About SIEN

The Student International Exhcange Network (SIEN, pronounced as 'seen', in Hungarian: Nemzetközi Diákcsere Hálózat) was founded in Hungary during August 1996 at Janus Pannonius University in Pécs (now the University of Pécs), when a core of group of 12 associations from 9 countries set down the beginnings of co-operation.

SIEN exists to promote integration and awareness within the international student community. This has been done through the exchange of people and encouraging them to focus on serious topics affecting their generation.

The SIEN Foundation (in Hungarian: SIEN Nemzetközi Diákcseréért Alapítvány) was established in 1999 with the aim of providing a financial background for the future activities of the Network. It is an independent non-governmental, non-profit organisation with its centre located in Pécs.

One of the original aims of the foundation was to provide financial support for the active participation of students in international mobility projects and to promote and develop international co-operation and intercultural dialogue.

At present, the three main projects of SIEN Foundation are:

1. The National Cultural Days is a programme series: over three or more days aiming at introducing a country or culture. So far, we have organised Egyptian, Latin-American, British Days, Croatian, Austrian, Asian and North-American Days in Pécs.

 

2. SIEN Quarterly, which is a periodical of the socio-cultural issues of international student life. It is distributed in 30 countries and has an online version.

    

3. The annual International Culture Week in Pécs (ICWiP), which is the most significant long-term project of SIEN Foundation. It is a leading thematic youth culture/art festival of the region of South-Transdanubia, as well as of the broader international community of the Alps-Adriatic Region and Central Europe in general. An annual culture week that combines a cultural festival and a student conference.

The chair of SIEN Foundation leads and represents its five-member advisory board, the so-called “kuratórium”. Since the autumn of 2005, in addition to the volunteers doing public works since 1999, two full-time employees, the head of office and the financial manager co-ordinate the project administration and are responsible for the financial management of the foundation.

Active partner countries of the foundation include Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Italy, Poland, Russia and Romania, together with intensively developing links with associations in other Central European countries, such as Croatia, Serbia and Montenegro, Austria and the Ukraine. The foundation offers services to youth communities, such as sending volunteers for the European Voluntary Service, organising journalism and communication trainings, offering language practice opportunities, developing organisational and administrative skills and providing information on all sorts of issues of international student life.