Research Interests
Bálint Hilbert, PhD is a research fellow at the Centre for Social Sciences in Budapest. He earned his PhD from Eötvös Loránd University in 2023 with a dissertation titled „The Birth of Modern Urban Governance in Central Europe – A Legal-Geographical Study of the Cities of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy (1867–1918).” The focus of his research lies, on the one hand, in urban governance, urban planning, and urban policies, and on the other, in the historical–geographical study of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, with particular emphasis on the socio-economic and legal interactions between Austria and Hungary, as well as on the comparative analysis of Vienna and Budapest from various perspectives. His research has been supported by several scholarships, including the New National Excellence Program for PhD students and the scholarship of the Collegium Hungaricum in Vienna, which has provided him with multiple opportunities to conduct research in the Austrian capital. He is currently a participant in the NKFIH project Socio-spatial inequalities of energy transition, led by Lea Kőszeghy. His main publications are related to the aforementioned topics, but he has also published on other subjects such as the history of geography and the urban diplomacy of Central European capitals.
Selected Publications
Hilbert,B., Kőszeghy, L., Szabolcsi, Zs. & Csizmady, A. (2025). Participatory urban planning in post-socialist Budapest: insights from urban development documents (1990-present). European Planning Studies, 33(10), 1692–1711. https://doi.org/10.1080/09654313.2025.2520386
Kőszeghy, L., Hilbert, B. & Csizmady, A. (2025). Urban Planning in the Context of Democratic Backsliding: The Case of Hungary. Urban Planning, 10 Paper: 9893 , 23 p. https://doi.org/10.17645/up.9893
Hilbert, B. (2024). Exploring new dimensions of urban governance: The development of administrative systems in Trieste and Fiume (Rijeka) during the final decades of the Habsburg Empire (1850–1918). Hungarian Geographical Bulletin, 73(4), 437 454. https://doi.org/10.15201/hungeobull.73.4.6
Hilbert, B. (2024). Urban governance systems in autonomous territories of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy: The cases of Croatia-Slavonia and Austrian Galicia (1867-1918). Geographia Polonica, 97(1), 23-46. https://doi.org/10.7163/GPol.0267
Hilbert, B. (2023). New Aspects in Historical-Geographical Research of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy: The Legal Nature of the Customs Union and Migration Links between Austria and Hungary (1870–1910). Mitteilungen der Österreichischen Geographischen Gesellschaft, 165, 63-89. https://doi.org/10.1553/moegg165-085
Research Projects
Socio-spatial inequalities of energy transition (InET), NKFIH 146987, 2024-2027. (participant, Pl: Lea Kőszeghy)
The sociology of urban planning - urban planning and society, NKFIH 124940, 2017-2023. (participant, Pl: Adrienne Csizmady)
