The Latin phrase meaning "Where are you going?" was originally used in a number of ancient documents. Over the years it became a programmatic question, often used in world literature, as in the famous Quo Vadis of H. Sienkiewicz, and functions almost as a codeword prompting one to stop and evaluate the current direction.

The phrase was chosen as our motto as it perfectly describes the core activity of the Institute. We want to provoke questions both of individuals and European society as a whole: where are we going?, as we try to work out what the answers might be.