14-18 July, 2025, Budapest
Director’s welcome
Dear Student
I’ve been organizing ELTE Business & Economy Summer University (BESU) since its inception in 2019, so let me share with you a secret. Summer schools are successful by default. Students willing to sacrifice a part of their summer holiday are highly motivated. Willing to travel to some place where they have never been and study with students coming from very different backgrounds, they are also outgoing and adventurous. Given such a student body, we need only a few more ingredients: good teachers, nice location and exciting programs. We’ll deliver all that. The courses will be taught by excellent teachers – most of them international scholars. The business school is located in the very centre of the city, in a freshly redecorated building with air-conditioned classrooms and up-to-date educational technology. There is also going to be some social or cultural event each evening. So, join us to broaden your perspectives and have a memorable experience.
Gábor Forrai Director of BESU
Introducing ELTE GTK
Established in 1635, Eötvös Loránd University, commonly known as ELTE, is the largest university in Hungary with 36,000 students and covering fields including natural and social sciences, law, humanities and education. According to international rankings it belongs to the top 2% of universities internationally and it is the best university in Hungary.
Accrediation and Membership. ELTE Faculty of Economics is an esteemed member institution of the Business Graduates Association (BGA), an international membership and quality assurance body of world-leading and high-potential business schools who share a commitment to responsible management practices and lifelong learning, and are looking to make a positive impact on their students, communities, and the economy as a whole.
Both our Finance and Accounting BSc and Accounting MSc programmes have been recognised by ACCA (Association of Chartered Certified Accountants), a worldwide body for professional accountants, and awarded exemption accreditation for certain exams, five and six out of thirteen, respectively.
The Faculty of Economics earned the 4-Star Recognition by EFQM (European Foundation for Quality Management) after an on-site accreditation in 2022. The recognition attests to the Faculty’s impressive achievements and demonstrates its commitment to continuous improvement.
ELTE Business & Economics Summer University (BESU), organized for the fourth time, offers 8 courses taught by ELTE’s own staff, international scholars and business professionals. Students successfully completing the courses will get a transcript they may use to obtain 3 ECTS credits from their home institutions.
The courses include 25 hours of classroom instruction. The classes are held at the Faculty of Economics’s new, air-conditioned building, downtown Budapest.
Building Skills in Business Communication
Course Description
During the course students will be introduced to various topics and scenarios in business communication both in speaking and writing: how to conduct a successful interview, how to manage business meetings, and how to give engaging presentations. It further looks at topics on communication barriers due to differences in decision making, levels of directness, formality, and varying cultural norms. It also aims to give students opportunities to collaborate in project work, and to carry out interesting surveys, to produce visuals and group presentations creatively and interactively.
Topics
• Identifying areas of business communication
• Barriers to successful communication, resulting from differences in formality, culture, and styles in decision-making
• Meetings and negotiations
• Writing, editing and proofreading of business emails, reports, and proposals (in writing)
• Conducting surveys, collecting information for presentations (in speaking)
• Proposals and business introductions (in speaking)
Learning Outcomes
• identify various styles, expectations and barriers to successful business communication
• plan, conduct and reflect on business meetings and negotiations
• identify strengths and weaknesses in business emails, reports and proposals; edit and proofread own work
• set up and carry out short-term projects in groups
• plan and deliver a short presentation in groups; provide feedback on presentations delivered by others
Miklós Földes is a free-lance teacher and academic tutor with a Master’s degree, originally from the Faculty of Arts, at Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest. Since 2019 he has been an academic tutor for the Language Centre at the University of Oxford, has taught at Budapest’s IBS, ELTE, and worked as Academic Manager at Oxford Summer Courses. Between 2008 and 2017 he lived and taught in the United Kingdom. He has been a Business English teacher since 2006, and a foreign language assessor since 2000.
Developing Your Brand
Course Description only accepts applications from students of Erasmus partner universities Strategy & Practice
People are captivated by brands. Apple, Harley-Davidson, LV. the list goes on and on. What makes individuals fall in love with brands? What factors contribute to the success of these brands? What strategies do companies use to create memorable brand experiences? Such issues will be addressed in this course. This course is designed to assist students in improving their marketing abilities and raise their understanding of marketing topics from the perspective of brands. The course uses a mix of lectures, case and article discussions, exercises and a presentation. A set of readings/cases are assigned for most of the classes. Students are expected to read them before the class. The seminar approach is found most suited for a course that examines in greater depth a functional area of marketing. Also, group work suits well for these forms of learning. Six groups will select cases/article/video case for in-depth study and class presentation.
