Research

The main research streams defined by HETFA are three-folded focusing on (1) competitiveness and entrepreneurship, (2) spatial harmony, and (3) good governance. These programmes embrace the overarching and long-term researches, whereas our research fields focus rather on current socio-economic or public policy issues, such as competitiveness; research, innovation and economic growth; governance and impact of EU funds; rural development and social innovation; education, employment and social inclusion; social challenges and policy of the youth; and social aspects of active and healthy ageing.

1. Competitiveness and Entrepreneurship

In the frame of the ‘Competitiveness and Entrepreneurship’ research stream  we conduct economic and socioeconomic research and implement analytical projects with a focus on enterprises, enterprising values, cooperation between enterprises, as well, as competitiveness. By applying the methodology of new institutional economics we would like to contribute to the development of institutions, the improvement of competitiveness, and the promotion of trust among enterprises. Year by year we present a significant amount of case studies and gain serious experience in concluding representative survey data collections.

The two main research topics of this stream are the following:

  1. Institutions, Entrepreneurship and Economic Development »
  2. Research, Innovation and Economic Growth »

2. Good Governance

The purpose of our ‘Good Governance’ research stream is to provide useful knowledge for the preparation and implementation of public politicy decisions. Thus, our aim is to help committed office-holders, decision makers and participants of public political debates. In our work, we focus on several important fields of governmental governance. For instance, we are working out recommendations which facilitate to make employment more flexible and to integrate people with different background such as the youth, people with lower education, etc. to the labor market. We also have conducted evaluations on the efficiency of the use of EU funds in Hungary relating to the last programming period (2007-2013) with regard to human resource programmes and territorial cohesion. Besides, our expertise covers the preparation of methodologies for the assessment of governmental work, for instance regarding the sustainability of proposed legislative measures.

The main research fields of this stream:

  1. EU funds : Government and impact »
  2. Social Investment: Education, Employment, and Social Inclusion »
  3. Youth: Social Challenges and Policy »
  4. Sustainability »
  5. Active and Healthy Ageing »

3. Spatial Harmony

The aim of our ‘Spatial harmony’ research stream is to deal with the regional and social problems of Hungarian and Central Eastern European regions for which we would like to find adequate solutions. We analyze the regional processes and try to solve the problems of the underprivileged areas, relying on the methodology of regional sciences including the aspects of social innovation as well. In the course of our analysis we emphasize the need of getting acquainted with good local practices, which aim at mitigating the stress of local employment.

Our current topic focuses on local development and social innovation. »