About Us

The CSS Centre for Family Studies was established in 2020 with the participation of researchers from the Institute for Legal Studies, the Institute for Minority Studies, the Institute for Political Science, the Institute for Sociology, and the Child Opportunities Research Group.

The Centre’s main objective is to promote the stability of families, strengthen intra-family relationships, and to improve the wellbeing of family members through research, data collection and publication. Its mission is primarily to strengthen basic research on families, but it is also open to learning about the results of applied research and feeding them back into basic research. Upon special request, the Centre may engage in policy-oriented research as well.

Currently, there are only a few monographs, journals, or higher educational material representing the latest achievements of family sciences in Hungary. Research topics are diverse, and there are only a few researchers covering each topic. There is hardly any dialogue between academics from different fields, and research often remains within one discipline. The number of multi- and interdisciplinary studies is small.

Developing effective policies is difficult as the modern systematic approach to family – according to which the family is a self-regulatory system that is formed by interactions with other complex systems (such as: political, economic, legal, educational religious, etc.) – is missing from most studies.

Reflecting to these shortcomings, the Centre aims to create a scientific platform for institutions and research groups, thus promoting professional cooperation between family science researchers, and increasing the international embeddedness of Hungarian family science research. It aims to take a coordinating and initiating role between universities by becoming a leading research platform in this field.

The activities of the Centre include the review and presentation of research in the CSS; organization of thematic lecture series and conferences with the participation of Hungarian and international experts; networking with higher education partner institutions; participation in the development of higher education curricula, holding courses, participation in the planning and implementation of joint research.

 

Leaders of the Centre: Ildikó Husz (Child Opportunities Research Group) and Fruzsina Albert (Institute for Sociology)