This study explores the history of women's and gender studies in higher education in Central Eastern Europe and the post-Soviet space since the early 1990s. It describes the interests – rooted in academic and non-academic contexts – of a whole variety of transnational and political actors and academics on the ground and relates them to the process of transforming higher education. The study highlights why and how varying transnational and local hegemonic constellations were conducive to the institutional development of women's and gender studies, while at the same time severely restricting the unfolding of their critical political potential.