The workshop was moderated by Sanja Popovic Pantic from Mihajlo Pupin Institute, Serbia who wrote her PhD on female entrepreneurship and in the recent years she was nominated as the Chair of the EEN Sector Group Women’s Entrepreneurship. Virág Zsár, Head of Division for International Cooperation of HETFA introduced briefly the background research which paved the way for the development of the project ifempower and then highlighted the main fields of activities in which the project aims to bring impact to unlock female entrepreneurship. Her presentation was followed by Gabriela Kostovska Bogoeska who is WEgate Community Coordinator and Executive Director. Her comparative presentation underlined the same challenges and solutions synergetic to those of ifempower.

Afterwards, policy recommendations to improve the chances of female entrepreneurs and also potential female entrepreneurs elaborated by the project Women in Business was detailed by Sandra Weiß-Wallner for the Innovation Region Styria. Lastly Amélie Leclercq Board member of the European Women’s Lobby and BPW presented their activities to impact decision-makers and other relevant stakeholders.

The introduction of these activities, interventions and real-life examples was followed by a short but informative discussion. Then, reflecting on the effects of the current pandemic situation, the main findings of the international research initiated by HETFA was briefly introduced. In reply to the question raised by Ms Pantic, the moderator, on what we need to empower female entrepreneurs in COVID-19, the following areas of possible interventions were highlighted: 1) more flexible supporting instrumnets which take into consideration the specificities of women led entreprises; 2) alleviating the double burden making the situation of female entrepreneurs difficult in case of having kids or elderly, and 3) promoting use of online opportunities in all sectors where it is possible.

The recording of the session is available here.

You can read more on our study on the effects of COVID-19 on female entrepreneurs here.

The Strategic Director of HÉTFA emphasized in his lecture that although China is a distant and unfamiliar culture for us, we have a positive view of China: an image of a large and powerful country as well as a diligent and determined nation lives in the minds of the Hungarians.

In addition to China’s culture, the nearly 30-year-old Chinese commercial colony plays an important role in formulating an opinion on the Asian country. Balázs Szepesi also highlighted that Hungarians do not have any negative historical memories about China and there has never been a conflict between the two countries.
The event took place at the Institute for Foreign Affairs and Trade (IFAT) and was co-organized by HÉTFA Research Institute, Századvég Foundation, IFAT and PAGEO Foundation.

More information about the 16+1 initiative of China and the forum in Budapest is available here.

Mr Csite emphasized that the Carpathian Basin has to face two major challenges ont he labor market. On the one hand, Western Europe drains the skilled and talented young people; on the other hand, there is a steady decline in childbearing.

Lack of labour causes serious problems also in the Hungarian economy. Although there are many workplaces in Hungary, salaries are not attractive to Hungarian employees. Therefore, companies try to overcome the shortage from regions beyond the borders.

The Managing Director of HÉTFA emphasized that there is a conflict between the efforts of Hungarian economic policy to increase the number of workplaces and to the measures launched to motivate Hungarians beyond the borders to stay in their homeland. On long term the credible rise of wages in the whole region may offer solution.

One of the significant issues of economics is how to create the knowledge needed for developing proper institutions. To what extent can economics itself contribute to this knowledge? What can be the role of other professions, including the legal profession, which focuses on the practical planning of institutions? The lecture has argued that proper economic institutions require institutionalized “intellectual resources”, typically organized in professions, which are closely related to the everyday practice of institution building.

The WINIR (World Interdisciplinary Network for Institutional Research), founded in 2013, is one of the largest international forums for researchers in the field of institutional economics.

The slides of the lecture are available here, while the underlying study can be accessed here.

Gabor Balas focused on how regulation of 2014 has been evolved, and on domestic frame of Development Policy. European Union regulation has been succeeded suprisingly complex. It is probably the consequence of the legislation process: there were more member states to agree and they were not successfull to ease the overinsurances that have been drafted at the Comittee.

If we take a look at the domestic manner the implementation has became more pragmatic and routinized, so applicants’ access to sources can be easier and faster thanks to changing Hungarian frameworks. The question is, whether the quality of projects can be maintained with this high-speeded implementation.

Balazs Szepesi has drawn attention to the relationship between poorer and richer memberstates, that can be affected by recent modifications of EU. System and degree of development sources after 2020 mainly depends on what net-contributors think about poorer states, why are these important for them. An agenda to achieve common goals or an approach to maintain status quo through particular deals would drive cohesion policy through separate negotiations.

The lecturers talked about the preliminary results of the analysis touching upon regional statistics and the observations of regional case studies. Further lecturer was Gergely Illyés, associate of National Policy Research Institutewho presented the conclusions of a case study in Csíkszék and Udvarhelyszék

The research was carried out in the frame of „2016 Year of Young Foreign Hungarian Entrepreneurs” program.

Managing Director of Hétfa Research Institute presented the effects of infrastructural developments on job creation. Impact assessments indicate that EU resources did not have robust contribution to job creation. There were 458 000 new jobs created in Hungary between 2009 and 2014. 81 000 were results of cohesion policy, 16 000 of these seem to be permanent.

According to Balás development projects may have a fundamental influence on employment through education. Thus it may be worthwhile to extend development resources in education in the long term. In the short and medium term it is more effective to improve regulations in order to increase employment and job creation.

Further lecturers of the conference were: László Andor, Attila Bartha, András Tóth and Ákos Molnár.

He underlined that resources had positive effects on regional cohesion because of distribution in the first place and not because of their focus. He emphasized that EU and national level utilization of development funds could not substitute regional policy. EU funds can enhance local initiatives and cooperation but it cannot enforce or maintain them.

Academy of Development Policy is organized by the Prime Minister’s Office, it provides a forum for senior experts involved in utilization of EU Structural and Cohesion Funds.

The award ceremony began with the opening speech of the President of the Scientific Council. After, the awarded teachers were presented. In his speech Szepesi talked about the applicability of social sciences, touching upon its professional and existential aspects. We congratulate on his award.

The conference was organized on the occasion of National Day of Unity, on the 4th June. Our analysts applied a historical approach to explain those reasons that had led to the huge differences between regions of the Carpathian Basin. They discussed the economic development of the areas populated by Hungarians outside the country, focusing on the most important issues, challenges and possibilities. They also presented the results of a research conducted in the frame of the Year of Foreign Hungarian Vocational Training, touching upon the situation of young entrepreneurs in the Hungarian minorities abroad.