1969 when European leaders met in The Hague and resolved to fund a European University Institute (EUI) in Florence. By this point the idea had evolved from a centre for nuclear sciences to one focused on the human sciences, promoting a cultural exchange between member states.