Csaba Pusztai came to CEU with an academic background in economics and business. Having already gathered several years of teaching experience in Hungarian tertiary education, he decided to seek a more research intensive role after earning his PhD in 2011. In 2012 he joined the United Nations University Institute of Advanced Studies in Yokohama, Japan as a Postdoctoral Fellow. At UNU-IAS, he is in the Sustainable Urban Futures program pursuing an individual research agenda as well as contributing to the team effort.
In his individual research, Csaba focuses on how cities address the challenges of improving the sustainability of city-wide socio-technical systems such as transport, energy, or waste management. These systems usually involve a wide array of stakeholders interacting with each other in various roles and functions, so innovative approaches (and performance gains) can be understood as the collective outcome of the collaborative effort of these actors. Csaba’s research looks into what drives the dynamics of these ‘local ecosystems of government and private sector innovation’.
As member of the “urban group” at UNU-IAS, he also contributes to developing decision-support tools for cities to improve their governance of transport, energy, and waste management sectors. In addition to research, Csaba also teaches Research Methods classes in the Master of Environmental Governance program of UNU-IAS. Csaba has not yet decided what will come after he completes his postdoctoral fellowships, but he hopes to pursue an academic career related to sustainability in a multicultural setting.