There was a memorable meeting in the corridor of the Institute of Experimental Medicine of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (Hungarian acronym: KOKI) in February 2013. Tamás Freund, director of the institute (and laureate of the Brain Prize [which was conferred on him by the Grete Lundbeck European Brain Research Foundation in 2011]) was showing around Scottish cell biologist Anne Glover, when she ran into an old acquaintance of hers. It was neurobiologist Angus Robin Silver, a professor of University College London.

Astonished, Glover asked Silver what he was doing there. That’s the best place to do my research, Silver replied. After that Glover told in interviews with the foreign press that Hungary’s scientific achievements should be shouted out.

Anne Glover was in Hungary at the invitation of József Pálinkás, President of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (Hungarian acronym: MTA) to see for herself that Hungary can attract world-standard researchers. A few years back that would have been out of the question but Pálinkás has invited noted foreign researchers under the Momentum Program for Talented Young Researchers.

In 2012, 16 scientists applied from all corners of the world and eventually HUF 70 million have been spent to sponsor the Hungarian stint of 3 to 12 months for six eminent scientists.

In 2013 four applicants out of 16 have been awarded a total of HUF 57 million in support. Those funds are needed so that the researchers from Germany, the United Kingdom or the United States could get the same income to which they have become accustomed at home. Their salary is in ballpark of EUR 10 000. As Pálinkás puts it: “It is essential that Hungary should not just be seen a place that people leave but also one that some decide to visit to work there.”

Silver and Zoltán Nusser, who is a laureate of the Bolyai Prize, conducted research on the synaptic processing of information that arrives at the little brain. Timothy Jull, a professor of the University of Arizona and an authority on radiocarbon dating, visited Debrecen to create a unique system for specimen preparation.

Says Jull: “I enjoyed working at the Institute for Nuclear Research of MTA [Hungarian acronym: ATOMKI] and I learned a lot there.

“I hope to obtain such a small-size device also for our laboratory at Tucson. My fellow researchers of Debrecen and I plan to examine lakes in Hungary and in Romania and to carry on cooperating in the ‘in situ’ dating of minerals.”

Thomas Rauscher, a professor of Basel University and a front-ranking expert on nuclear astrophysics, also did research in Debrecen. While spending six months in Hungary, he modeled the explosion of stars and the evolution of the elements of the Earth. “I have long-lasting working relations with the nuclear astrophysics group of ATOMKI. The two decades of cooperation has been really fruitful,” Rauscher says. “Together we have done tests, published articles and participated in research that has produced discoveries. Now and then we meet at conferences and exchange e-mail messages but nothing can substitute joint scientific work and personal presence.”

“I am very satisfied with the results of my stay in Hungary,” Željko Ivezić, an astronomer of Washington University has said. He is head of the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) program – the biggest ever reflecting telescope program [currently in design stage]. “Several institutions are interested in taking part in LSST and proposals have been repeatedly invited to win support for potential participants in that program. We have launched more cooperation projects with the Hungarian experts than what I initially thought,” Ivezić told this weekly.

Geographer James Wesley Scott spent ten months in Hungary to study consequences of Europeanization and its impact on the Hungarian political culture and geopolitical thinking.

As he puts it: “My contacts with Hungarian researchers of regional studies working at universities and institutes date back to the early 1990s. Under an EU-sponsored project I cooperated with the Hungarian Academy of Sciences Center for Economic and Regional Studies (MTA KRTK) at the town of Pécs. Wide-ranging, high-quality work is done at the Pécs institute,” Scott said. “The institute makes an important contribution to the advancement of regional studies in domestic and European Union contexts. Indeed, it is pioneering in Central Europe in interdisciplinary sciences. Working there has enabled me to work out a comparative case study on how the concept of frontiers has changed in Hungary since 1989.”

Such grants are available not only for foreign scientists. Professor László Bögre of the Royal Holloway University of London, who has been working outside of Hungary for two decades, spent some time at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences Biological Research Centre, Szeged (BRC). Says Bögre: “The three months I spent there were too short to talk with all the old acquaintances but it was nice to see new faces and meet enthusiastic young researchers. I am convinced that the Szeged research institute ranks high by European standards. That is why it is crucial to develop and support it.”

Source: Heti Válasz

Translated by Budapest Telegraph