⋅ www.tarki.hu/index-e.html
Historical background
TÁRKI was founded in 1985 as a service organisation by the major Hungarian social science research units to set up an information network for social research in Hungary. TÁRKI has played a leading role in social research in Hungary. After the political, economic and social changes that took place in 1990s, TÁRKI’s special interest is description and analysis of this transition in Hungary and in the other countries. Since 1998 TÁRKI is an independent shareholders company.
Services provided and selected projects
TÁRKI’s research interests cover social, economic, political issues, health and welfare, communications and information. TÁRKI has been engaged in a number of consultancy and research contracts with various government agencies, e.g. with the Ministry of Welfare (on medium-term social policy strategy), Ministry of Finance (on simulating fiscal and social effects of economic policy and tax policy reforms), National Bank of Hungary (regular survey on households savings behaviour and on inflation expectation), Ministry of Economy (short term business cycle forecast. Surveys provided in the field of social issues include gradual development of a widely used social stratification model with the collection of data for various poverty estimations and social inequalities in the present society. Experimental work has been done on the stratification of society based on income, consumption and wealth. Special attention is paid to mapping attitude towards minorities, the role of the government, the interference of political preferences and economic attitudes. Regarding the economic surveys, the unemployment issue is studied, along with the development of the private sector including the regular Business Cycle Forecast. The services provided in the political field cover the examination of local government, pre and post election data collection to foresee and assess the results of the elections. TÁRKI has also a number of contracts with clients from the competitive sector on savings behaviour (for various commercial banks), on telecommunications projects (for various telecom companies) and on a number of other topics. TÁRKI has regular weekly series of articles in Magyar Hírlap, produces regular working paper series (approximately one per month), a Social Forecast and a Business Cycle Forecast (twice a year) and a Social Report (every second year). Also, a number of occasional research papers are published by TÁRKI.
List of Clients
- Ministry of Welfare, Ministry of Economy, Ministry of Finance, National Bank, Prime Ministers’ Office, Budapest Local Government, Pension Supervisory Agency
- financial sector (e.g. OTP Budapest bank), telecommunication sector (e.g. MATAV), Hungarian state and commercial television companies
- international organisations (e.g. World Bank, OECD)
- academic research institutions, Central Statistical Office (KSH)
TÁRKI is also a part of consortium of ten different scientific institutions, e.g. University of Economics of Budapest (BKE), Institute for Social Conflict Research of the Hungarian Academy of Science, National Centre of Vocational Training.
TÁRKI has a great number of contacts with various international networks, e.g. CESSIDA and IFDO for databank organisations, ICPSR and CEPS/INSTEAD for research and teaching, ISSP for regular international surveys.
Number of staff members:
30, including 13 research and 3 administrative. Others: 5 visiting, 700 interviewers/field workers
