The University of Szeged traces its origins back to the 16th century, and it is one of Hungary’s most prestigious and competitive universities, regularly listed as one of the best national institutions by the QS World University Rankings. It has educated a large number of notable alumni, including Nobel laureates Albert Szent-Györgyi and Katalin Karikó. The university is made up of twelve constituent faculties and nineteen doctoral schools, which consist of a range of departments and research groups.

The MTA-SZTE Digital Learning Technology Research Group (DTTK) in close collaboration with the Research Group on Learning and Instruction (OK) and the former MTA-SZTE Research Group on the Development of Competencies (KKCS) is a partner in the MapIE project. The Hungarian Educational Longitudinal Program on national representative sample was launched in Szeged, in 2003, tracking students’ development throughout the years of public education and investigating the main characteristics of and changes in the major cognitive constituents of knowledge, the attitudes towards learning and the affective and sociocultural determinants of the learning process. Further cohorts entered the program in 2007, 2011, 2015 and 2019 when they entered primary school in September. DTTK, OK and KKCS has implemented national longitudinal studies that contribute to the MapIE project when studying the development of educational inequalities in Hungary.