Bálint Balázs

As a founding member and Senior Research Fellow of ESSRG, I act as managing director of the ESSRG Ltd team since 2009. I hold an MA in Sociology, and an MA in History and a PhD in Environmental Sciences. I enjoy teamwork via action-planning and organising, partnership building, co-creating and public engagement procedures. My teaching experience is in qualitative, participatory, cooperative research methodologies and the sociology of food and environment.

International research and innovation collaborations formed my attitude for making things happen in environmental social sciences, socioeconomic analysis of the agri-food innovation sector, sustainable and local food systems, transition to sustainability and policy analysis. I contributed to the JRC scientific and policy report on Short Food Supply Chains and Local Food Systems in the EU in 2013. I spent a formative month researching local food in 2014 as a Japan Foundation Fellow at Kyoto University, Graduate School of Agriculture, Faculty of Agriculture. I collaborated as lead author to Chapter 3 on Eco-agri-food systems of the TEEB for Agriculture & Food: Scientific and Economic Foundations report in 2017-2018.

 

External positions:

  • Country contact, Living Knowledge – The International Science Shop Network
  • Board member, Environment & Society Research Network of the European Sociological Association
  • Member, Urgenci Community-Supported Agriculture Research Group
  • Editorial board member, European Journal of Mental Health – Well-being in a social and ecological context, Semmelweis University, Institute of Mental Health
  • Volunteer, Initiative for Equality

Research interests:

  • sustainable food systems, short food supply chains, market vs non-market food provisioning, food studies, food policy
  • participatory methods, citizen science, cooperative research