The entire bid book of Veszprém (100 pages) is available here!

Photo by Balint Kovacs Photography

The publication, available here, contains two volumes. The first volume includes the history of the first 60 years and major milestones of the European Social Fund. The second volume describes the institutional system’s transformation of Hungarian development policy from 2004, in the view of European Social Fund.

The publication was commissioned by the Ministry of Human Resources and edited by the experts of development policy of HÉTFA: Gábor Balás, founder and executive director of HÉTFA, and Koltai Luca, senior advisor of the Division for Public Policy and Impact Assessment of HÉTFA. Co-editor of the book is András Csite, founder and executive director of HÉTFA, and János Tamás Schanda, Ministry for Innovation and Technology’s Minister of State for European Union Development Policy. Other fellows of HÉTFA also participated in the preparation of publication.

The INNOV-AL platform is an EU funded project to promote cooperation and decentralized innovation policies in the field of territorial cohesion. The project is supported by the Directorate General for Regional and Urban Policy (DG REGIO) of European Commission. The main aim is to share and disseminate EU regional policy experiences and best practices between EU countries and Brazil.

As part of the project, executive officers and professionals of three Brazilian State (Pará, Paraná and Pernambuco) visit three chosen European regions to learn about the experiences of the implementation of smart specialization strategies and launch common projects, purposing development.

Tolna County with the support of HETFA became one of the three regions chosen for the change of knowledge and experience. As a result, between 5 and 7 Nov 2018, Brazilian delegates visited Szekszárd. Virág Zsár, coordinator of the International Office, was invited to facilitate the communication between partners and introduce the experts. During the visit, territorial and regional developments carried out by the county, international projects with the participation of the regional innovation agency, as well as local wine producers were introduced. The closing session took place in the headquarters of the National Office for Research, Development and Innovation in Budapest.

The freshly launched platform for exchange of experience and knowledge will be followed by several online sessions, an online platform as well as a closing conference in Brazil.

Changes in the city life necessitated the development of a new integrated urban development strategy relying on various research activities for the period of 2017 and 2023 to increase the demographic as well as the social, economic, and environmental impacts of urban development projects. The strategy appoints action areas assisting the integration of projects. Thanks to these action areas the city is supposed to realize its middle and long-term aims.

The long-term aim is to be among the ten best-known and most popular bathing resorts in Europe by 2030 which consists of providing high quality and exclusive services in Hévíz. In order to reach this goal, three mid-term strategic plans are evolved such as follows:

• Strengthening of spa tourism,
  • Formation of a green city which helps to protect the lake (climate protection, energy efficient solutions, environment sustainability),
  • Development of the quality and quantity of public services to make Hévíz an attractive city.

Bálint Herczeg (2017): Cost-benefit analysis of high school graduation. ISSN 2062-378X

In case of programmes targeting human resource development, evaluation shall not only focus on direct results and short-term effects. However, estimation of long-term impacts is difficult in case of programmes such as early childhood interventions, since the real effects may occur after one generation. Let’s suppose that we can estimate the impact of the programme on the probability of high school graduation. By doing so we could get a method to estimate what changes these programmes induce in the life of the targeted children.

The aim of the paper is to present a model which is able to estimate the long-term effects of childhood development and educational programmes and compare the costs with the resulting budgetary benefits. The model is illustrated by Bálint Herczeg based on the example of the Hungarian Safe Start Children Programme.

The development plan emphasizes that the number of touristical opportunities in the region is high. However, these values, such as the natural environment or bathing areas, could be better utilized. There is also a lack of coordinated, complex tourism supply and self-image. The few number of accommodations cause further problems.

One of the main development goals of the tourism development strategy is to improve the situation of family farms. These farms are supposed to strengthen regional tourism by distributing local products and offering accommodations.

The development strategy prepared by HETFA was reported in more detail by Zaols, Népújság and RTV 4.

Our colleagues from the Urban and Regional Development Office of HÉTFA prepared Design Guides for Urban Municipalities for four Hungarian cities with different characteristics (Keszthely, Hévíz, Oroszlány and Gyöngyös). These documents describe the natural and built values of settlements in details and formulate suggestions for the future buildings. Recommendations and examples assist the construction projects and city development decisions. It is also important intention of these guides to strengthen the local identities.

Károly Mike – Gábor Balás: Contracting for Structural Funds – How the EU’s Rules of the Game Shape the Behaviour of Member State Governments

ISBN 978-963-89112-6-1; ISSN 2062-378X

How do the rules of the game of EU cohesion policy shape the behaviour of Member State governments as they pursue their development goals? We explore this question from a contractual perspective. We argue that the analysis of the contract between the European Commission and a national government is crucial for understanding the latter’s incentives. And the terms of this contract are largely determined by the underlying principal-supervisor-agent contract between Member States and the EC. We pursue the consequences of the Commission–Member State contract for the institutionalisation of cohesion policy within the Member State, which is interpreted as the creation of a chain of agency contracts. We show both theoretically and with an empirical case study that the resulting contractual system affects the policy process in fundamental ways. Drawing on the insights of new institutional economics, the analysis of contracts detects some deep-seated causes of widely-perceived inefficiencies of EU-funded policies and points to potential institutional remedies.

The study is available in English »

In our research project we built upon an econometric model which was used to estimate the potential impact of academic research on productivity and GDP. We applied this model and made a forecast on how public resources spent on universities and research institutes may influence the growth potential of the Hungarian economy.

Our model captures complex connections by illustrating the main links. More detailed exploration of the relationship between higher education, research institutes and companies requires more investigation.

HETFA was commissioned by the Agency for Education to execute this research project hand in hand with the elaboration of a possible indicator system for academic research.

The executive summary of the research report is available in English

HETFA was commissioned by the Agency for Education to execute this research project hand in hand with the investigation on the Impact of Academic Research on GDP Growth.