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Információs Társadalom -
és Trendkutató Központ
About US
„Understanding and communicating the information challenge”
This was the motto in January 1998 for the establishment of BME-UNESCO Information Society Research Institute (ITTK), which has by now become an internationally renowned Hungarian institute in the field of information society studies. According to its mission statement, ITTK conducts high-level, independent interdisciplinary research to explore various aspects of the information society, including recent trends of the information technology revolution and its social, economic, cultural, and political effects. The findings of these projects are being utilized in various ways, offering scientific, economy-related and human responses to actual questions arising in the field.
The Institute is promoting the maturing of a new generation of young research fellows, who are capable of dealing with specific subfields in the realm of the information society, at an internationally acceptable level. At the same time, it intends to communicate Hungarian experiences and results to the international community as well, while, operating as a “node” in the network of European (and extra-European) professional workshops and studios dealing with related issues, it is trying to “import” into Hungary as much relevant knowledge as possible.
ITTK can offer professional contribution to revealing the social background for various international projects, surveying and/or analyzing feedbacks from target groups, and testing products and results in Hungarian or Central and Eastern European contexts. Moreover, the institute is capable of taking part in creating research networks, including the identification of additional potential partners in Hungary and in other new member states of the EU, who are actively engaged in research activities in relevant subfields.
The years 1997 and 1998 were a very promising period in the political history of the Hungarian information society: this was the time when, supported by the rector of BME and the secretary of the Hungarian UNESCO Committee, the first ideas and a pilot conceptual framework for the establishment of a research institute (to become ITTK later) were born, especially tailored to the dynamics of this strategic field.
The success of launching and directing it onto a “growth trajectory” was due to the fact that, with gaining support for supplying Hungarian data for the ESIS II. (European Survey of Information Society) project of the European Union, it became feasible to organize supplementary activities around a sufficiently funded basic two-year project. By the end of 1999, after winning financial support from the National Employment Fund, too, an operational structure based on a “working at home” system was introduced, which has been characteristic of the institute ever since. This type of research and other project tasks have kept about 15-20 researchers busy in more or less permanent jobs.
In 1999 ITTK launched its two characteristic professional periodicals still in full operation, which have made its name well-known and reputed in Hungarian professional circles: the weekly online newsletter “INFINIT” (INFormációs Társadalom–INternet–InformációTechnológia – meaning Information Society-Internet-Information Technology) and the “Research Report” (a bulletin publishing Hungarian studies, together with interim and final reports in the field).
In 2001, on the initiative of ITTK, a ten-year long survey program for collecting Hungarian data in the frames of the World Internet Project (WIP) was launched, in which ITTK has been participating in close partnership with TÁRKI and ELTE ITHAKA from the very beginning. Since the WIP is a most reliable source of reporting on the diffusion of Internet culture in Hungarian society, the findings of annual surveys have become standard points of orientation and frames of reference regarding up-to-date knowledge on Internet penetration and use. Parallel with the WIP, another two and a half-year research program is also going on within the frames of the National Research and Development Program (NKFP), titled “Internet and Social Science”, which started pioneering work concerning several issues. By the end of 2001 the efforts resulted in launching a new quarterly professional periodical in social theory, dealing with information society studies, the journal “Information Society”, and in a book publication program covering the history (including classics) and key issues of the field.
During the past years the position of the institute has kept changing. In early 2003 it started building up a national network of Information Society Education and Research Groups (ISERGs) in a franchise system, consisting of numerous units incorporated into the institutions of Hungarian higher education, which deal with the same tasks as those undertaken by ITTK in the beginning. The INFONIA Foundation was established to take over editorial and publishing work, and, later, all research activities of non-academic character. INFONIA, with its fellowship program, works on a non-profit basis, perfectly complementing ITTK’s academic activities. Also in the process leading to clearer specialization, smaller research enterprises have been detached from ITTK, which found opportunities to continue their activities originally started within the Institute, now autonomously providing services demanded by the market. The “INFINIT Market” has specialized in online market research, the “INFINIT Workshop” is doing applied empirical investigations, the “INFI-Net” has specialized in web content providing, the “INFINIT Intelligence” has developed into a renowned specialist of news-hunting and newsletter editing, while the work of “INFINIT Incubator” is targeted at incubation processes.
In the present phase of ITTK’s history, its most characteristic activities are the following:
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providing professional support for government projects concerning the information society;
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conducting investigations sponsored mostly by innovation allowances given to companies which are present in the ICT-market (in close co-operation with the companies involved);
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doing basic research typically financed by national and international funds; and
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managing the publication program mentioned above (professional journal, books, etc.).
From the year 2005 on, the main outputs of ITTK, which are decisive of its profile, have been its annual reports, published regularly at the beginning of each year, reporting on the most important events and trends of the previous year in the global information society (Information Society World Progress Report), in the field of e-governance (E-Government Annual Report), and in Hungarian development programs (Hungarian Information Society Annual Report). These three reports are supplemented with an Annual Report on the activities of ITTK performed in that year.
The research competencies of ITTK are fairly diverse, focussing primarily on various issues of the information society, social utilization of information technology, and the Internet. Research findings are gained mostly by qualitative methods, such as desk-research, secondary analysis, content-analysis, online research, in-depth interviews, focus groups, online and traditional surveys, value added data mining, data hunting, as well as preparing newletters and writing trend reports, based on research done with the above methods.
