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For a week at the end of June, the Ludovika University of Public Service (LUPS) in Budapest turned into a meeting point for young European researchers. From 29 June to 3 July 2026, doctoral students from across the continent gathered for an intensive Summer University built around the European Union's Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP).
The course was organised by the European Security and Defence College (ESDC), together with LUPS's Department of International Security Studies. The Department's contribution was led by Professor Dr. Anna Molnár, Head of the Department and Associate Professor Dr. Éva Jakusné Harnos.
The Summer University sits within the training structure of the European Security and Defence College. The ESDC is an autonomous EU body that has been training civilian and military personnel in CSDP since 2005. Rather than a single institution, it operates as a network of roughly 270 academic partners from across the Union.
This year, PhD students from Albania, Italy, Portugal, Spain, Romania, Greece and Hungary made their way to Budapest. Before the residential week began, every participant had to work through a dedicated e-learning programme, which served as a foundation for the lectures that followed.
The programme opened on the Monday with welcome remarks from Professor Molnár and Maria Grazia Romano, representing the ESDC. Dr. Fergal Ó Regan, Head of the ESDC, opened with a keynote on EU–NATO relations, before Major General Dr. Gábor Horváth of the EU Military Staff and Dr. Ralf Roloff of the George C. Marshall Center took the group through recent developments in CSDP and the shifting strategic landscape. Throughout the week-long programme, topics of discussion included the CEPOL's role in CSDP missions, European defence-industrial cooperation, the cybersecurity lessons emerging from the war in Ukraine, and cognitive warfare and foreign information manipulation and interference (FIMI). Besides theoretical sessions, the participants developed abstracts in thematic groups and visited Buda Castle while also experiencing Hungarian culture and traditions.
Text: Eszter Szenes
Photo: Dénes Szilágyi