Economic and social impact

BBU as an educational and research institution is committed to knowledge sharing and, in addition to our responsibility to the citizens of the University, we believe it is important to support the wider community through our own means. In line with our strategy, we therefore intend to work at several levels to ensure that the knowledge accumulated at BBU is used as widely as possible.

It was an important step in the life of our university when in January 2016, we were granted the status of University of Applied Sciences. Since then, the utilization of knowledge from scientific results has become a priority, both in terms of its integration into our training programmes and its exploitation by academic, corporate, public and non-profit stakeholders alike. With knowledge sharing being a priority, we aim to increase the economic and societal impact of our research, the number and visibility of our publications at several levels in the coming years. The enhancement of high-level and international scientific activity take place to a large extent in centres of excellence established by BBU. In the case of applied research, we aim to generate knowledge that is useful for everyday life, where possible in collaboration with business partners, thus strengthening the applied science approach. Equally important to us is the development of quality education and talent management, which will significantly expand the University's talent base and make science a real and meaningful goal for all teaching colleagues.

Highlights and successes of recent years

Education

We channel the results of our national and international collaborative research into education in a variety of ways. Most often it is translated into the development of course and teaching methods, but we also focus on providing space for colleagues to exchange experiences through thematic workshops or conferences. The exchange of experience takes place, for example, at the annual Research Days, where, in addition to the results of research groups and individual researchers, colleagues report a number of research experiences and methodological research results that can be used by other lecturers.

Budapest LAB's research significantly enriches the university's adult education portfolio. Starting in 2023, we're introducing a 3-day intensive training for potential family business owners and one-day workshops focusing on stress management, non-verbal communication, and effective goal setting. Budapest LAB also offers competence development programs for BBU students, covering essential skills like visual communication, communication development, teamwork, and more. Additionally, it collaborates with BBU's HR department in developing and delivering training courses, enhancing BBU's operational efficiency as an organization. The research outcomes from CESIBUS are integrated into courses like 'Responsible and Sustainable Company' and various intensive courses developed in collaboration with industry partners. FHERC research is incorporated into an intensive course on Text Analysis in Organizational Communication and training initiatives with nonprofit organizations.

Research

In recent years, we have organised major international conferences and a number of prestigious national events to showcase our research. In addition, we promote the flow of knowledge in a number of other ways, such as through OBIC’s English-language volumes on East Asia or the professional blog posts of the Future of Higher Education Centre of Excellence (FHERC). Our research workshop events feature presentations by our experts and discussions on current economic and social issues with our invited corporate partners.

Business sector

In partnership with businesses, our strategic goal is to make the results of our research directly available to businesses. That is why we regularly present at conferences or organise such events. We make case studies and good practices publicly available and are continuously developing training courses.

Our corporate partner, Makronóm Ltd., utilizes the findings from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) directly, but the results are also used indirectly by Hungarian SMEs to develop their strategies and improve their operations.. CESIBUS's sustainability research has been directly used by the construction companies Mikolasek Ltd. and Budapest Public Utilities Ltd., but the research results are useful for all Hungarian SMEs to become more sustainable.,The Smart Shop Floor Labor (SSFL), supported by Bosch Elektronika Ltd., is pivotal in both university and corporate education, enabling modeling and simulation of industrial activities for research in optimizing corporate processes.

Government decision-making

An important achievement is that the results of our research are used not only by businesses but also by the government. A good example of this is that the results of the Budapest LAB Family Business Research Programme are directly referred to in the SME strategy published by the government at the end of 2019, which Budapest LAB not only participated in preparing but also carried out background analyses for.

Dissemination of knowledge

Hundreds of Hungarian and international visitors have participated in our institution-wide scientific events in recent years, but we also try to contribute to the dissemination and promotion of scientific knowledge by joining other events and through social media.

BBU actively shares its research at various conferences and events. We host an international conference annually on Hungarian Science Day, inviting speakers from business, government, civil society, and academia. Our Researchers' Day and other faculty-organized annual conferences present our findings to the professional community and businesses. Budapest LAB, in partnership with K&K Magazine, organizes popular conferences for family business managers. CESIBUS researchers have participated in public outreach through podcasts and TV features on environmental protection. Since 2019, BBU has been part of the Researchers' Night event, offering lectures and workshops to a wide audience in economics and social sciences.

Knowledge sharing platforms and tools:

Publications – Between 2019 and 2023, 4541 publications were published and the works of our colleagues in this period were cited by 3949 independent scientific works.
In 2023, BBU faculty and researchers published 1177 scientific publications, 132 of which were articles in internationally highly rated journals (rated Q1-Q4).
Prosperitas journal - an important tool for scientific dissemination is the scientific journal of BBU entitled Prosperitas, which is published four times a year and in addition to which the faculties publish a number of professional periodicals.
BBU Knowledge Map – We currently publish key data from more than 240 individual and group research on our online, thematic platform.
Conference participation – In 2019, our colleagues delivered a total of 64 national conference presentations with conference proceedings and published 58 foreign language book chapters/international conference proceedings.
Scientific events – we also promote knowledge sharing at our own events. In the past 3 years, the four biggest (Celebration of Hungarian Science, Researchers' Days, OBIC conferences, Researchers' Night) BBU science events have attracted more than 4,000 participants
Media – we also place great emphasis on communicating our research results in a way that is understandable and interesting to the lay public. The media, who are always welcome at our events, are a great help in this. Journalists then have the opportunity to learn about BBU’s applied research and to have real conversations with researchers. This results in a steady flow of interesting and relevant articles on the topics in focus - we have had over 90 such appearances in the last year.
Newsletter and the web - On the websites of our Centres of Excellence, in our newsletter and below, we continuously publish articles about our current research. For example, on the topic of enterprise development, we recommend the online magazine of the BBU Budapest LAB – Entrepreneurship Centre.