More than a hundred professional events, almost 120 conference videos, 6.5 thousand minutes of podcast content, hundreds of articles in the media – and 300 new HEA members. In telegraphic style, that was the 2023 year of the Hungarian Economic Association. Here are the details!

In addition to the plenary and section meetings of the 61st Itinerant Congress, the Association organised more than 100 professional conferences and roundtables this year. Almost all of these events can be watched on YouTube and listened to in the HEA podcast. According to YouTube statistics, this year the HEA has published 116 videos, 88 of which were live broadcasts. In 2023, more than 57,000 people watched these videos, and YouTube itself has featured or recommended HEA’s professional content to internet users 801,000 times. The number of subscribers to our YouTube channel will exceed 1,900 – which shows a 50 percent increase in 2023. In addition, 347 conference videos are now available on the HEA YouTube channel.

Podcasts are also becoming an increasingly popular format, and are now available on 7 providers, including Spotify and Apple Podcasts. In 2023, HEA made almost 100 professional audio clips available, and in total, around 7,800 people from 19 countries around the world listened to them. The number of followers of HEA podcasts increased by 44 percent and the number of streamings increased by 68 percent in 2023. Our podcast now has a total of 365 recordings – meaning there is now an HEA podcast for every day…

HEA is also active on social media: the association’s Facebook group now has more than 1600 members, and in 2023 HEA informed them about its events with almost 400 posts. HEA’s LinkedIn page is also growing in popularity, with 330 posts this year, attracting around 300 followers. The impression of these LinkedIn posts exceeded 50,000.

As for the 61st Conference of Economists in Eger in September, it was perhaps the strongest and most diverse HEA conference in the last decade. A total of 150 speakers shared their ideas with the audience in two plenary sessions, 16 on-site sessions and 9 pre-recorded sessions. The full video recordings of both plenary sessions and all 25 sessions are available on the conference website, and every minute of the professional programme can be listened to on the podcast channels. This year’s conference was attended by 700 people on site. More than 30,000 people have already watched the videos of the conference on YouTube – 13,000 of them were of the opening plenary session alone – and the podcasts of the conference have over 1,500 listeners. At the same time, media coverage has been above average – see the Press section of the conference website for a selection of over 100 reports from major media outlets. In addition, this year the conference has had considerable international coverage, e.g. the opening plenary session of the conference was even reported on the website of the NASDAQ. Each year, an important output is a summary of the main experiences and messages of the congress. This has been prepared again this year and has recently been sent by HEA to the Prime Minister, the Governor of the Central Bank and the members of the cabinet involved in economic affairs.

In mid-October, Debrecen hosted the 40th National Meeting of Young Economists, with 100-120 participants – that was an exciting conference on artificial intelligence, digitalisation and innovation. An important achievement in 2023 was the launch of a series of conferences initiated by the Development Policy Section to evaluate the achievements and experiences of our two decades of EU membership. Five or six conferences have already been held, and at least twice as many are still to come before next May. The series has a dedicated website at eu20.blog.hu, where you can watch and listen to all the events.

The activity of the Hungarian Economic Association is also reflected in the growth of its membership. More than 300 new members joined the HEA this year. At the same time, the development of the one per cent donations is also a positive feedback for them: according to the information received from the National Tax and Customs Authority, taxpayers donated a total of HUF 1.1 million from the one per cent of the personal income tax for 2022 to support the professional activities of the Hungarian Economic Association.

HEA’s social contacts have also been further strengthened. The company has two members on the National Economic and Social Committee. There is active cooperation between the Hungarian Rectors’ Conference and the Hungarian Economic Association, we participate in the working group redefining the output requirements of higher education. We have a representative in the Anti-Corruption Working Group of the Integrity Authority, and this year the Ministry of Finance has asked us to provide experts for the working groups monitoring the efficiency of health and social public spending. We are also strengthening our relations with the academic sector: a cooperation agreement was signed between HEA and the Eszterházy Károly Catholic University in Eger to strengthen cooperation between higher education, local entrepreneurships and professional NGOs in the region. Similar agreements are also being prepared with the Szent István University of Győr and the Metropolitan University, and we would like to reach agreements with as many universities as possible to strengthen the position of our county and youth organisations.

This year, five of our students participated in the International Economics Olympiad, where a Hungarian student, Gergely Madár, was among the top ten in the final in Bratislava. The value of this excellent performance is demonstrated by the fact that the final was a test of some 70 students from 14 countries, with a total of 80,000 secondary school students from 18 countries competing.

Of course, our cooperation with the Hungarian economic associations in the Carpathian Basin continued: our Hungarian colleagues from Romania, Slovakia and Serbia attended our annual meeting in Eger, and HEA was represented at the annual meeting of the Hungarian Economic Association in Romania in Târgu Mures in October.

We are planning a similarly active and busy year for 2024 – keep an eye on our website, Facebook and LinkedIn pages, as we have already announced several professional roundtables on topical and important issues for the beginning of January. And it’s already worth adding to your calendar that next year’s 62nd Itinerant Meeting of Economists will be hosted by the University of Nyíregyháza on 5 and 6 September 2024!