The primary purpose of CERGE from the beginning has been to educate the future economic elite in the former Soviet bloc countries and to place graduates at IMF and IBRD. This was to be achieved through creating an American style PhD program with emphasis on research. The success has been remarkable! Cerge has produced more than 100 PhDs and, in my opinion, established a reputation for reserach on the level of top 50 US graduate schools of economics. Its graduates are dispersed throughout former Soviet bloc countries as well as in western Europe and USA. Given the intial circumstances in the Czech republic, I would consider it a miracle!