The Budapest Observatory is member of the Consortium of the European Festival Research Project (EFRP).

Following two seminars in Leicester and Le Mans, done in conjunction with De Montfort University and France Festivals respectively, EFRP joined forces with Circle, and the annual round table conference of this European network was dedicated to the festival policy of public authorities, entitled Festival Jungle - Policy Desert? Read the conference report. The meeting was hosted by Interarts, Barcelona, in October 2007. BO contributed, among others, by introducing the debate on a set of recommendations  to the public authorities on festival policies, the closing session of the Barcelona conference.

The next meeting was held in Helsinki, in March, 2008. For the Helsinki meeting a case study was prepared on Miskolc.
Earlier, the Budapest Observatory realised a survey on Hungarian festivals. Information was collected in 2005 by face-to-face interviews with the organisers of 230 festivals held in the previous year, based on a questionnaire of 66 items. The findings were published in the book Fesztivál-világ (ISBN 9630606097). The summary in English is available here in pdf  (502kb) format. The project was supported by the National Cultural Fund (NKA).