The University of Debrecen (UNIDEB), Hungary, with its more than 32.000 students, 15 faculties and 1500 teaching staff members is the natural centre of research and higher educational activities in Eastern Hungary. Being one of the most prestigious and largest universities of Hungary, the University of Debrecen has been awarded the title of elite research university. Besides its widespread training activities (BA in Sociology and Social Work, MA in Sociology and Social Policy, PhD programme), the Department of Sociology and Social Policy has specialized on the fields of the social integration, employment policy, territorial development, norms and values and energy use. It focuses both its research and educational activities on these topics. The Department currently comprises 14 staff, all of whom are both research-active and pursue excellence in teaching. The Department has successfully built a large network of civil organisations, research and social political institutes, and all kinds of social service providers and continuously organises trainings and other professional activities for them. The Department has 25-year research experience in conducting international, comparative research projects, empirical surveys, case studies and preparing professional reports. The core research within the department are on: social policy, European economies and environment, urban and rural sociology, identity and societies; gender, education, project sociology, labour force. The UD has high prestige in the region. The teaching and research staff of sociology and social policy department participated in numerous international comparative projects. The methodology of fieldwork based on qualitative sociology approaches and qualitative, extended survey and online survey based quantitative analysis are in the focus of teaching and research activity. The staff actively participated in qualitative and quantitative works of international comparative projects about climate management and energy demand, youth, labour force and education.
The RURALIZATION members at UNIDEB are Imre Kovách, Attila Bai, Péter Balogh, Ibolya Czibere, Boldizsár Megyesi, Sándor Márton, Éva Molnár, Gabriella Nemes-Zámbó and Noémi Loncsák. Their short profiles are listed below.
Imre Kovách, DSc, PhD professor of sociology at the University of Debrecen, head of Sociology PhD program. Scientific adviser, Institute of Sociology CSS HAS. He has wide experience of cross- European research. He was the co-ordinator of the research network, ‘Actors on changing European countryside’, and ‘De-peasantisation in late industrialised European countries’ and a joint co-ordinator of WG5, ‘Local power, leadership and rural restructuring’ for COST Action 12 on Rural Innovation. He is the national coordinator of several FP researches (RURBAN, CORASON, COFAMI, GILDED, AgriEval, PENNY). He was the president of European Society for Rural Sociology 2003-2008; he has been vice- president of the International Rural Sociology Association (2000-2004), and of EU COST Action 12. He has studies on rural sociology, urban-rural relations, climate change management, sustainable development, governance and power relations. He is foreign corresponding member, Académie d’Agriculture de France.
Attila Bai PhD has been working as a full professor since 2017 for the University of Debrecen, Faculty of Economics and Business. The total number of his publications is 372, including 18 with impact factors (including 5 D1 journals) and with 637 independent citations (including 153 from WoS/Scopus). He is the president both of the Hungarian Biomass Cluster and of the Renewable Energy Section of the Debrecen Committee of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. Many times he have had the honor to be allowed to participate in the work of journals with impact factor as reviewer, too. Now he is a guest editor and a member of the Section Board of the Sustainabilty (MDPI, Q2). His main research areas are the economics of renewable energy sources and – since 2018 – precision farming.
Péter Balogh DSc, PhD Professor. He is a Doctor of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences working in the University of Debrecen Institute of Statistics and Methodology. He is the leader of Károly Ihrig Doctoral School of Management and Business. His research focuses on the econometrics methods and the application of the different discrete choice models in management science. He has many international connections with highly cited researchers in this research area. Currently he is a Special Issue Editor of the Sustainability (IF: 2.592) journal ”Economic Evaluation of Renewable Energy Sources”. Professor Balogh has more than 260 publications with 73 cumulative impact factors, the majority of which were written on methodological aspects. His research network is quite extensive and he is able to well combine economic theories to practice-based applications.
Ibolya Czibere, associate professor at University of Debrecen. She is director of Institute of Sociology, Social Policy and Political Sciences and head of Department of Sociology and Social policy, She is expert of social policy, gender issues, territorial development and innovation, minority studies. She is editor in chief of “Metszetek” scientific journal. She is member of Hungarians National Research Foundation Sociology Committee. She participated in several international projects (HELPS, INTERREG, HURO)
Boldizsár Megyesi, PhD senior research fellow at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Centre for Social Sciences, Sociologist, works on rural research in Hungarian and European research projects. He wrote his PhD on institutions of rural development. He participated in several Hungarian and EU financed projects: for example the COFAMI, GILDED, PENNY) projects. Most recently he led a project on role of small scale food production in Hungary. He is experienced both in qualitative and quantitative methods.
Sándor Márton, assistant professor at University of Debrecen. He is an expert of methodology. His works are about educational system, territorial inequalities and development, health care and social inequalities, learning regions for resilience, smart towns and villages, He worked for several national and international research projects.
Éva Molnár, PhD assistant professor at University of Debrecen. Her main research interest is rural poverty, gender relation, family, rural mobility and immobility, labour market perspectives of young women living in extreme poverty, youth and regionalism Her PhD thesis is about marriage in impoverished, isolated social space, work value choices,
Gabriella Nemes-Zámbó, PhD Student at University of Debrecen. Her main research field is child protection but during her studies she has been part of several projects from traditional farmers’ research to commuters’ research and city researches. She was involved in ACCOMPLISSH H2020 project.
Noémi Loncsák, PhD student and assistant professor at University of Debrecen. During the basic and master degree she worked on reveal the typically poor living conditions of the Hungarian ethnic minority situated in the Ukraine near the border-line, local features of poverty. Her aims during the PhD studies to explore the causes, interests and constraints of immobile young, rural people.
