Last November, the Hungarian government launched an SME Strategy with the goal of developing the economy and improving citizens’ quality of life. Now, policymakers in the country will be able to draw upon Global Entrepreneurship Monitor’s data, international benchmarking and best practices thanks to Hungary rejoining the consortium.
The responsibilities of the GEM project will be assigned to the Budapest LAB Entrepreneurship Centre at the Budapest Business School – University of Applied Sciences (BBS), the largest university of applied sciences in Hungary.
According to the Hungarian government’s Ministry of Innovation and Technology, the SME Strategy was developed with the involvement of 1000 enterprises and aspires to reinforce small and medium-sized businesses, which employ the majority of people in Hungary. Along with the BBS Budapest LAB Family Business Research Programme, GEM is the other source referred to by name in the SME Strategy.
“This shows that the GEM program, in addition to its scientific potential, produces results that can be directly utilized by policymakers,” said Dr. László Radácsi, BBS’ Vice Rector for Strategy and Innovation.
BBS is one of the leading applied sciences universities in Central Europe in economics. It began over 160 years ago and presently trains almost 17,000 students. BBS launched the first doctoral program in Hungary with training and research curricula directly focusing on the business and management issues of small and medium-sized companies and family businesses. The school attaches great importance to carrying out directly transferable applied research that can positively influence cooperation between higher education institutions and industry.
The Budapest LAB Entrepreneurship Centre was established in 2017 to support the strategic aim of BBS to become an entrepreneurship and SME-friendly university. Budapest LAB’s key goals are to boost initiatives, establish businesses, develop entrepreneurial attitudes, support Hungarian SMEs by creating an accessible knowledge base and become the well-known research, development, training and knowledge centre of entrepreneurship development in the Central European region.
“The research program can further strengthen BBS’s position in business research, as its results are of wider interest and utility to society. The results of the GEM research could constitute an excellent part of BBS's scientific communication,” explained Radácsi. “Rejoining the GEM research will strongly support several elements of BBS’s strategy.”
Hungary was part of GEM from 2001 – 2015. Reports and data can be found at this link.