Metropolitan Research Institute
Metropolitan Research Institute, Budapest
Iván Tosics, managing director of Metropolitan Research Institute, has a long standing tradition of greeting the new year with a photo essay of issues he learned about in the old one. His photo essay for 2018 treats the issue of the “housing paradox”: how more financing seemingly curbs the affordability of housing across the globe – and no longer only in the so-called “hegde-cities”.
MRI managing director József Hegedüs and researcher Vera Horváth presented on “ReImagining Inclusive Cities: Planning, Land, Housing, Infrastructure” in Chennai, India on 16 November 2018. The two-day symposium, on 15-16 November, was organised by the German development Agency GIZ (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit), and supported by the government of Tamil Nadu. The event brought together leaders and policy makers from the central, state, and local governments tasked with housing and urban land management; as well as researchers, NGO representatives and private sector actors from India and all over the globe.
The 13th annual Research Conference on Homelessness of FEANTSA, the European Federation of National Organisations Working with the Homeless, took place in Budapest on 21 September 2018. This year’s topic was “the Economic and Social Integration of Homeless People”. The event was co-organised by FEANTSA’s European Observatory on Homelessness, the Shelter Foundation of Budapest, and Metropolitan Research Institute – with particular efforts of Nóra Teller, editorial board member of the European Journal on Homelessness.
The event drew considerable attention, hosting 180 participants from almost 50 countries, representing academic lecturers and researchers, NGOs, think tanks, and municipal representatives among others. Participants arrived from all over the globe, including from beyond Europe – including the US, Australia, and South Africa. The conference was opened by Ian Tilling, FEANTSA’s president; and József Hegedüs, the managing director of Metropolitan Research Institute.
Presenters and discussants were organised into 18 seminars (6 parallel seminars in three time slots). Seminar 2 on “Encountering Homelessness: Ethnography, Engagement and Critique” and seminar 10, “Social and Financial Advantages of Housing First” were chaired by MRI’s Nóra Teller. Seminar 3 focused on MRI current EU-funded project HomeLab, connecting housing and employment service provision to vulnerable persons in the Visegrad 4 countries – this session was chaired by József Hegedüs, and included MRI staff as well as representatives of our consortium partners.
The Central Statistical Office of Hungary just made accessible on its website the edited publication of researchers’ analyses of the data collected on CSO’s 2015 national representative housing survey. The first chapter of the publication, by MRI staff members József Hegedüs and Eszter Somogyi, address the links between social inequalities and the affordability of housing – a question often treated in the international literature, and also drawing increasing interest in Hungary in recent years.