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I
N T R O D U C T I O N
The
mission of the Hungarian Institute for Culture is:
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to
promote the continuous development of the organizational framework
and contents of community education and community arts,
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to
facilitate the modernization of community education related
duties by some peculiar professional instruments,
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to
contribute to investigating the characteristics of cultural
life and community education, the presentation and publication
of different contexts and interconnections, and the promotion
of the professionalism of national and local decision-making
processes through organizing and performing research.
A./
Provision of advice and services on the national level
1./
As a new responsibility, which is related to forthcoming
structural changes Hungarian administration and regional development,
the Hungarian Institute for Culture:
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coordinates
and supervises the work of the so-called regional cultural
bureaus to be established in the 7 development regions of
Hungary,
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assists
the development of grant applications to the regional programmes
of the EU
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facilitates
the implementation of organizing duties around particular
decentralized management and cultural responsibilities, grant
programmes and other porgrammes defined as government priorities,
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promotes
the development of cultural contacts among counties and small
regions, and the fundraising activities of local governmental
units.
2./
The Hungarian Institute for Culture assists professional training
and further training through providing professional advice, strengthening
coordination, and curriculum development, and it also serves as
an examination centre:
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professional
and examinational duties performed in connection with 47 formal
and non-formal qualifications in the National Training Register,
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performing
professional training and further training duties in non-formal
education,
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performing
coordinative duties in the organizational framework of non-formal
adult education and community education.
3./
The institute provides access to professional materials and information
through the electronic and printed media:
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managing
a nationwide information databank, collecting and systematizing
information, and publishing analyses received from partner
departments; mediating and managing information related to
EU grant programmes and partnership schemes, new results of
professional research, and the operation, institutions, grant
programmes, training programmes and other programmes of regional
centres on a regular basis.
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developing
cooperation with other community education and culture databases.
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acting
as a National Information Centre (in the framework of a grant
programme financed by the Hungarian Ministry of National Cultural
Heritage).
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running
the nationwide Community Education Vocational Library, the
professional basis of community education in Hungary.
4./
The Hungarian Institute for Culture provides advice and services
concerning community education and its organizational frameworks
and contents in order to promote development schemes based on
partnership cooperation:
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providing
the actors of community education (regions, small regions,
local councils and other community education organizations)
with professional services that promote equal chances in community
education among different social strata and regions, with
special focus on the community education activities of minorities
and the Roma.
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providing
coordinative support to amateur arts movements in co-operation
with NGOs and county-level community education advisory and
service institutions; synchronizing the arts events of regions;
promoting the educational, publishing and information-providing
activities in arts work; contributing to the establishment
of a unified quality guarantee system; promoting international
contacts and the development of the arts and community activities
of disadvantaged groups, with a special focus on the positive
effects of creative arts activities on the quality of life.
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supporting
the co-operative intentions of effective and reliably working
nationwide community education associations, and the work
and activities of associations capable of performing national
organizing and operative duties.
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the
tasks related to nursing the mother tongue should be given
a greater priority in the activities of the Hungarian Institute
for Culture and the association that could be commissioned
to do similar activities.
B./
Researching and Organizing Research
The
Hungarian Institute for Culture performs regular research activities
targeting the revelation of the national and regional situation
of cultural activities and community education and the academic
foundation of strategic plans in co-operation with institutions
and research workshops that are active in these professional fields.
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developing
the cultural statistics system of the country and performing
research duties related to its analysis; performing a comparative
analysis of investigations by the technical supervisory body
of community education; promoting the results of regular national
and regional research on culture.
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Commissioned
by the Ministry on the basis of annual plans, our small research
organization centre would announce grant calls related to
particular research fields (theory, sociology and psychology
of community education, system of values and interests, situation
of educatedness, life style and time scale, measuring cultural
demand, knowledge and level of taste, cultural map, cultural
statistical and cultural economical overview, the effectiveness
of national and regional NGOs, etc.) for different research
teams. The centre must also build contacts with Hungarian
and foreign centres and university departments of cultural
research. The centre also has the responsibility of elaborating
research findings and publishing them on Hungarian information
systems on an annual basis.
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The
institute facilitates the academic foundation and elaboration
of the long-term and middle-term programmes of cultural strategy,
and the development of the national and regional development
concepts of cultural life and community education.
According
to the new Constitution of the Hungarian Institute for Culture,
the system of the institute’s responsibilities is guaranteed by
two new organizational units besides the director:
International
Work
Co-operation
with Visegrád Countries
Around
1950 institutions like the Hungarian Institute for Culture were
established in all countries of the Soviet block in order to assist
(at that time, control) community education, leisure organization
and the amateur arts movements. Some of them have been wound up
since then, and others have been reorganized. One of the new objectives
of the Hungarian Institute for Culture is to revive professional
relationships with the successor organizations of these institutions.
First, the leadership of the institute got in touch with the other
countries of the Visegrád Four (Slovakia, Czech Republic, Poland),
and then later on with Slovenia and Croatia as well.
The objective of co-operating with the community cultural institutions
of these countries is to get to know each other’s culture, to
perform institutional, activity, and vocational development in
a synchronized way, and to submit joint grant applications to
the European Union. In April 2003, the institute’s newsletter,
the Szín has started a new column dealing with the community culture
and cultural co-operation of Visegrád countries. The important
stages of our co-operation are also documented on this home page.
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1011.
BUDAPEST, Corvin tér 8.
