This is a CTP of initiative: Living Knowledge ‐ The Environmental Social Science Research Group (ESSRG ‐ Hungary)
ESSRG is a legally registered limited company. It was created in 2008-2009 in response to the previous CTPs, where they failed to get funding for their science shop at St. István University (the agricultural university in Hungary) and further back when the department where their research group was located were closed/reorganized. By creating an independent company, they were not vulnerable to university politics and funding (although they are dependent on external funding), and could more freely collaborate with researchers independent of which university they were affiliated with. Both of the interviewees still work at universities at the same time.
BB: so therefore we very easily decided to after the funding stopped that we go independent, and we were trying to maintain this activity. Working independently also means that, you know, we can collaborate with different universities, we can corporate with the university St. István as well was Corvinus University or the groups in southern Hungary as GP mentioned, or others, so letting the funding go gave us freedom.
As explained by BB, is gives them much greater flexibility to be independent, both in terms of collaborating with a wide range of researchers as the types of funding they can get. BB further elaborates on this aspect, and how it helped them when working in the EU project called PERARES:
BB: already when the PERARES project started in 2009 maybe, we went into PARERES with a brand new virgin limited company. This gave us the freedom to do community based research the way we would want to do it, and also enable the involvement of other academic research institutions. So any time we can invite researchers from any universities, that helps a lot, and this is a convenient solution, because we can very easily go beyond the traditional forms of research activities.
The creation of ESSRG have also in some way empowered the research group, at least from BB’s perspective, in the pursuit of transforming the education and academic research in Hungary, as well as working with local communities and students.
BB: since we have the independent company in this field, at least for me, it becomes much clearer how you can approach, how you can contribute, to transform the education and academic research, and working together with local communities and students, because we have a special role in that…
This also illustrates the mission or aim of the research group.
One of the biggest “actors” helping ESSRG and the research group was the international network, Living Knowledge, as explained by BB when asked about the importance of the network:
BB: Flexibility and in terms of resourcing to be more diverse, and yeah, we still maintained the courses that started the science shop, the type of courses at the university. So our search [for the international network] was a big help, we became part of international networks and different project, EU FP7, and horizon 2020 programs.
GP likewise puts a lot on emphasis on the co-production with Living Knowledge:
GP: The Living Knowledge network, when we were established, we were invited to the PERARES project, and that was I guess another boost or another very important point, since we got the financing to do some work. What we decided, we are not financing directly our work, but we involve some of the other colleagues from another university in southern Hungary, where we know these colleagues who were open to the science shop idea.
So importantly, the funding and support that Living Knowledge enabled them to get were not used to finance themselves directly, but used to expand the Science Shop network/research group in Hungary. It also enabled other work and activities, like participation in international conferences, case studies, production of material etc. GP especially put a lot of emphasis on this expansion of the science shop work, and how it was enabled by the PERARES project, that he elaborates further on later in the interview:
GP: through PERARES we could also simple work the birth of another science shop in Hungary, which is not called a science shop, because there is no unit or there was no unit at that time, just some interested researchers. So there was no institutionalization, but it was a project work, but after PERARES these guys in that southern city established an association. You can find it on the internet, I think it’s called Actual researchers for sustainability or maybe community researchers for sustainability or something like that.
One related event was the abolishment of their research group as a causality of war between their department and the government due to some national political events:
BB: It (their research group) was very much recognized by the university where we have all been part of the same department, and a legal environment associate science research group was part of the department… it was a legal entity in itself, and then this legal entity was abolished because the whole institution at the (Hungarian name) university came under attack, and political pressure and the departments were abolished and then recreated and so on. And then at that moment the legal entity was lost for this group…
Another previous related event is a previous CTP, when their first formal science shop at the agricultural university of Hungary closed down, as the university decided not to fund the activity after external funding ran out. These two events indirectly led to their choice of starting an independent company.
Of related events happening after this CTP, especially the participating in EU projects running in the context of the Living Knowledge network are relevant. This enabled them to conduct science shop work at ESSRG, and especially led to another event that helped a group of researchers in southern Hungary start their own science shop type initiative. This I detailed in the public reports from the PERARES project. Most of the subsequent CTPs for this local initiative are also direct related events, without ESSRG they might not have happened, or at the very least would have fallen out differently.
