Dorottya Szikra

Dorottya Szikra is Research Professor at the Centre for Social Sciences, Budapest. She is the country-lead of the ERC project Welfare Experiences analysing how different welfare systems can affect people’s mental health and chances of returning to work.

Szikra is associated with CEU Democracy Institute where she led a CIVICA research project entitled Welfare, Democracy, and Populism under the COVID-19 Crisis (WELDECO). Szikra’s main research field is welfare state and family policy development in Central and Eastern Europe. Her recent publications include (together with Lauritz Autischer) 2025. Illiberal Social Policy in Europe: When Policy Implementation Meets Welfare Ideas. Politics and Governance, 2025 (13) and (together with Kerem G. Öktem) 2023. An illiberal welfare state emerging? Welfare efforts and trajectories under democratic backsliding in Hungary and Turkey. In Journal of European Social Policy, 33(2).