European University Institute (EUI)

The European University Institute is an intergovernmental organisation with its own legal personality, created by a convention signed in 1972 by six states and opened to its first researchers in 1976. It sits at the Badia Fiesolana in San Domenico di Fiesole outside Florence, across a campus of Renaissance villas, with the Florence School of Transnational Governance in the city centre. There are 24 contracting states and a reported annual budget of around €93.7 million.

The EUI's position is unusual among the funders on this platform: it is host, employer and funder at once; it makes no grants to external institutions, and money reaches a Malawian academic only by that academic moving to Florence. Its disciplines are historical, humanities and social sciences only — economics, history, law, political and social sciences, the Robert Schuman Centre and the School of Transnational Governance.

The Max Weber Programme is the largest international postdoctoral programme in the social sciences and humanities in Europe, taking roughly 65 fellows a year.