This is the first representative public survey to examine the social perception of folk culture and folk art, as well as related consumption habits in Hungary; the 2026 Report presents the results of this survey in its first chapter. As a continuation of the 2025 Report, the 2026 Report includes an assessment of the impact of the Sándor Csoóri Program, this time focusing on Hungarian folk art communities beyond the border in Upper Hungary, Transylvania, Subcarpathia, and Vojvodina. The volume focuses first on the examination of folk crafts among the various fields of folk art. It examines the folk craft community and the operational and funding structures of its organizations. It places special emphasis on the issue of knowledge transfer in folk crafts, which simultaneously affects education, professional prestige, market success, and career planning.

More information on the 2026 Hungarian Folk Art Report and the full publication can be accessed here.

The research was conducted with the involvement of all project partners and countries; hence data was collected from Finland, Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania (Transylvania), Serbia, Slovakia, and Spain (Andalusia).  More than six hundred (608) respondents completed the survey, which provides valuable insights into the experiences and responses of women entrepreneurs during the COVID-19 pandemic and the recovery phase after the pandemic (an era which can be described as a poly-crisis) shedding light on their resilience and adaptability in the face of challenges. Furthermore, interviews were conducted with 24 experts and 56 women entrepreneurs.

The experts highlighted that there should be targeted policies, support programmes and initiatives dedicated to women entrepreneurs, not only during crises but consistently and that these programmes should recognize and address the specific challenges women entrepreneurs face in business.

Similarly, the focus of the respondents’ stories extended beyond just COVID-19 and its impact. It encompassed all the other challenges they had faced since the last wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. Our analysis presents in detail what are the challenges women entrepreneurs face in times of crisis, what are the strategies to employ and their needs for support.  

Not only challenges but learning and new opportunities characterise the post-Covid era. The women entrepreneurs gained valuable experiences, enhanced their skills to further professionalise their entrepreneurial activities, strengthened existing or started to build resilient communities, and seized new business opportunities within the constraints they faced during the crisis.

In recent months, our research findings have been disseminated across various platforms:

1. WORK2023 Conference
   • Date: 23-25 August 2023
   • Venue: Online & Turku, (FI)
   • The RE – FEM project partners shared initial cross-country research insights at the WORK 2023 conference on Digital Capitalism: Peril and Possibilities. Details
2. EmpowerHER Balaton
   • Date: 29-30 September 2023
   • Venue: Zánka (HU)
   • Our preliminary results were presented to women entrepreneurs and their professional network at the EmpowerHER Balaton event.
3. VOSZ Women Entrepreneurs Section Annual Meeting
   • Date: 11th October 2023
   • Venue: Budapest (HU)
   • Katalin Oborni presented research results as a keynote speaker and round table participant at the joint event organized by SEED Foundation and VOSZ.
4. Entrepreneurship Research Conference
   • Date: 16-17 November 2023
   • Venue: Budapest (HU)
   • Orsolya Gergely and Katalin Oborni presented the research, titled “Crises and responses – Women entrepreneurs and their businesses in the light of comprehensive international research,” at the annual conference of the Network of Economic Researchers and Analysts. Details
5. Hungarian Sociological Association Annual Conference
   • Date: 17-18 November 2023
   • Venue: Budapest (HU)
   • Our research on “The Impact of Crises on the World of Work: Challenges and Responses in the Sociology of Work” was presented in the section “From crisis to crisis” by Orsolya Gergely, Katalin Oborni, and Eszter Szőnyi. Programme
6. Danube Cup – Conference on Entrepreneurship Education
   • Date: 24-25 November 2023
   • Venue: Belgrade (SRB)
   • Sanja Popovic Pantic and Katalin Oborni presented in the section “Entrepreneurship in Practice – Effect of Covid-19 on Entrepreneurship.” Programme

Numerous articles have addressed how women cope with the difficulties of the coronavirus epidemic. These writings focused mainly on front-line health workers and mothers who experienced increased burdens at home following the closure of educational and health care institutions. At the same time, women who run businesses have received significantly less attention, even though they have been challenged in multiple ways in recent months.

The research by HETFA Research Institute, based on an online questionnaire survey and personal interviews, examined how Hungarian female entrepreneurs coped with the difficulties caused by the virus, both on the economic and family fronts. The online questionnaire was filled by 368 Hungarian female entrepreneurs.

Click here to read the research report in English.

(The report was published in Hungarian on Portfolio.hu)

Bálint Herczeg: Analysis of the institutional and social factors behind changes in the PISA test results

(only in Hungarian)

The study analyzes the trends in the results of PISA tests between 2006 and 2015. The study concludes that the negative trend might have been much steeper if the economic, social and cultural background of students had not improved in this period. Furthermore the change in the proportion of gender has also its impact. Negative trends in the results can be explained only to a small extent by the shift in proportion of different school types, the increasing number of problems concerning teaching staff and the decreasing autonomy of school directors.

