While Europe Week, May 8–12, is normally an occasion to celebrate peace and unity, the continent is in a state of emergency. There is competition between states rather than collaboration, the climate crisis poses an existential threat, economic inequality has contributed to a fractured political system, and Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine continues to claim lives and upend the international order.

Can the EU respond to the pressing issues of our time with its notoriously slow method of incremental consensus-building? Goran Buldioski, acting executive director for Open Society–Europe and Central Asia, outlines four ways the EU can adapt to respond to the current state of emergency with urgency, innovation, and scale. 

Q&A: A Laboratory for Challenging Convention

George Soros built his philanthropy on the belief that no one has a monopoly on truth. Now, the Education and Ideas Collaborative, a new unit of the Open Society Foundations led by Executive Vice President Leonard Benardo, puts that credo into action.

A Quarter Century of Change in Baltimore

Open Society opened a Baltimore office 25 years ago as a testing ground for addressing critical urban issues. With the office closing at the end of this summer, Open Society President Emeritus Aryeh Neier looks back at its impact in Baltimore and beyond.  

Why I Fight for Democracy: Open Society Vice President Salil Shetty

Growing up in India in the 1970s, Salil Shetty experienced the loss of civil rights firsthand. That experience helped forge his belief in justice, fairness, and equality—a belief that fuels his work as Vice President, Global, at the Open Society Foundations.