Metropolitan Research Institute

Metropolitan Research Institute, Budapest

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MRI presents at REELIH Conference in Brussels

Anna Bajomi, Hanna Szemző and Éva Gerőházi from Metropolitan Research Institute participated at the conference “Reducing Energy Poverty by Energy Efficiency Projects in Residential Buildings: The Case for Eastern Europe” organised by Habitat for Humanity, in Brussels in 24-25 April 2017. The conference aimed at taking a deep look at the definition and policies of energy poverty in light of the energy efficient interventions the residential building stock is needed. By the participation of European and national policy makers the actors were trying to find out how energy poverty and energy efficiency are interlinked or sometimes conflicted. (The presentation of MRI on this issue can be found attached.)

The national examples have showed that several countries of Central and Eastern Europe have already introduced national subsidy schemes for assisting owners of residential buildings to implement energy efficient interventions and the countries of the Balkan or the former Soviet Union are also on the way to launch pilot projects. However these schemes are more likely to fulfil energy targets (more energy to be saved on national level) than to consider how energy poor can be or cannot be affected by them. The separation/connection of social policy and energy policy is still a topic of lively discussion not only in Central Europe but also in the old member states of the European Union.

(More information on the conference can be found at : https://getwarmhomes.org  and read or colleague’s blog article about the conference.

Social Innovation and Energy Supply

As part of MRI’s increasing involvement on energy efficiency and energy poverty, Hanna Szemző attended the the seminar “Social Innovation: Driving Force of Social Change. Foresight & Policy Workshop on Energy Supply”, organised by the Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research (Nederlandse Organisatie voor Toegepast Natuurwetenschappelijk Onderzoek – TNO) and the Austrian Institute of Technology (AIT) in Leiden. The seminar focused on the place and importance of social innovation in the energy sector,  the mechanisms of to bring about change within the sector and the recommendations for policy makers to support this change both on national and on European level.

 

The effect of GFC on tenure choice – the case of Hungary

The article “The effect of GFC on tenure choice in a post-socialist country – the case of Hungary”, co-authored by József Hegedüs (Metropolitan Research Institute), Adrienne Csizmady (Hungarian Academy of Sience) and Gyula Nagy (FHB Bank) was published in Issue 2, 2017 of International Journal of Housing Policy. The paper takes a look at the effect of the Great Financial Crisis (GFC) on housing tenure choice in a post-socialist setting, based on the case of Hungary. Central and Eastern European transition countries had a very predominant owner occupied sector  prior to the GFC, where owner occupied dwellings typically amounted to 85-95 percent of the housing stocks. The paper sets out to assess if stakeholders in the housing sector (households, government, banks, etc.) will learn from these experiences, and start showing a stronger preference and support for renting, which could result in a more balanced tenure structure and more stable housing system.

The full article is accessible on Taylor & Francis’s website.