Established in 2012, the Centre for Social Sciences (CSS), a Centre of Excellence of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, is currently a partner in nine EU-funded projects within the frameworks of both Horizon 2020 and Horizon Europe. This amounts to over €1.3 million in funding for excellent and innovative research.
Learn more about our EU funded projects:
CSS is part of the Eötvös Loránd Research Network, an independent public institution managed by a 13-member Governing Board and accountable to the Hungarian Parliament. CSS is classified as a public budgetary institution, making it eligible not only to submit proposals to any EU funding programme but also to participate in EU-funded projects as a coordinator, partner, or sole beneficiary.
Featured news
Institute for Minority Studies
On June 3, 2025, at 17:00, the book by Tamás Sárándi: Függőben. A román kisebbség helyzete Észak-Erdélyben (1940-1944) [The situation of the Romanian minority in Northern Transylvania] will be presented at Írók Boltja (1061 Budapest, Andrássy út 45). Nándor Bárdi, Réka Marchut, Pál Hatos, and Balázs Ablonczy will join the author for a discussion about the book.
Institute for Minority Studies
In the course of MTA200 programme, Attila Papp Z., Director of our Institute, gave a lecture entitled Results of the PISA 2022 Competency Assessment with special focus on Ukraine at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences on 22 May 2025.
Institute for Minority Studies
A new article by Balázs Dobos and his co-author Tamás Szabó has been published on the 2024 elections of minority self-governments in Hungary in the recent special issue of Comitatus on the latest municipal elections. The article is available at the journal's website.
Institute for Minority Studies
Institute for Political Science
On April 15, HUN-REN Centre for Social Sciences Institute for Political Science, in cooperation with Habitat for Humanity Hungary, organized a film screening and discussion on the intersection of energy poverty and gender inequality, as part of the WISE project.
Institute for Minority Studies
The Institute for Minority Studies, as a partner of the consortium leader University of Timisoara, has been awarded a Staff Exchanges grant from the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellowship of the European Union for the research project Ecosystems for Higher Education Inclusion: connecting underserved communities with higher education through participatory engagement and research methodologies (EHEI).
Institute for Minority Studies
The article by Margit Feischmidt, Ildikó Zakariás, Violetta Zentai, Csilla Zsigmond and Eszter Neumann: Constrained Localism in an Authoritarian Environment: Developments in Solidarity With Displaced Ukrainians in Hungary was published online first in the Journal of Immigrant & Refugee Studies. The article is open access. It is part of the research project Work, values, hope in spaces of solidarity. The possibilities and limits of transformative solidarity in Hungary
Abstract
The paper examines how collaborations and alliance-building among civic and municipal actors supporting displaced Ukrainians in Hungary contributed to the emergence of localism as an alternative approach to the central state’s hostile migration policy and curtailment of the rights of civic and municipal actors. The qualitative research, which forms the basis of this study, explored the solidarity acts of civic and municipal actors and considered how the Hungarian state and international humanitarian organizations contributed to localizing refugee-support responsibilities. Applying the notion of constrained localism, we seek to indicate how localism unfolds through alliances between civic and municipal solidarity actors, sometimes transforming longer-term refugee reception and diversity governance, while in other cases, remaining fragile, limited in scope, and contended.
Institute for Political Science
As part of the WISE (Women in Solidarity for Energy) project, colleagues from our institute participated in two international online events in March 2025. The events explored energy poverty, the right to energy, and the situation of women in Europe.
Institute for Minority Studies
Gergely Pulay will give a presentation on the topic Domination, autonomy and post-feudalism in Hungarian social thought from late- to post-socialism. The presentation is part of the ‘Capitalist Transformations in Eastern and Central Europe’ conference, an academic event that takes place online between 19 - 22 May 2025
You can see the conference programme here.
More info about the event here.
Participation is free of charge, but requires registration here.
Institute for Minority Studies
On 9 May 2025, the Institute for Central European Strategy in Ukraine organised "Dialogues on Europe", which aimed to synchronise the understanding of Europe and the European Union at the level of narratives and practices. The event was attended by participants from many countries. Our institute was represented by Csilla Fedinec, who gave a presentation.
Our results
20 March, 2025
New publication:
Szalma I, Heers M, Tanturri ML (2025) Measuring attitudes towards voluntary childlessness: Indicators in European comparative surveys. PLOS ONE 20(3): e0319081. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0319081
Expert workshop on 9 October, 2024
Berezvai, Z., Vitrai, J., Tóth, G., Brys, Z., Bakacs, M., & Joó, T. (2024). Long-term impact of unhealthy food tax on consumption and the drivers behind: a longitudinal study in Hungary. Health Policy, 105098.
Manna, A., Koltai, J. & Karsai, M. Importance of social inequalities to contact patterns, vaccine uptake, and epidemic dynamics. Nature Communication 15, 4137 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-48332-y
Ivett Szalma & Marieke Heers (2024) Attitudes Toward Immigration in Europe. Understanding the Links Between Pronatalism and Voluntary Childlessness, International Journal of Sociology, DOI: 10.1080/00207659.2024.2319420