Topics
• Introduction to Branding: Strategic Insights
• Brand Equity, Brand Elements for building brand equity
• Brand Positioning
• Integrating Marketing communication to build brand equity
• Building Prestigious Brands: Masstige Model
• Case study: Ivey, Canada case Luis Vuitton in Japan & Video cases
• Masstige marketing for building brand prestige and measuring Mass prestige of a brand
• Branding in the Digital Era
• Invited Guest Lecture
Learning Outcomes
At the end of this course, the students will be able to
• understand and deal with problems related to managing existing products and brands, developing new products, and executing marketing decisions on new products
• critically think about and analyze rands and product management challenges.
• obtain practical perspectives and ideas to manage brands in different sectors
• understand the process of building prestigious brands
Dr Justin Paul holds three Doctoral Degrees. PhD in Marketing from the University of Brighton, England; PhD in International Business from IIT Bombay, and an honorary doctorate from Calcutta. He currently serves as Editor-in-chief of the International Journal of Consumer Studies (IJCS), a consumer research journal with the highest impact factor in the world. Ranked among the World’s top 72 highly cited Professors in Business & Economics subject areas, his citations are increasing at a record rate of 1000 per month, with an H Index of 90. He has taught full courses in Denmark, France, Lithuania, and Poland & serves/ed as keynote speaker at 100s of conferences including UVSQ -France, GAMMA, EMOK-Hungary, KSMS-Korea, Polish Academy & often in India. He is known as an author/co-author of books such as Business Environment, International Marketing, Services Marketing, Export-Import Management, and Management of Banking & Financial Services by McGraw-Hill, Oxford University Press & Pearson respectively. He is/was an Associate Editor with the Journal of Business Research, European Management Review, European Management Journal, & Journal of Strategic Marketing.
Course Description Corporate Financial Analysis An Integrated Approach
Large-scale investment projects require you to make complex financial decisions, for which you need a broad skillset from business planning through capital budgeting to financing. The course aims to give an overview of all the essential corporate financial principles, skills, and challenges that financial decision-makers would face in case of large investment projects. Besides the necessary methodological background, the course will take a rather practical approach in the form of an extensive, real-world-based case study. Participants will thus become familiar with the various tasks they have to solve and the interdependencies they have to be careful about, in order to make sound financial decisions. Teaching methods will include complex case studies on the topics below as well as extensive group work (analysis, presentation, discussion).
• Introduction to basic corporate financial principles (shareholder value maximization, NPV, IRR, cost of capital, stand-alone principle, sunk costs etc.)
• Financial perspective of accounting statements (project (free) cash flow, EBIT, net working capital, capital spending, depreciation etc.)
• Business planning (market analysis, forecasts, evaluation of information, identification of key drivers, analysis of relationships between variables etc.)
• Understanding technical project content and its reflection in valuation
• Preparation of pro-forma financial statements
• Project financing and cost of capital (equity and debt, leverage, CAPM, WACC etc.)
• Debt financing and implications (cash flow waterfall, covenants and related calculations etc.)
• Sensitivity analysis
Learning Outcomes
• understand the basic objectives and principles of financial decision-making
• be able to prepare a business plan for an investment project
• develop skills on synthesizing and translating relevant information for financial decision-making
• understand the requirements and implications related to debt financing
• be able to assess the economic attractiveness of a project
• improve professional teamwork, presentation, and argumentation skills
Marcell Dülk is assistant professor at the Department of Finance and Accounting. He received his PhD in corporate finance and has been teaching and publishing in international scientific journals in this field for several years. He is also a senior manager at PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) Hungary, he thus has significant practical experience in firm/project valuation. Formerly, he also worked at the strategy department of Budapest Electricity Plc. He graduated with honors as engineering manager and studied abroad in the U.S. at Indiana University Bloomington’s Kelley School of Business for an academic year on HAESF scholarship.
