University of Pannonia Nagykanizsa University Center for Circular Economy

The Nagykanizsa Campus of the University of Pannonia is an integral part of one of the most dynamically-developing universities in the country. Since its establishment, the Nagykanizsa Campus has sought to become a major regional player both in science and in its socio-economic environment. The Campus has developed its current training and research portfolio in close collaboration with three faculties. Currently, it offers 3 higher education vocational training programs, 5 bachelor programs, 2 master's programs and 2 postgraduate programs. The main focus is on tourism, computer science and water treatment. Since its 20 years of existence, the Campus has been engaged in numerous scientific activities in these areas.

Research areas:  

Department of Applied Information Technology

The Department of Applied Information Technology at the University of Pannonia Nagykanizsa Campus is in close connection with the Faculty of Information Technology at the mother institution in the field of education, research and projects. The Industrial Information Technology Research Centre was founded involving the staff of the department, whose main task is the examination of IT problems occurring in the field of Industry 4.0. It includes among others the introduction and operation of total or partial automatization.

To be able to carry out research and development tasks, a laboratory is being built, which will be developed continuously. It will be able to model industrial processes. The primary task of the laboratory is the support of planning, implementation and operation of IT systems supporting production.

A lot of information is born during today’s modern industrial processes, whose storage and process implies serious IT challenge. However, it is important to notice that the collected data open new possibilities in the field of the increase of the effectiveness of the systems. With their help it is going to be possible to introduce new-generation optimization, flexibility increasing and intelligent automatization technics.

Partner organizations help with solving the non-exclusively IT problems. The department has excellent relationship with companies with profiles of data collection, automatization, robotics and building production systems.

The department can provide the following professional support for interested companies:

• Application development
• Design and development of sensor networks
• Big Data and data analysis
• Production planning
• Optimization
• Definition of automatization level
• Design of potential IT/automatization development strategies
• Feasibility study in different areas and topics
• Production/Process analysis
• Development and introduction of unique IT solutions
• IT support

Institute of Applied Economics

The Institute of Applied Economics carries out education and research under the guidance of the Faculty of Business and Economics of the University of Pannonia with special emphasis on the area of adaptation to the dynamically changing business environment and innovation.

The staff of the Institute has a wide range of competences in the field of economics and social sciences. The Institute emphasizes the practical exploitation of its intellectual capital. The staff of the Institute believes that gaining and keeping the competitive advantage of an enterprise may only be ensured through continuous organizational development and with the adjustment to the changing environment.

The professional competences of the institutional unit are the following without being exhaustive:

• statistical and economic analyses based on qualitative and quantitative examinations
• contribution to the preparation of strategies with special emphasis on the analyses of situation and environment
• marketing of tourism organizations (companies and NGOs), tourist attractions and services, examination of TDM organizations
• satisfaction surveys regarding tourism and tourism marketing, product development, impact assessment
• analytical and synthetic research in connection with the development of local economy
• business development and project management

The Soós Ernő Research and Development Center

Water Technology Research Group

The Water Technology Research Group plays a special role in the field of industry and education because with its foundation in 2014 a unique knowledge center was set up in Nagykanizsa in the field of water purification and water treatment.

The work of the Research Group is supported by a network of international industrial experts. The staff of the Group are experts in different fields (chemist, biologist, hydrobiologist, environmental engineer, geographer, hydrogeologist engineer), therefore the branching knowledge ensures the wide range of scope of the Research Group.

The main areas of research are water treatment, preparation of industrial water and wastewater treatment with sustainable technological solutions. A further research direction is the qualitative and quantitative evaluation of micro-contaminant pollution (organic, inorganic pollution, microplastics) in different water bodies and their removal technologies.

In case of particular company needs the Research Group undertakes to hold lectures or complex educational programmes in Hungarian or in English in connection with water treatment, new technological procedures, analytical methods, biological or microbiological questions, etc.

The Research Group has its own well-equipped laboratory. The Group can provide the following professional support for industrial bodies:

• Review of water treatment systems, making optimization suggestions and water recycling possibilities, OPEX-CAPEX and cost efficiency calculations
• Case studies about operating systems, suggestions for the improvement of chemical usage
• “Zero Liquid Discharge” or similar technologies
• Making comparative analyses, evaluations and conclusions from existing data, SWOT analysis
• Review of outdated systems, suggestions for innovative, up-to-date technologies on the basis of international practice and/or experiments
• Planning and carrying out pilot experiments
• Water analysis (chemistry, microbiology) (non-accredited)
• Preparation of educational programmes

Renewable Energy Research Group (MEFK)

The primary area of research of the Renewable Energy Research Group (MEFK) focuses on the renewable sources of energy and energy storage. The MEFK has a wide network of international and Hungarian industry connections, including all the major corporations of the Hungarian electricity sector.

Our research concentrates, on the one hand, on the renewable sources of energy, with a special emphasis on PV (photovoltaic) technologies, biomass and the relationships of variable sources of renewable energy and energy storage. On the other hand, we also create models regarding the sustainability of PV systems, simulate system controlling and prepare comparative analyses related to energy storage and conventional network development. Another important area of study for the group is the exploration of the causal relationships connected to the spread (and/or its difficulties) of the various renewable technologies, by comprehensive statistical analysis using economic, social and infrastructural data.

The research group has an approximately 1000-m2 large PV (photovoltaic) measuring station, where it is possible to compare and test different technologies, study solar tracking accuracy, prepare heat models and measure solar irradiance. Among other areas, the members of the research group study:

• cooling efficiency;
• solar tracking accuracy;
• the shade tolerance of crystalline and amorphous PV modules
• and the fields of application of bifacial, concentrator (CPV) and flexible PV modules.

The MEFK has attained numerous research results with practical uses related to the economic aspects of the use of renewable energy, the utilisation of different alternative energy sources, energetics systems operating with alternative energy sources, technologies and energy storage. The publications (26 journal articles) based on these results have an accumulated impact factor of 39.119 and the number of their independent citations is over 150 (status of July 2020).

We provide the following services to our industrial partners:

• the complex planning of systems using/storing renewable energy;
• energy storage modelling;
• examination of the possibilities of using renewable sources of energy, the selection of the suitable technology;
• consultancy on energy system installations, sizes and optimisation;
• economic calculations, OPEX / CAPEX calculations;
• environmental economic analyses,
• environmental awareness, CO2 savings tracking;
• comparison of different technologies, preparation of complex case studies, exploratory SWOT analyses.