Eötvös Loránd University, the oldest continuously operating university in Hungary, was founded in the rural town of Nagyszombat in 1635 by Cardinal Péter Pázmány. It serves the interests of research and first quality higher education rooted in European tradition.

The mission of ELTE is to preserve and increase national and universal culture and literacy, to cultivate science, to pass on scientific knowledge, and to express and fulfil the substantive, long-term needs of Hungarian society as well as Humanity as a whole.

ELTE aims at training accomplished intellectuals in possession of state-of-the-art knowledge, who:

  • are able to recognize and analyse problems; to work out possible solutions and to make responsible decisions;
  • are looking for consensus, understanding and respecting different cultures;
  • are aware of individual responsibility for the future of their narrower environment as well as Hungary, Europe and for the whole of Humanity;
  • represent the values of professionalism, solidarity and humanity;
  • respect general ethical principles as well as human dignity, and respect the free expression of thoughts.

In order to achieve all these goals, in accordance with its nearly four-century-long tradition, ELTE aims at:

  • offering students valuable, state-of-the-art knowledge and professional perspective as well as competitive diplomas, with the joint efforts of university citizens;
  • maintaining a high standard in the master and doctoral training as well keeping the postgraduate courses a priority in its training structure; expanding the supply of interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary programmes, training courses available in foreign languages and joint training courses with cutting-edge foreign higher education institutions;
  • being a world class competitive research team in the European field, able to respond to complex societal challenges; carrying out research, development and innovational activities focusing on social and technological problems to be solved;
  • creating effective talent management; as a research university, increasing the proportion of highly qualified and productive teachers/researchers creating an attractive educational and research environment for them;
  • creating value-based and effective relationships with its narrower and wider environment, and becoming one of the leading university centres in the Central European region.

Based on the conviction that high-quality university teaching is unimaginable without high-quality research, ELTE is committed to presenting supremacy on both sides of the traditional universitas concept: the creative community of educators and students (universitas magistrorum et discipulorum) and the ideal of the university of science (universitas scientiarum).

The achievement of these objectives is supported by the leadership of the university, as well as the teachers, researchers, students and the entire staff of ELTE.