Economics of Climate Change
Course Description
Climate change is observed through the lenses of cost-benefit analysis and discounting, uncertainty, and equity. A discussion on the relationship between climate and international security as well as an analysis of fundamental quantitative techniques toward the assessment of climate change complete the policy and analytical dimensions of the course
Topics
• Pollution Control
• Impact & Valuation of Climate Change
• Pricing of Exhaustible Resources
• Climate and Development
• Optimal Climate Policy and Discounting
• Uncertainty and Equity
Learning Outcomes
• become conversant with the analytical tools and theoretical discussions on climate
• understand why the economies of Global South has priority in COP29 meetings
• be able to identify the effects of climate change in contemporary livelihoods
• learn how to interpret different optimization and simulation methods
• analyze the economics of climate and its transformation
Theocharis Grigoriadis is associate professor at the Department of Economics and the Institute for East European Studies of Freie Universitaet Berlin. Trained as a political economist, he obtained a PhD in Political Science (Political Economy) at the University of California, Berkeley, and a PhD in Economics (World Economy) at Saint Petersburg State University. He holds a Master of Arts in Russian and East European Studies from Yale University.
Innovation and Start-ups in Business Networks
Course Description
Business success and competitive advantage are increasingly based on innovation, rather than merely price competition and cost efficiency. Innovating includes also identifying, creating and seizing new commercial opportunities, especially through the creation of start-ups and new ventures. Therefore, managers at all levels and entrepreneurs need to understand the dynamics and mechanisms of innovation. This includes being able to handle the following issues: where do innovative ideas comes from? how can they be transformed into successful products launched on the market? which barriers and opportunities emerge during the innovation process? how can the business network surrounding an innovation or a start-up be developed and exploited to improve the chance of success? how can start-ups and innovations be developed in a socially responsible and sustainable way?
The course addresses the issues above in both theory and practice. The relevant models and concepts are first introduced by the teacher and then applied by students to a series of practical cases, discussed either in pair or by the whole class. Participants will also train in developing and defending their own start-up ideas in front of panel of peers during an “entrepreneur-venture capitalist” roleplay.
Learning Outcomes
Upon completing this module students will develop skills enabling them to
• analyze the complex structures and processes involved in product innovation and startups in order to identify opportunities and problems;
• elaborate how products and start-ups can create value to developers, entrepreneurs and users;
• identify, evaluate and affect the key actors and resources involved in the complex business networks around innovations and start-ups;
• understand the nature of disruptive innovations and how new ventures enable handling them;
• account for different perspectives on entrepreneurial opportunities, and their connection to responsible entrepreneurship
• formulate, model, plan and present to external parties a business idea.
Enrico Baraldi is Professor of Industrial Engineering and Management at Uppsala University (Sweden) and is Project manager at PLATINEA – Platform for Innovation of Existing Antibiotics (Sweden). His research covers industrial networks, innovation management, business strategies, academic entrepreneurship and industrial and research policy. He is involved in identifying, developing and promoting solutions to address the challenge of antibiotic resistance, including new economic models to stimulate antibiotics R&D and policy measures against antibiotics shortages
Negotiation
Course Description
The course aims to develop students’ negotiation skills. We’ll do lots of negotiation exercises in class in which students will have to achieve the best outcome on the basis of confidential information with a partner with their own confidential information. The concepts needed to analyze negotiations will be introduced in connection with these scenarios.
Topics
• Distributive and integrative negotiations
• Best alternative to negotiated agreement (BATNA)
• Reservation price and zone of possible agreement (ZOPA)
• Value creation through trades
• The role of information and trust
• Mental errors leading to bad outcomes
Learning Outcomes
• know how to prepare for negotiations
• understand the role of conflict and collaboration in negotiation
• be able to identify and employ the most common negotiation tactics
• learn how to deal with difficult negotiators
• be able to deal with your and your partner’s emotions
Gábor Forrai is professor at the Department of Argumentation Theory and Marketing. Trained as a philosopher, he obtained his PhD at the University of Notre Dame and was a visiting scholar in Oxford, Edinburgh, Frankfurt and Marburg.
János Tanács is associate professor at the Department of Argumentation Theory and Marketing. He has been teaching negotiation for over 15 years on various levels, from beginning courses to advanced skills training programs offered to CEOs.
Sustainable Business Relationships: What, Why, and How?
