Budapest University of Economics and Business

We have started in 2022 a 4-year research project about agency in higher education – from individual to global level. The aim of our research is to map how the different actors of higher education portray their social roles, and through that, their sense of agency. In the research we will focus on global/macro and meso/micro levels of the higher education system in order to compare each levels’ discourse on the matter. This research is supported by National Research, Development and Innovation Office (Hungary) between 2022-2026 (K142227).

A new research project has started in 2023 led by Anita Kolnhofer-Derecskei, Regina Reicher and Karina Szászvári. This research aims to determine how COVID-19restrictions affected the subpopulation (generation) of the cohort of early career workers who experienced a lockdown during the transition from university to the labour market.

In 2023, another research group joined us. In the forefront of their common interest is innovation in educational methodology, with particular attention to student autonomy, soft skill development, student and teacher digital competencies, internationalization, artificial intelligence literacy, educational development, and teacher development.

In 2023 ended a 5-year-long research project covering the future of business education. As part of this project, we investigated what social roles highly ranked business schools attribute to themselves and what kind of future they envision in their communication. Furthermore, we explored the most influential trends and biggest challenges facing the HE sector and its institutions, which we channelled into a scenario-building process. As a result, we published our scenario report in 2022, which outlines four possible futures for higher education. Based on this, we are now running scenario workshops and getting feedback from different stakeholder groups within the university. We have got support from ‘Research projects initiated by young researchers’ fund of National Research, Development and Innovation Office (Hungary) between 2018-2023 (FK127972).

More information about our research projects can be found HERE.

In addition to continuous research the FHERC team is active in domestic and international competitions, regularly organises conferences and professional workshops, and participates in prestigious scientific events with speakers. We are members of the 'European Universities - Critical Futures' project, which brings together European higher education research centres and researchers led by CHEF in Aarhus. Previously, we participated in the project called "Global Essay Mills Survey" (GEMS), we edited a special issue for the prestigious Futures journal (Q1) entitled Future of Higher Education. In addition, the head of the centre, Zsuzsanna Géring (PhD), was also a member of the management of the International Research Network ISA RC07 Futures Research between 2018 and 2022.                             

In 2018, the professional leader of FHERC, Gábor Király (PhD), received an expert analyst request from the EU Commission, within framework of which he prepared expert background material for the JRC of the European Union on the topic ‘Future of Higher Education – an entrepreneurship university concept in one focus. FHERC is active in domestic and international tenders.