Virág Zsár, Zsuzsanna Balázs, Enikő Virágh: Research management and administration: the relevance of special education and training programs

(in English)

The study presents analysis the current state-of-the-art of the profession of research managers and administrators (RMA). This in-depth analysis was carried out to check the feasibility and potential directions of an educational programme to be developed for RMA training underpinning the improvement of management capacities in the field of excellence-based research.

Tamás Szabó, Bálint Herczeg, Katalin Bördős: Investigating the factors influencing the entry into the export market and the size of the export volume in a micro simulation model

(only in Hungarian)

The study uses the Heckmann two-step estimator on a sample of 87,000 companies in the period between 2004 and 2018 to model the probability of entering foreign markets and the proportion of export in turnover. According to the results, previous export history, number of employees and productivity are the most determining factors.

Bálint Herczeg, Katalin Bördős, Viet Trinh: New ways to alleviate labour shortage by rethinking customer routes of the labour support system

(only in Hungarian)

The study examines the customer routes of all types of job-seekers based on data from 2016 provided by the National Employment Service. The results confirmed that the sequences of job-seekers and the tools and sevices offered by the labour support system vary based on the age and education of the job-seekers.

The studies were presented in the framework of the HÉTFA Conference which was transformed into an online event, given the new circumstances imposed by the global epidemic. The recording of the Zoom conference can be viewed on HÉTFA’s Youtube channel. The presentations of the lectures are available here.

The Conference was organized as part of the project “Research Strengthening the Capacity of Hungarian Public Policy-Making” supported by the Pallas Athene Domus Educationis Foundation.

]]> https://hetfa.eu/2017/07/research-on-the-bargaining-power-of-smes/ Wed, 19 Jul 2017 11:58:02 +0000 https://hetfa.eu/?p=1673 HÉTFA Research Institute made a research on behalf of the Hungarian Competition Authority to reveal the factors that shape the bargaining power of small and medium-sized enterprises.

The research examined factors influencing the market position and the bargaining power of Hungarian small and medium-sized enterprises in the food and tourism industry. The analysis was mainly based on interviews with owners, managers and relevant experts of SMEs.

Our research reveals that the bargaining power of enterprises is mostly based on their size and on the uniqueness of their products and services. The study suggests that bargains between enterprises are not only about the price but also about the quality and flexibility of services. The characteristics of business agreements differ significantly across industries and markets. Although technological advances (mainly Internet platforms) greatly modify the process of agreements, personal factors have a strong influence on the nature and contents on the terms of business in almost every case.

The entire study (in Hungarian) is available here.

The studies in the volume can enlarge our historical knowledge related to one of the most significant natural resources, the water. The community use of rivers and lakes, the control of floods and droughts, the protection of our waters from pollution are issues that meant tasks and challenges for many generations. We hope that this volume, through presenting historical examples and the background will help to understand today’s problems and to create common answers to them.

HETFA contributed to edit the book, to organise the conference presenting the studies and to the implementation of OTKA research project that made the whole project financially possible. Krisztina Horváth Gergely, as editor has a prominent role in this work.

With the implementation of the OTKA research project, HETFA aimed at proving that it can contribute to certain fields of science as one of the workshop of institutional economics in Hungary, this occasion to the professional dialogue motivating both historians and economist. With the publication of the volume, the writers, as HETFA also, show tribute to them memory of Andras Vari, friend and colleague, died painfully betimes.

The Volume of the studies are available in Hungarian.

During the estimation of emissions and costs associated with the entire ethanol life-cycle, we applied the RED methodology, which was originally established to measure the objectives set in the 2009/30/EC Renewable Energy Directive of the EU. The main goal of the study was the calculation of the costs of reduction per unit of CO2 equivalent emission. We took into account several factors that influence these costs, such as the price of the feedstock, indirect land use change effects and the engine efficiency improvement stemming from ethanol use. Besides, we provided a forecast using econometric methods with respect to the carbon emissions in 2015 in various scenarios associated with different ethanol blend rates.

The summary of the study on the homepage of Pannonia Ethanol and the link for the study are available here.

Report of the Creative Online about the conference organised by the Design Terminal also presenting the results of the research.

Summary of the main statements – presentation

Summary of the main statements – document

The objective of this network of experts is to synthesise evidence on the performance of Cohesion policy in the 2007-2013 period by examining the physical and financial performance of the operational programmes and evaluation and other evidence available. Every year the expert network produces country reports on the achievements of cohesion policy and on a selected theme. All reports look at the physical and financial performance of the operational programmes and analyse evidence coming from evaluations undertaken in the Member States.

Another task of the network is a peer review of selected evaluations. The idea is to encourage the relevant authorities to carry out more and more rigorous evaluations. The review looks both the relevance of the evaluations as well as the techniques applied to produce meaningful and reliable results. A panel of a small number of high-level experts acts as the peers in this process.

Report on the “Job creation as an indicator of outcomes in ERDF programmes” – Hungary, 2013

Country Report on Achievements of Cohesion Policy – Hungary, 2013

Website of the Expert Evaluation Network