Metropolitan Research Institute
Metropolitan Research Institute, Budapest
Hanna Szemző and Andrea Tönkő presented OpenHeritage H2020 project, set to start in June 2018, on 20 March at the “Cultural Heritage, Social Cohesion and Place Attachment” workshop organised by the Institute of Sociology, Centre for Social Sciences of the Hungarian Academy of Science.
The edited volume Funding the Cooperative City: Community Finance and the Economy of Civic Spaces was recently published in Vienna, presenting stories and models of community finance and civic economy. The volume’s chapter on Central and Eastern European urban civic initiatives was authored by Hanna Szemző, managing director of Metropolitan Research Institute.
MRI director József Hegedüs and staff member Vera Horváth are co-authors of “Central and East European housing regimes in the light of private rental sector development”, chapter 2 in the edited volume “Tenancy Law and Housing Policy in Europe: Towards Regulatory Equilibrium”, recently published as part of the Edward Elgar (UK) Elgar Land and Housing Law and Policy series.
Metropolitan Research Institute was member of the consortium implementing the EU FP7 funded project TENLAW: Tenancy Law and Housing Policy in Multi-Level Europe between 2012 and 2016, led by Universität Bremen. The project undertook the in-depth assessment and comparative analysis of the housing policy environment and tenancy regulations (private, public, and intermediary tenure forms) in 28 European countries. The project was a significant learning opportunity for all participants, and resulted in the collection of an abundance of information on housing policy and legislation, as well as real life outcomes, pertaining to residential renting. The recent volume “Tenancy Law and Housing Policy in Europe: Towards Regulatory Equilibrium” contains a selection of the concluding research studies penned by the contributing researchers, selected by Dr. Christoph Schmid, project coordinator and editor of the tome. Chapter 2 on Central and East European housing regimes offers a comparative look at the conclusions drawn from findings in transition countries, based on the detailed information gathered through the project, and focusing on the regulatory questions and actual outcomes that appear the most crucial for the development of private renting: a tenure form with growing prominence, although often hidden in the informal economy.
Client: Metropolitan Authority of Barcelona
Duration: November 2017 – December 2017
The Metropolitan Authority of Barcelona contracted MRI to evaluate the operation of five metropolitan areas in Europe in order to gain practical suggestions on how to intensify the metropolitan cooperation around Barcelona. The metropolitan areas under analysis were Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Manchester, Stuttgart and Zürich. From these five metropolitan areas Stuttgart has the strongest governance structure with a directly elected parliament; Greater Manchester has weaker legitimacy but stronger metropolitan identity, more competences in service provision. The Zürich Metropolitan Area Association has common projects with limited influence so far, but it has an approved metropolitan spatial plan. A somewhat weaker cooperation characterizes Copenhagen, where a strong metropolitan spatial plan is created by the national government, but there is no institutional framework for further metropolitan cooperation in place. A similar level of cooperation operates in Amsterdam, where the institutional structure is evolving incrementally, but they lack the proper spatial framework, and the cooperation is mostly based on bi- and multi-lateral negotiations.
Barcelona Metropolitan Area is more developed than any of these metropolitan features still there are approaches and tools that may be interesting for them like having a directly elected president, building partnership with economic actors, acquiring more devolved competencies, improving the efficiency of spatial planning.
The study elaborated by MRI, Addressing the Metropolitan Challenge in Barcelona Metropolitan Area, was presented in a workshop on the 15 of June 2018 for the decision makers of the Metropolitan Council of Barcelona.
Eszter Somogyi and Hanna Szemző attended the Opening up to an ERA of Social Innovation Conference on November 27-28th. The Lisbon conference, organized by the EC, the Portuguese government and the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation focused on finding ways to promote social innovations, both as a way to increase inclusiveness and to overcome the difficulties caused by budgetary cuts and changing shifts in public financing. Representing HomeLab, MRI’s project focusing on innovations in the housing and employment sector, Eszter and Hanna have focused their efforts on deepening their knowledge and their network in the field.