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Our staff
TÁRKI's most valuable asset is the knowledge and expertise of its researchers. We do not simply apply existing methodologies to social and economic problems, rather, work on constantly developing and expanding these methods and are open to challenges to apply this knowledge to new problems.
Tamás
Kolosi founded TÁRKI in 1985. He
led several major sociological study on social stratification,
social structure, inequalities and value orientations since the seventies.
Kolosi developed a theory of late socialist social structure. In
his view (state) redistributive and small scale private economy
formed a dual system of stratification. This is the so-called "L-model" of reform
socialist Hungarian society. Meanwhile Kolosi played key role in
the introduction of mathematical statistical methods and tools in
Hungarian social science. His research interest includes
the problem of empirical measurement in social sciences, life
styles, elite formations during post-communist transition.He is also turned to be successful businessman in the book publishing industry during the nineties. He is the president and CEO of the Lira és Lant Inc. Between 1989-1990 Tamás Kolosi was advisor to the Prime Minister, Mr. Miklós Németh and between (1998-2002) Mr. Viktor Orbán. President of the Hungarian Republic awarded him Szchenyi Prize in 2001.
Tamás Rudas is the Academic Director of TARKI and Professor and Head of the Statistics Department at the Faculty of Social Sciences, Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE 
). He was instrumental in the founding of the Faculty of Social Sciences and served as Dean between 2003-2009. Professor Rudas was one of the first researchers to apply multivariate statistical methods for the analysis of survey data in Hungary. He also developed new approaches to the analysis of categorical data in the areas of log-linear and marginal modelling and measurement of model fit. Professor Rudas has published papers in many of the leading statistics and social science methodology journals, including the Annals of Statistics, the Jounal of the Royal Statistical Society, Sociological Methodology, and Quality and Quantity. His books (in both English and Hungarian) on the methods of survey research and statistics are widely used as textbooks. He is Affiliate Professor in the Department of Statistics, University of Washington, Seattle and has served as visiting professor at several European and American universitites, including Pennsylvania State University, the University of Washington, the Technical University of Graz, and the University of Ljubljana. Professor Rudas is an elected fellow of the European Academy of Sociology and Vice-President of the European Association of Methodology.
Istvn Gyrgy Tth (toth_at_tarki.hu), PhD in Sociology, joined TRKI in 1994 and acts as director since 1995. He participated and/or directed various projects on Hungarian and European income distribution and social policies. He has been a consultant to various international organisations, edited and co-edited over fifteen books including the bi-annual Hungarian Social Report series since 1998, and editor of the TARKI European Social Reports. He is author of the book Income Distribution: From the Systemic Change to the Joining of the European Union (in Hungarian). Awarded by the Hungarian Sociological Association (Erdei Award, 1997) and by the President of the Hungarian Republic (Golden Grade, Merit Cross, 2003).
