At the Semmelweis University of Medicine...

At the Semmelweis University of Medicine, Erzsébet Gidai was the first to deal with futures research. Working mainly with literature in German, she strove to make futures research strike roots in Hungary too. The Science Organization Group of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences , headed by Lajos Szántó , focussed on working with and discussing both international and Hungarian special literature, and on systematising the obtained knowledge.

The fact that a number of individuals at different universities and academic research institutes began to deal with diverse aspects of the future on their own, thereby enriching and broadening the thematic scope of futures research in this country, was a peculiar feature of the early days of futures research in Hungary.

The following research centres and researchers must be mentioned by all means: the Department of Transport of the Budapest Technical University ( Kálmán Kádas ), the Department of External Economy of the University of Economic Sciences ( Imre Korán ), the Janus Pannonius University of Pécs ( Béla Sipos ), the Hungarian Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Philosophy ( Ervin Bóna ), Institute of World Economy ( Mihály Simai ), Institute of Economic Sciences ( Ferenc Jánossy ), Institute of Home Trade ( Radmila Verstovshek ), the University of Miskolc ( János Czabán ), the University of Szeged ( László Tóth ) and the University of Debrecen ( Csilla Kemény ).

The different research teams and academic workshops dealing with futures research varied in the pace and extent of becoming institutionalised. The process turned out to be the smoothest in the National Planning Department of the University of Economic Sciences despite the fact that the Group headed by Géza Kovács had to undergo a number of organisational changes within the framework of university reforms.

In 1979, when the National Planning Department became the National Planning Institute, the Group was organised as the Section on Futures Research , and in 1989, when the institute was replaced by the Macro Planning and Modelling Institute, the institutional Department of Futures Research and Planning came into being under its aegis, this time headed by Erzsébet Nováky .