This fall, HIF kicked off its support of CEPA’s James Denton Transatlantic Fellowship, a unique learning experience for Hungarian mid-career professionals to gain first hand knowledge of Washington DC’s think tank and policy-making world.
Antónia Kováts
Antónia Kováts, the first HIF-supported Denton Fellow is a lawyer currently working for the National University for Public Service as the Head of the International Office. Previously she worked as in-house lawyer for the Institute for Media Studies at NMHH, the Budapest Transport Privately Held Corporation and for an Austrian company as well. Her main task at NUPS is to build and strengthen NUPS’ international activities and network.
The three-week long fellowship took place during September 20 through October 12 in Washington, DC. The group of seven fellows that CEPA carefully chose were representatives of the CEE region coming from the Visegrad countries, Ukraine, Estonia and Latvia. Their rich program included site visits and discussions at both governmental and non-governmental institutions.
“I loved the variety of places and people and the exciting conversations with them. It was a thrilling experience to hear how people see Hungary from the outside and to look deeper into Hungary with their perspective. The participants were professionally very well prepared. It was a pleasure to work with them.” – Antónia Kováts
Working in the public sector, Antónia found the visits at the American legislative and governmental institutions incredibly interesting.
“My personal favourite was the Library of Congress, especially the Congressional Research Service. The Service provides legislation workers with instant background information about practically any issue. I would love to see something similar in Hungary. They make such a big difference.” – Antónia Kováts
