It is a great honour for us that Eleonora Masini ...

It is a great honour for us that Eleonora Masini , founding member and president of the World Futures Studies Federation, identified immediately with the importance of our concept. She has been familiar with and interested in the futures studies activities all over the world including our countries for a long time so her great attention and empathy concerning this venture was just natural.

We hope to find among the readers of this book not only those who have been active in the field of futures studies in the past but everyone who is interested in our futures, who feels responsibility for it and who forms our common future, and is willing to deal with them on a scientific level. We also hope this group is a growing one, including people of different ages, mainly the youth. The book consists of two main parts: i.e.

country studies and the synthesis of the answers given to the Questionnaires. They covered the period of 1960-2000, divided into two parts, 1960-1990 and 1990-2000. The borderline was the fall of the Soviet Union and the socialist system, when the transition period started. The country studies are published in their original form under the name of the author as independent chapters. The Editorial Board made only some slight editorial corrections .

The answers to the Questionnaire gave a good possibility to have a comprehensive and comparative picture about the futures studies activities and scientific results of the futurists in the given countries. In carrying out this venture successfully Mária Kalas Kőszegi and Erzsébet Nováky shouldered the work of searching for the responsible authors from the countries, keeping the contact with the foreign partners, and the editorial work of the book.

The majority of the staff of the Futures Studies Centre at the Budapest University of Economic Sciences and Public Administration led by Erzsébet Nováky also participated in the work. From them, however, we have to raise the name of Éva Hideg who provided great help in finalizing the Questionnaire. The technical infrastructure was aided by this Centre. The encouragement of UNESCO and the WFSF is also highly appreciated. Finally, we must mention something else.

It gave us a special happiness to be able to work together with widely known famous colleagues in the field of futures studies from different countries.