Especially the university environment seems to be framed in a rather negative way, at least in relation to running a science shop and the type of work it entails:
BB: but anyway it is not part of the story but you just need to probably understand that there was a whole story, if you take it from a distance contributing to this feeling. You know you can hardly really do your work appropriately if you are a part of this establishment (the university), and if you are only building on these traditional forms of higher education and academic research, because they are in change anyway, very often for political reasons, but the same happens with all the science shops. I mean it is very telling that even Henk (a prominent figure in Living Knowledge from the Dutch network) used to explain how this science shop was for two years completely shut down for completely stupid reasons, and it depends only on one rector…
BB: they (the university) will kill us. They always gave us the kind of feeling that moving independently from this system helps us to do what we would like to do… at least this is my understanding and obviously I would be very happy if we could all continue as part of the national academics of sciences, but it will not happen.
These two quotes illustrate the problem quite coherently. According to BB they cannot work as they want and as needed in a Science Shop, in the academic system in Hungary. He also describes it as a challenge by all science shops in Europe, and a danger, by referring to a story from a very prominent figure whose science shop was greatly reduced at the whim of a rector. On a side note, this corresponds a lot to the actual events for another local initiative, Science Shop DTU. In short, there are two problems that lead to the formation of ESSRG, the danger of being at a university where they would be at the mercy of university politics. And problems with the academic system that prevent them from doing the kind of work that they do in the science shop.
However, there were also other contestations within ESSRG at the time:
BB: She didn’t want to do it (the former manager of ESSRG), she completely wanted to move out of the research and everything. She had kind of… I think there was kind of a problem within the PERARES project, a personal conflict with one of the partners and I think. BA (a third person that has been anonymised, the former manager) aged 10 years in that personal conflict. So, I had to take over everything, the project and also the company. I think it was a very good decision finally for the team, because I think I… I mean personally I think I easily delegate things and I very much trust my team and I don’t feel distressed about, you know, situations… so it is a personality thing.
So there was a change in leaderships where the interviewee BB took over, due to a personal conflict with one of the partners in one of the international projects ESSRG were involved in. BB, according to himself, do not become distressed about such conflicts are more easily delegate tasks to his team.
It is not quite clear from the interview, and the quote below, if the interviewee’s have considered or anticipated the various developments. It is also a challenge to think back several years to a critical turning point, and then think even further back to remember if it was anticipated or not.
Of course, this CTP was anticipated as they themselves took the decision to establish ESSRG. Anticipation is always about time-frame, when did the anticipation emerge. The question here is more if they anticipated the need for founding ESSRG when they first started their community research activities, and a limited company as the solution to their challenges back when they failed to get funding from the university.
In the very beginning when starting the Science shop at the agricultural university in Hungary, there were no expectation that they would end up starting an independent research company. They had expected that the university would fund the science shop when external funding for the activities ended, so only when they realized that this would not happen, did they start to look at alternatives.
Another aspect is the external funding that ESSRG depends on. Without funding there would be no activities in ESSRG, but they had anticipated getting funding through EU project in relation to Living Knowledge, which was one of the events that made ESSRG realistic you could say. As GP comments to a question on what they had anticipated:
The living knowledge network, there was not too much coordination but some e-mail exchanges that who is going where and which type of activities, so I think that in this sense we were really anticipating that there will be possibilities, and hopefully we are being involved in some of the winning proposals and finally EnRRICH (EU project from 2015-2017) was winning.
PERARES started just before the company was founded, and EnRRICH is a more recent project. These projects where important as an external source of funding for the new company, allowing them to pursue science shop activities and to participate in the Living Knowledge network. Through their networking with the other members of Living Knowledge they had anticipated these projects.
Again, this question is not something the interviewee’s had really considered, and the learning are drawn out analytically from the interview.
One of the most prevalent learnings are about university politics. Two previous CTPs related specifically to university politics, first how their science shop at the agricultural university failed to get any funding. The second one where the department where their research group was located came under attack due to national politics and they became a casualty of political fighting between other parties. Forming an independent company shielded them from such political fights. It also enabled them to collaborate more freely or easily with researchers from different universities.
There have also been some challenges in running the science shop/ESSRG as an independent company. One issue is the funding from EU projects cannot be used for their daily expenses, only project related costs. It might also be complicated to keep time sheets for various projects in different contexts. For instance, if they are working on a EU project as an employee at a university, while also working at a EU project in ESSRG, then they have to be sure that their working hours do not exceed 100% of a normal workweek. However, Hungary allows people to work above normal fulltime, even if EU regulation do not allow for that when funding research hours, creating possible conflicts.
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