The Association

The Central European Service for Cross-border Initiatives (CESCI) was established in Budapest in 2009 and in past 10 years it became one of the leading institutions in research, programming and policy making activities related to cross-border cooperation in Central Europe.

The Central European Service for Cross-border Initiatives Balkans (CESCI Balkans) was established in 2015 with a main mission to improve and promote professional cross-border cooperation in the Balkan region. CESCI Balkans works on a strategic level, providing support to institutions, governments in reform processes, institutional development, applied research, integrated strategic, regional or cross-border planning, development of methodologies and guides for planning, development of cross-border integrated territorial investments, development of cross-border territorial date bases, mediation and organization of professional events. The specific methodology developed by CESCI for integrated strategic cross-border planning and management includes all levels and sectors of the society. The institution was involved in multiple large-scale researches, strategic planning and regional development initiatives targeting legal and national/regional frameworks on various topics (e.g. first phase and second phase evaluation of the Hungary-Serbia IPA CBC Programme, Thematic preparation /programming of IPA CBC Programmes 2021-2027 in cooperation with the CESCI office in Budapest).

CESCI aims to bring the best available tools and knowledge in EU and coordinating the cross-border perspectives of the various actions by capacity building and gradual establishment of a strategically planned and managed cross-border management structures.

The management of the organization has over 20 years of experience in large-scale project development and management (over 100 projects) with a wide scope of institutional and donor background: major international donors, various EU, European Commission, Council of Europe, H2020, Interreg, FP7, transnational, foundations, governments, universities, research institutes, etc.).