MRI (partner)

Metropolitan Research Institute (MRI), established in 1989, is an internationally recognized independent research, planning and consultancy company based in Budapest, Hungary. We are a multidisciplinary team of experienced professionals (economists, sociologists, planners) working on different aspects of urban development.

In the core of the interest of MRI research is the development and performance of European cities. The Institute participated for a long time in the planning of Budapest (concept for urban renewal and Strategic Development Concept of the city). Since the 1990s growing number of international projects followed through involvement in UN Habitat, UN ECE, Council of Europe, World Bank, USAID programmes addressing the problems of the transition process of the Central and Eastern European post-socialist countries towards democratic, market-based urban development systems. Since the 2000s MRI intensified its contacts to EU programmes (FP programmes, URBACT, ESPON, INTERREG) and European city networks (EUROCITIES). These activities covered the whole of Europe giving the opportunity to put the original east-central European knowledge and experiences into a whole-European perspective. MRI also officially signed partnership with Housing Europe in 2023.

The different divisions of MRI deal with core issues of sustainable and inclusive development of European cities, such as inner-city regeneration, the problems of large housing estates, urban sprawl, rental sector deficiencies, municipal budgeting, urban mobility issues, and the problems of ethnic minorities. The analysis of these problems is connected to the surveying of administrative and institutional structures, exploring the performance of different types of governance patterns.