Miklós Szócska

Miklós Szócska (born 1960 in Budapest) is a Hungarian physician, academic, and politician. He served as Hungary's Minister of State for Health from 2010-2014 and was nominated for the World Health Organization Director-General position by the Hungarian government in 2016. Szócska currently serves as the director of the Health Services Management Training Centre at Semmelweis University. He is also a senior fellow at the Mossavar-Rahmani Center For Business and Government at the Harvard Kennedy School and a board member of the European Health Forum Gastein.

Education Szócska graduated from the Semmelweis University School of Medicine in 1989. He also attained a Master of Public Administration from the Harvard Kennedy School in 1998 and a Ph.D. in change management from Semmelweis University in 2003.

Hungarian EU presidency In 2011, with Szócska's participation the Hungarian EU presidency was successfully managed, contributing to the EU Council conclusions "Towards modern, responsive and sustainable health systems", later chairing a workgroup of the EU reflection process on investment in health systems, developing a toolkit for the smart use of European structural funds. He also served as a member of the EU eHealth Task Force laying the foundations of current European eHealth policies. During his mandate he had close collaboration with WHO, such as on health system performance evaluation, TB screening reform and mental health. The EU presidency agenda was implemented in close collaboration with WHO and this corporation on health human resources strategy triggered the participation in the relevant EU joint action.

Old-new director of HSMTC Since 2014 Szócska serves again as the Director of the HSMTC – his main areas of research and teaching interest covers various areas. Szócska became responsible for the strategic developments of the Institute of Digital Health Sciences at Semmelweis University. Under his leadership, Health Services Management Training Centre has achieved international recognition and is an active participant of various EU and international projects covering the areas of health policy, eHealth and Bigdata solutions, management and change management, patient safety and quality management, human resources for health.

In 2016 Szócska was nominated for the Director-General position of the World Health Organisation by the Hungarian government.