Publications

The institute’s first Yearbook was published by the Publishing House of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in 1959. In the preface of the book Zoltán Szabó Pál, the director of the Institute, is saying thank you to Department II of the Academy for supporting the publishing of the book. The books published in this series were issued under the same serial title until 1965 and from then on between 1966 and 1982 were issued under the serial title Értekezések /Treatises/. All the volumes came throughout the Academy’s Publishing House, in an average number of 500 copies and the publications were distributed by the publisher to retail booksellers as well.

The Publishing House of the Hungarian Academy published the defended scientific dissertations of the institute’s staff as separate monographs. Among the were books as follows: The Life of Hungarian Peasantry and Their Struggle with Feudal Latifundia 1711-1848 by Lajos Rúzsás (1964), The History of Coal Mining in North-Mecsek Mountains by András Babics (1967), The Drava-Mura Water System’s Water Management and Drainage Conditions by György Lovász (1972).

In 1955 the Institute launched its own edition of series under the title ’Dunántúli tudományos gyűjtemény’ /Transdanubian Research Collection/. The mainly small booklets of independent papers in an average length of 20-25 pages contained studies written mainly, but not exclusively, by the Institute’s staff. The quality of publications may be characterised by the fact that some of them were peer-reviewed, and all of them included Russian and German, and sometimes French summaries as well. The series, while retaining the main title, later on thematically was split into two subsets – Series Geographica and Series Historica. The books published as the Institute’s own publications were first printed by the Szikra and then by the Mecsek Printing House in 500 copies. Later on – presumably because of financial troubles – the offprints of the studies published in Treatise series were incorporated into ’Transdanubian Research Collection’ series. The Transdanubian Research Collection series was completed in 1972 with 120 published booklets. These publications were not sold through booksellers, they were sent to domestic and foreign libraries on an exchange basis.

Other publishers also contributed to issuing larger-scale works of the Institute’s senior staff. The Művelt Nép Könyvkiadó (Educated People Publisher) published the book : The History of Zsolnay Factory by Lajos Rúzsás in 1954 and The History of Coal Mining in the Neigbourhood of Pécs by András Babics in 1952 was published with the assistance of the Hungarian Historical Society. In addition to publishers, the cities and counties of Transdanubia also provided support to the publication of the valuable books written by the researchers of Transdanubian Research Institute. Without being exhaustive, here are some examples: Pécs City Council Education Department (The Turkish Pécs by Zoltán Szabó Pál – Lajos Rúzsás, 1958), the County Tourism Office (Baranya. edited by János Kolta, 1958), the Somogy County Council Department of Education (The Agriculture of Somogy County 1790-1848 by Klára T. Mérey, 1962), Mohács City Council Education Department (Ferenc Erdősi – Antal Lehmann: The Geography of Mohács, 1974).

The Institute launched a new series of studies under the serial title ’Közlemények /Papers/’ in 1967. The majority of the authors – as before – were among the Institute’s staff. The books of the first ten years of the series – 25 issues – due to financial problems could not be made by traditional printing technique, but instead 30-40 copies of duplicated typescripts were prepared, which fell far short of the previous high-quality publications. Of course, they were neither distributed to booksellers, and played no role even in the library’s book exchange programme. This was changed in 1979, when from issue 26 the volumes of the series were identified with ISSN, and were prepared by Somogy County Printing Company in Kaposvár in an average number of 300-500 copies. The series was finished in 1985 with the issue number of 32.

The Transdanubian Research Institute together with the National Environment and Conservation Office, and later the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Regional Development from 1980 to 1990 prepared ten volumes under the series title ’Environmental Studies’ , four of which were written in Russian language The editor of the whole series and of some individual issues was István Fodor. All the volumes of the series ’Papers’ and the Environmental Studies included edited material presented at international meetings organized by the Institute or papers of larger research projects.

In 1963, for the 20th anniversary of the Transdanubian Research Institute, the Institute’s founding director formulated a proposal for the first time of editing and publishing a scientific journal for Southern Transdanubia. Finding
financial resources for this purpose – according to the proposal – would have been the task of county and city councils. However, this idea did not succeed, and almost 25 years had to pass so that this plan – publishing the journal Tér és Társadalom /Space and Society/ – could be realized.

After 1984 the publishing activity of Centre for Regional Studies became very diversified. One of the most important publications is Tér és Társadalom / Space and Society/ the Institute’s quarterly journal of regional science founded in 1987. It is special among scientific journals because it does not publish the results of a single discipline, but insteas it focuses on a problem: It examines the relationship between space and society from the point of view of different branches of science. The majority of the authors of Space and Society work in the institutes of CRS HAS, including the Transdanubian Research Institute as well. During the nearly 30-year history of the journal editors were changing and during the operation of CRS HAS the journal was edited at different places and in different spirits. The journal was edited by Edit Pfeil editor in Pécs between 1993-1995 and the editor in chief was János Rechnitzer. In 2017 it was selected for inclusion into Web of Science Emerging Sources Citation Index (ESCI). ESCI indexes around 6000 journals of regional importance and in emerging scientific fields, being constantly evaluated for inclusion in the more prestigious SSCI database. Currently, volumes 30 and 31 (years 2016 and 2017) of Tér és Társadalom are indexed in the database.

Other works of the CRS Transdanubian Research Institute’s past 34 years of publishing activities are partly included in various series and partly available under separate volumes. Discussion Papers and Discussion Papers Special series are the major English-language publication forums for the Centre’s researchers. The editor of the series was László Hrubi first who was followed by Zoltán Gál, and now Gábor Lux is the editor. They are all from the Transdanubian Research Institute. Of the 94 issues of the Discussion Papers series so far, 40 studies have been written by the researchers of Transdanubian Research Institute. The series Discussion Papers Special, which includes materials of international conferences and international research projects organized by the Institute has 14 issues now.

