Leading academic journal wonders what Orbán's ousting might mean for Hungarian academic community

During its 16 years in power, Fidesz systematically undermined the status of Hungarian science and higher education. The Orbán government carried out a thorough transformation of the academic system, the reorganization of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences reduced the institution’s autonomy; research networks were dismantled and harassed for years; and several universities were reorganized and placed under the control of foundations governed by boards of trustees filled with political appointees selected by Fidesz.

In response, in 2022 the European Union decided to freeze approximately 6.3 billion euros in funding for research exchange programs involving Hungarian higher education and cultural institutions, thereby excluding Hungary from the Horizon Europe research program and Erasmus, among others. This affected 21 Hungarian universities and, later, one Austrian university that had adopted the new model. Contrary to the government’s claim, these institutions are not actually barred from Horizon; they may continue to participate, but only as non-EU institutions: they cannot receive new EU funding through the programme, and they are not included in the minimum requirements set for the number of EU partners participating in each programme.

In March 2023, the government sought to make up for the shortfall with a five-billion-forint fund, and has since then been regularly announcing supplementary grants for participants. Despite this, universities that switched to the new model were already reporting losses in the millions of euros by the summer of 2023. The practical problems were well-illustrated by the fact that around the time negotiations with the EU about the foundations-run universities reached a dead end in January 2024, the government launched two supplementary initiatives from the national budget, each modeled after an EU program. This is how Pannónia was created to replace Erasmus, and HU-rizont to replace Horizon. We previously reported on how undemocratically HU-rizont operated and how researchers critical of the changes was circumvented.

An article published Tuesday in Nature, one of the world’s leading scientific journals, looks at how the change of government might affect Hungarian science and higher education after. The article states that the scientific community in Hungary—and abroad—welcomes Viktor Orbán’s defeat after sixteen years in power.

“The researchers who have watched as Orbán dismantled academic freedom, stripped universities of their autonomy, and had Hungary excluded from EU funding now look with cautious hope toward his successor, Péter Magyar, to repair the damage.”

According to the article, Orbán’s efforts against university independence have served as a model for the reforms currently underway in the United States which are affecting the research community there. Additionally, under Orbán, Hungary has increasingly shifted toward Chinese influence, including plans to host the European Union’s first Chinese university campus, the article noted.

For now, however, it is unclear how much of a priority the Tisza Party will make of reforming the university and research sectors, and researchers interviewed by Nature warned that simply restoring the old system may not be enough to revive Hungarian higher education.

They said there is hope that the future will bring change, but science is unlikely to be an immediate priority compared to sectors such as healthcare or education for the next government.

Kurt Deketelaere, Secretary General of the League of European Research Universities, told Nature: Péter Magyar’s promise to restore Hungary’s relationship with the European Union and to restore institutional autonomy could at least enable Hungarian universities and research centers to rejoin European projects. “We can also expect that the next prime minister and his government will support and defend academic freedom, unlike his predecessor,” he said. “Hungary now has a serious opportunity to actively support the EU’s research and innovation policy.”