Firstly, the Erasmus+ funded project ifempower was presented aiming to empower female students from any fields in higher education to launch entreprises. Then the results of the first empirical research were introduced in details by our research fellow, Réka Geambasu. The research covered 7 European countries and consisted of the outcomes of interviews with almost hundred women entrepreneurs and stakeholders related to female entrepreneurship.

Participants of the workshop highly appreciated the findings and the first recommendations formulated representing a unique and niche character of the research. Before the round-table discussion, the Foundation Coworkid introduced its activities: based in Loffice aiming to support young parents in getting back to labour market or starting entrepreneurship they organize various events and trainings for them.

For the round-table discussion additional experts and professionals were invited, namely:

• Eszter Szabó, Founding President of the Association Women/Business/Angels
• Kata Keveházi, Founder of JÓL-LÉT Foundation
• Gigi Tímár, knowledge managemenet director of Budapest LAB,
• Andrea Szablár, manager of Coworkid.

The discussion tapped on a number of host issues related to woman entrepreneurship. Participants agreed that nowadays, the way of becoming entrepreneur for woman is much easier than 10-20 years ago. But this is also true in general terms: entrepreneurship as such has gained higher prestige and especially for women it is a real choice once they have family and do not want to have fixed 8-hour long work.

Nowadays, there are more and more trainings available for those who are interested in taking up entrepreneurship. However, in many cases, following the start-up phase they are not able to continue this in a sustainable way or to scale up for greater profit or more employees.

Since the current education system is still not entirelly in line with the needs of the labour market and its working methods, any training and education programme which supports team work and relies on transsectoral, case-based and non-formal educational methods are important and shall be further promoted, such as the one being piloted by ifempower or the one launched by Budapest LAB and the Moholy-Nagy University of Art.

Participants also agreed that such programmes shall not only train for successful entrepreneurship but also to find out how to overcome failures. As Eszter Szabó added in America business angels only invest in those start-uppers who had already passed by a collapse. Tools for self-reflection and strategies to overcome such situations should be also transferred.

As we reported earlier, the project is coordinated by HETFA Research Institute with the participation of 7 additional partners covering 5 EU countries, namely

• Universidade NOVA de Lisboa (PT),
• Corvinus University of Budapest (HU),
• Sapientia Hungarian University of Transylvania (RO),
• APRE – Agenzia per la Promozione della Ricerca Europea (IT/BE),
• Sociedade Portuguesa de Inovação (PT),
• Slovenian Forestry Institute (SI) and
• Institute of Studies for the Integration of Systems (IT).

The first partner meeting turned to be highly successful: each project activity was presented in details by the partner responsible for its implementation. Necessary inputs, partners’ role and expected deadlines were also agreed. The Coordinator also put a special emphasis on exploiting further the experience, knowledge and expectations of each participating institution to ensure the successful and efficient implementation of the project.

Standards and anticipations towards each other and the developed outputs are even higher due to the fact that each partner is very much familiar with the management of research and educational projects which lets us to put more attention on the professional work.

Moreover, we set the date for the upcoming event which will be held in Porto between 8-10 January 2020. This event will gather not only partners, but European experts and professionals dealing with Research Management and Administration. Also, the Advisory Board of the project consisting of highly experienced RMAs and stakeholders related to the topic will be also invited to provide useful experience and knowledge for the developed outputs of foRMAtion.

Beside the content and management related issues the partnership could already decide on the project logo representing one of the key assets of the main visual identity of foRMAtion. Soon our website and social media sites will be also launch. Till that don’t forget to follow the related news at hetfa.eu and stay tuned!

The project seeks to train university students to become future research managers and administrators (RMAs) through acquiring professional & practical skills and to be acquainted in programmes financed by the European Union (e.g. H2020, Erasmus+). Besides, foRMAtion is also committed to enhance the visibility and recognition of the research management profession that is essential, as high-quality scientific work requires excellent support and management. To achieve these aims, the project will realize complex and interlinked activities during its 3 years.

