MOME Animation:
Making a Successful Department International
StrategyMOME Animation is one of the most successful animation master’s programmes in Europe. Its films regularly achieve international festival success, and the programme had already gained strong international recognition. However, despite this reputation, it was not yet attracting a larger number of international students.
As Head of the Animation MA programme, Viktória Szabó led the development of an international curriculum and strategy, working closely with the university and faculty.
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Over the past forty years, MOME Animation had become a flagship programme for animation education in Hungary. Its international recognition had also grown through the success of its students’ films, attracting students from across Europe who wanted to join the programme and create their own animation films.
In 2022, the university decided to open the programme further to international students and develop a curriculum suited to an English-speaking environment. This created an opportunity to rethink the Animation MA as a whole.
Turning a Hungarian programme into an international curriculum is not simply a matter of changing the language. It is also an opportunity to introduce new perspectives and content that respond to a rapidly changing technological environment. At the same time, the team needed to navigate the differences between international expectations and Hungarian higher education protocols.
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During the development phase, which included both content and strategy redesign, the team researched animation-related higher education programmes internationally. They looked at the most common programme formats, including whether programmes lasted one or two years, what students produced as their final projects, who taught on the programmes and what courses they offered.
The team also looked beyond education. They explored which animation formats were becoming increasingly relevant in the market and the art world, and followed the latest technological developments and their possible applications in animation and storytelling.
They also travelled to international festivals to observe the field first-hand: who was working there, how international creators were approaching new tools, and how emerging technologies were changing storytelling formats.
This research helped the team understand where animation education was heading and how MOME could build on its strong traditions while preparing students for the future of storytelling.
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The result was a renewed programme structure that kept animation at its core while introducing two new areas of focus: video games and immersive storytelling.
Animation remained the central line of the curriculum, as it represented the programme’s strongest expertise and identity. At the same time, the international research showed that new directions were needed to respond to changing creative and technological environments.
The two new tracks also created opportunities to involve new international professionals as guest lecturers and workshop leaders, helping the programme build stronger connections with the international animation industry.
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The new programme was not simply an English-language version of the existing curriculum. It offered new directions for students with different interests while maintaining the strengths that had made MOME Animation successful.
In close collaboration with the university’s marketing team, the programme also developed a recruitment campaign aimed at reaching potential international students.
The number of international students began to increase gradually. Today, the programme continues to attract international students and produce films that receive international recognition.
The project demonstrated how an established educational programme can evolve without losing its identity: by combining research, strategic thinking and an understanding of emerging technologies with the strengths of an existing creative community.