Bernadett Sebály is an SNF Agora Visiting Graduate Scholar from the Central European University (CEU) in Austria, where she is pursuing her Ph.D. in public policy and political science. Her dissertation focuses on the relationship between movement structures and policy impact. She is particularly interested in how the combination of movement strategies influences outcome.
Bernadett is dedicated to co-creating the history of organizing in Eastern Europe and shaping the self-representation of civil society in the region. She has led participatory action research with the European Community Organizing Network and the School of Public Life, where she holds regular trainings. She is a research affiliate at the CEU Democracy Institute, where she is building a resource bank of Hungarian protest events to enhance the construction of social movements’ collective memory. She received the 2022 Open Society University Network Engaged Scholar Award and CEU’s 1st-year PhD award.
She draws on a decade of activism and organizing. She played a leadership role in building the first community organizing program in Hungary with the Civil College Foundation, coordinated Civilizáció, a Hungarian network of CSOs during a period of repressive government measures, and co-founded and organized in The City Is For All, a cross-class housing group. She has a master’s in public policy from CEU and cultural anthropology from the University of Miskolc, Hungary. She has published articles on housing, disability rights, and organizing.