The project will start with the elaboration of a methodological guide & good practice collection to collect and analyse the existing practices and consider the transfer of existing know how, lessons learnt, possible failures in the field of training RMAs. Based on this & on the background study prepared by HÉTFA to analyse the necessity of an educational programme for RMAs, an innovative module will be developed to empower potential research administrators & improve their competences in project- and programme management. It will primarily target students from the programmes of international and/or European studies, however, bearing in mind the diversity of the RMAs with regard to their background, the module will be open for any students from any fields or even to early stage RMAs. The module and the related teaching material will be tested for 2 semesters at partner universities.

Moreover, foRMAtion will provide an internship opportunity and also an intensive study programme for selected students which will also contribute to their professional development. In the framework of the project, a blended-learning platform will also be developed offering the opportunity for participants to deepen & test the acquired knowledge, get effective support and gain practical experiences through tests, webinars, vlog, educational videos and situational games.

foRMAtion will be implemented under Erasmus+ programme KA2: Strategic partnership in the field of Higher Education. It will start in this September with a kick-off meeting in Budapest gathering all project partners, namely

• HÉTFA Research Institute (HU),
• Universidade NOVA de Lisboa (PT),
• Corvinus University of Budapest (HU),
• Sapientia Hungarian University of Transylvania (RO),
• APRE – Agenzia per la Promozione della Ricerca Europea (IT/BE),
• Sociedade Portuguesa de Inovação (PT),
• Slovenian Forestry Institute (SI) and
• Institute of Studies for the Integration of Systems (IT).

Follow the related news at hetfa.eu and stay tuned!

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.

In his research, he analised the quality of the education with the help of the mathematics and reading comprehension results of the National Competency Assessment, then he approximated the size of the school with two indicators: number of pupils in school and number of pupils per teacher. As his findings show, in itself, none of these factors have an impact on the performance of the students  (provided that the pupils and schools are not different in their other significant features) and the results is valid among the disadvantaged pupils, too.

Herczeg, Bálint: Impact of the size of a school on the school’s added value, 2015, HETFA Working Paper Series No. 11. (only in Hungarian)

Application form: doc

Detailed description of the program: pdf

Plan of the program: pdf

Educational and outcome requirements: pdf

Launching the program, we wish to serve the common aim that Hungary can use the development funds with greater success and efficiency than before. The target group of the educational program is composed of primarily civil servants, public institutions, non-profit organisations and colleagues of enterprises responsible for development programs and projects, as well as stakeholders and policy makers.

Those graduating from the program starting in the fall of 2014 will learn – in a practice-oriented way – the methods relevant to international standards, of public policy analysis, ex post and ex ante program evaluation, as well as impact assessment. The participants will acquire comprehensive and thorough knowledge about the public policy and regulatory processes of the EU and Hungary, as well as the institutional framework of the development policy and its legal environment.

The program on the website of the Károli Gáspár University

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

Experts of the HETFA Research Institute and Revita Foundation jointly carried out the evaluation of the 2007-2012 service and infrastructural developments of the cultural institutional framework supporting education between October 2012 and February 2013, upon the commission of the National Development Agency.

Summary of the Research Report in English

The main themes of the evaluation prepared by HETFA were the following:

• Presentation of the context of the projects implemented from 2007 to 2012
• Evaluation of results by institutions and the achievements regarding the whole higher education system
• The sustainability or results
• Explanatory facts for lagging behind planned targets
• Presentation of best practices

In the frame of the evaluation 10 case studies on higher education institutions and three on R&D&I were prepared. These are available in a separate volume additional to the final report.

HETFA Research Institute was commissioned by the National Development Agency (NFÜ) to carry out the evaluation of programmes targeting higher education.

Summary of the Research Report in English

Although the effects of the measures are not assessable since only a short time has passed, nevertheless, according to the case studies the funds had positive effects, such as the increasing popularity of the school, reduction of the drop-out ratio, institutional development of schools, which on the long term may have an impact on the results of the competencies assessment.

Upon the commission of the National Development Agency, experts of HETFA Research Institute Ltd. carried out the evaluation between October 2012 and March 2013.

Summary of the Research Report in English