The ’Közlemények /Papers/’ series of Transdanubian Research Institute was replaced by the series Regional and Urban Studies starting in 1987. The nine volumes of the series in 800 copies were published by the Academic Press, series editor Gyula Horvath, under which the monographs of four researchers from Pécs (Zoltán Hajdú, Ilona Pálné Kovács, Gyula Horváth, Ferenc Erdősi) were published. After a six year break period, issue 10 in 1998 was published by Dialóg-Campus. This set of monographs can be found under the series title Studia Regionum as well. The variously themed volumes reflect the results of leading researchers from Centre for Regional Studies based on several years of scientific research work. They are mostly academic treatises prepared on the basis of doctoral theses and now they are indispensable groundworks in the field of regional research and education. Over the past 15 years, 24 volumes were published, and some of them are coming out as second, revised or more editions of which 12 volumes are bound to Transdanubian Research Institute authors.

Regions in Europe is the Transdanubian Research Institutes’s own series. This series of books presents European regional development, regional systems, the administrations at various levels and interactions of industry, regional policy and development institutions. The first volume was published under the title ’The Modernization of Italian Regions and Cities’. The publishing of the book was financed by Biblioteca Italia Giovanni Agnelli Foundation for the dissemination of Italian culture abroad programme. Volume 2 – The Rise and Decline of Regions. Regional Transformation in the British Isles – was prepared under the Traning of Managers in Regional Development and European Co-operation TEMPUS Programme, and its publishing was supported by the British-American Tobacco Pécs Company Ltd. and the Prime Minister’s Office Integration Strategy Working Group. The third volume of the series under the title ’ Regional development and Politics in Russia in Transition’ was prepared in a cooperation programme between the Academy of Sciences and the Russian Academy of Sciences with the financial support of the Ministry of Local Government and Regional Development. The latest, fourth volume, edited by Gyula Horváth and Zoltán Hajdú titled ’Regional Transformation Processes in the West-Balkan was published in 2010 with the support of the Ministry of Economy. The whole series was edited by Gyula Horváth.

The largest and the most successful publishing activity of the Centre for Regional Studies was the series Regions of the Carpathian Basin published jointly with Dialóg-Campus. The series is aimed to present the natural, social, urban and economic status of the regions of the Carpathian Basin inside and outside the borders of Hungary and to assess changes in the period of transformation, to place the regions in the European economic space and to describe the plans for their development. The editor of the series and of several volumes is Gyula Horvath, the authors of the volumes are the staff of Centre for Regional Studies and other Hungarian researchers living outside Hungary. 14 volumes of the series (Transylvania, Southern Slovakia, Southern Transdanubia, North West Transylvania, Western Transdanubia, Hungary, Vojvodina, Northern Great Plain, Southern Transylvania and Banat, Southern Great Plain, Transcarpathia, Central Transdanubia, Southern Pannonia and Burgenland) have so far come out. The book of Southern Transdanubia edited by Zoltán Hajdú contains entirely the papers of the researchers of Transdanubian Research Institute. The front covers of the volumes of series were designed by Sándor Pinczehelyi an artist awarded by Munkácsy Prize.

The following two series of the Centre for Regional Studies have also been prepared in the Transdanubian Research Institute.

The Falukonferencia /Village Conference/ series has seven volumes coming out biannually from 1991 and every three years from 1997 containing selected presentations read on the scientific symposium of different representatives of village and various rural development committed sciences. The series editor is Teréz Kovács.

The booklets of Kutatói bibliográfiák /Researchers’ Bibliographies / series of five volumes were prepared for the 70th, 75th, and 80th birthday of leading scientists, they are a collection of their lifelong scientific work. The series editor is Zsuzsanna Sziráki a librarian working in the Transdanubian Research Institute.

In addition to the above-mentioned series Transdanubian Research Institute from 2000 up to the present day has published 16 stand-alone books in English, and 40 books in Hungarian written or edited by authors from the Transdanubian Institute. The Hungarian and foreign scientific journals regularly publish reviews on our books.

On 31 December 2011, the Center for Regional Studies of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences ceased as a result of the academic reform, and continues its activities as a member of Centre for Economics and Regional Studies at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. As a consequence, the Transdanubian Scientific Institute will continue its scientific program as the Transdanubian Scientific Department of the CERS HAS.

New research directions have started in the period since 2012 (climate change, alternative renewable energy, energetics). There are several volumes on this topic, which have been written and edited by the staff of the Transdanubian Research Department: namely by Viktor Varjú, Andrea Suvák, István Fodor and Zsuzsanna Márkusné Zsibók.

The Routledge Handbook for Regional Development in Central and Eastern Europe was published in the Routledge Publishing House in 2017. The 324-page work in the co-editing of Gábor Lux and Gyula Horváth is the final product of OTKA research titled ‘New Space Forming Powers and Developmental Perspectives in Eastern Europe at the Beginning of the 21st Century’, in which 17 researchers and four external authors of the Institute formulate their conclusions on the regional transformation and current challenges of Central and Eastern Europe. The studies included in this volume capture the evolutionary processes of the region at the end of the post-transition transition, at the beginning of a period of new problems and new opportunities, from the point of view of the economy, society and broadly interpreted sustainability. Particular attention is paid to the consequences of regional transformation processes in Central and Eastern Europe, the challenges of growing territorial differences and the question marks of finding a way out after post-socialist growth models.