Course Description
In today’s increasingly interconnected and environmentally conscious world, businesses face growing pressure to develop sustainable relationships with their stakeholders. This means considering the economic, environmental, and social impacts of these relationships and acting ethically and responsibly. Business relationships enable exchanges between companies and serve as pathways for organizational, environmental, and societal change. They bring together buyer and seller organizations, along with their employees, for potentially long periods of time, fostering mutual learning and the development of shared norms. The dynamics within and around business relationships can have significant consequences across supply chains and distribution channels, either driving or hindering sustainable development.
This course introduces the fundamental principles, challenges, and practices involved in building and maintaining sustainable business relationships. Through a combination of theoretical frameworks, real-world case studies, and interactive discussions, students will examine what sustainable business relationships are, why they are essential for long-term business success, and how they can be effectively implemented across industries and cultural contexts.
Learning Outcomes
After completing this course, students will be able to:
• Explain the concept of sustainable business relationships and their relevance in modern business environments.
• Analyze the benefits and challenges of implementing sustainability in business relationships.
• Apply frameworks and strategies to build sustainable relationships with diverse stakeholders.
• Evaluate real-world cases of sustainable and unsustainable business relationships.
• Reflect on societal, cultural and ethical dimensions of sustainability in business contexts.
D.Sc. (Econ. & Bus. Adm.) Ilkka Ojansivu is an Associate Professor of Marketing at the Oulu Business School, University of Oulu, Finland. His research interests include business relationships, business networks, and B2B projects, with a focus on sustainability, interaction processes, institutionalization, boundaries, temporary organizations, and ontology.
Tourism as a Strategic Management Challenge
Course Description
The tourism industry is increasingly recognized not merely as a service sector but as a dynamic field of strategic management. With tourism being one of the fastest-growing industries worldwide, it’s essential to not only grasp the operational side of tourism but also the strategic decision-making processes involved. This course focuses on both, theory and real-world application and aims to provide students with the opportunity to understand the tourism system and its key players, as well as to recognize their role and personal impact within the industry. Hungary, with its rich cultural heritage and growing tourism potential, provides an excellent real-world example of how strategic management can be applied to promote a destination effectively on the global stage and so help enhance its appeal to international tourists.
Topics
• Competitive landscape of the international tourism market
• Introduction to relevant service providers in the tourism industry
• Emerging Trends in Tourism and their challenging adaption such as climate change and overtourism
• Hands-on evaluation of successfully positioned destinations in international tourism
• Group project: Creating and presenting a marketing concept for Hungary as a successful tourism destination in the global tourism market where it can leverage its unique assets to attract international visitors
Learning Outcomes
Upon completion of this course, students can:
• understand current issues and trends in the global tourism industry
• analyze the human and environmental impact of tourism towards sustainable travel
• develop skills to create and discuss the importance of marketing planning in tourism
• discuss critically the future of tourism in Hungary
Gabriele Tragschitz-Koeck is a self-employed entrepreneur with over 30 years of working experience in the field of tourism and leisure management. She has collaborated in several marketing projects, e.g. for the EXPO 2020 in Dubai, UAE and for the F1 Grand Prix in Abu Dhabi, UAE. She is senior professor at a Tourism School and College in Vienna, Austria and is lecturing at different universities in Austria as well as in international programs in Malta, Dubai (UAE), Jeddah (Saudi Arabia), Baku (Azerbaijan) and Tashkent (Uzbekistan). Holding a Master’s degree in Tourism and Hospitality Management she has published several books on Marketing and CRM in the tourism industry.
Structure
25 hours of classroom teaching
Classes begin at 9:00 and finish at 13:15 each day
Registration: Monday morning
Assessments: Based on written examination, project work and contribution to classwork depending on the course
Extracurriculars
Besides expanding professional knowledge, BESU always emphasizes the importance of extracurricular programs as well. At the end of the opening day, a reception is organized for the guests, accompanied by cakes, sandwich plates, champagne and wine, which is a great opportunity for both the students and their teachers to make some networking. We will also have a walking tour, an evening talk on some topical issue in business or economics, and additional programs. We guarantee that you will not be bored.
You may apply online through our homepage.
Application deadline: 25 june, 2025.
• Regular participation fee: 390 EUR
• Early bird fee util 30 April: 290 EUR
• Fee for ELTE students, alumni and students of Erasmus partner universities: 190 EUR
Here you can watch last year’s aftermovie: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6IJTLqWUCXs
For more information and application:
Homepage: https://gtk.elte.hu/sumuni
E-mail: sumuni@gtk.elte.hu
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/eltebesu/