In 2018, OSF announced it was closing its European office in Budapest and moving to Berlin, in response to legislation passed by the Hungarian government targeting the foundation's activities.

[11] In 1993, the Open Society Institute was created in the United States to support the Soros foundations in Central and Eastern Europe and Russia.

[12] In 1995, Soros stated that he believed there can be no absolute answers to political questions because the same principle of reflexivity applies as in financial markets.

[33] OSF projects have included the National Security and Human Rights Campaign and the Lindesmith Center, which conducted research on drug reform.

[21][37] In April 2022, OSF announced a grant of $20 million to the International Crisis Group in support of efforts to analyze global issues fuelling violence, climate injustice and economic inequality and providing recommendations to address them.

Guilhot argues that control over the social sciences by moneyed interests, rather than by public officials, reinforced a neoliberal view of modernization.

[41] Open Society Foundations has been criticized in the pro-Israel publications Tablet, Arutz Sheva and Jewish Press for funding the activist groups Adalah and I'lam, they accuse of being anti-Israel and supporting the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement.

Among the documents released in 2016 by DCleaks, an OSF report reads "For a variety of reasons, we wanted to construct a diversified portfolio of grants dealing with Israel and Palestine, funding both Israeli Jewish and PCI (Palestinian Citizens of Israel) groups as well as building a portfolio of Palestinian grants and in all cases to maintain a low profile and relative distance—particularly on the advocacy front.

Several right-leaning politicians in eastern Europe regard many of the NGO groups to be irritants if not threats, including Liviu Dragnea in Romania, Szilard Nemeth in Hungary, Nikola Gruevski in North Macedonia (who called for "de-Sorosization"), and Jarosław Kaczyński of Poland (who has said that Soros-funded groups want "societies without identity").

[48] In May 2018, Open Society Foundations announced they will move its office from Budapest to Berlin, amid Hungarian government interference.

[49][50][51] In November 2018, Open Society Foundations announced they are ceasing operations in Turkey and closing their Istanbul and Ankara offices due to "false accusations and speculations beyond measure", amid pressure from the Turkish government including detention of liberal Turkish intellectuals and academics even tangentially associated with the foundation.