

Cancer screening programmes need new foundations – Video of international conference held at MTA HQ
The application of the latest scientific advances and testing techniques, and greater participation by people, could significantly reduce cancer mortality in the European Union, according to a report presented in Hungary at the Headquarters of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. Watch a video of the conference and read the full report.


Call for research proposals for the Research Programme for Public Education Development – 2022
The Hungarian Academy of Scinces announces an open call for research proposals to finance research projects for 4 years (between 1 September 2022 – 31 August 2026), which aim to lay the foundations for the development of education and training by providing new scientific findings and to carry out research on how to renew the pedagogical perspectives and methods for knowledge transfer and the transmission of values.
MTA Centre of Excellence – Video of the certificate award ceremony
The Hungarian Academy of Sciences (MTA), on the basis of the recommendation of the Qualification Council for Research Centres (KMT), has given the MTA Centre of Excellence Award to 95 Hungarian scientific workshops and institutions in recognition of their outstanding scientific work. The representatives of the research centres that have won the prestigious award received the certificates at a ceremony at the Széchenyi tér headquarters of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.


MTA External Members’ Forum features war-related topical issue
In addition to the award ceremonies and toasts, this year’s recipient of the Young Researcher Award has posted a video message from the front in Eastern Ukraine. MTA Vice President György Kosztolányi, meetings chairman of the External Members’ Forum and representative of Hungarian Academy members living abroad, called the viewing of Viktor Traski’s video a historic moment that will be written into the golden book of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.


A renewing, proactive Academy, an increasingly active public body – President’s Report by Tamás Freund
“The changes in the external environment and, thus, in the situation of the Academy have forced it to revitalise itself, but MTA has consistently been able to act as a proactive partner and is now more of a master of its own fate than it was two years ago”, said Tamás Freund in his President’s Report at the 195th General Assembly of the Academy. The President of the Academy also announced the launch of several research programmes linked to social and national strategy priorities.


Avram Hershko’s presentation at the Academy – video
Avram Hershko, a Hungarian-born Israeli scientist, who won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2004, gave a presentation at the 195th General Assembly of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.


The intensively raised goat and the organic cabbage – can we have our cake and eat it? New report on regenerative agriculture presented at MTA by the Scientific Advisory Board of the European Academies
According to the latest report of the Scientific Advisory Board of the European Academies (EASAC) on regenerative agriculture, not only is ecologically sensitive agriculture not an enemy of food production but, due to climate change and environmental degradation, it will, in a few short decades, represent our only chance of being able to feed humanity. To explore the background of the report presented at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences on Wednesday 6th of April, we interviewed two Hungarian members of the scientific community who were behind it – Orsolya Valkó and András Báldi.


Renewed Bilateral Agreement: The President of the Estonian Academy of Sciences visited MTA
Prof. Tamás Freund, President of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, received Prof. Tarmo Soomere, President of the Estonian Academy of Sciences, who arrived in Budapest for a meeting of the European Academies’ Science Advisory Council (EASAC).


Gaining Momentum: Kata Horváti
The coronavirus pandemic demonstrated that vaccines based on radically new techniques could be more effective than previous ones. They can be developed faster and protect against those infectious diseases where previously there were no vaccines. However, it is not only mRNA that could be the basis of a new type of vaccine: peptides can also be used for this purpose. Kata Horváti, from the HAS-ELTE Research Group of Peptide Chemistry, Department of Organic Chemistry, Eötvös Loránd University, received the Lendület (Momentum) grant to develop peptide-based vaccine strategies. An overview of her research is the next step in the introduction of the researchers who are the latest recipients of the HAS’s programme of excellence.


Farewell lecture by Professor Sierd Cloetingh, outgoing president of Academia Europaea, at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in Budapest
An eminent European Earth scientist’s talk on Europe as a “Natural Laboratory for Frontier Research in Earth Sciences”


Information on the Academy’s measures designed to help scientists fleeing Ukraine
The Hungarian Academy of Sciences (“MTA”) condemns all forms of war of aggression and follows with profound sympathy the wholly unwarranted suffering and destruction caused by the Russian attack on Ukraine. The MTA has launched a programme to help members of the public body of the Academy, scientists as well as staff members of Transcarpathian scientific, higher education, cultural and artistic institutions and organisations who flee from Ukraine to Hungary as a result of the war. In this document we describe in detail the options available for providing or receiving help.


MTA’s fundraising campaign for scientists and scholars fleeing the war in Ukraine
The objective of this humanitarian fundraising initiative is to provide financial support for the scientific community of Ukraine, in particular researchers and MTA’s public association members belonging to the Hungarian community of Kárpátalja (Carpathian Ruthenia), along with their families, as well as to help safeguard our scientific and cultural heritage.


László Lovász joins the ERC Scientific Council
The European Commission has appointed three eminent scientists as new members of the governing body of the European Research Council (ERC), the Scientific Council. They are appointed for an initial period of four years. The three new members are Professor Chryssa Kouveliotou, professor at the George Washington University, Washington D.C., United States, Professor László Lovász, professor emeritus at Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary, and President of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (2014-2020), and Professor Giovanni Sartor, professor at the University of Bologna and at the European University Institute, Florence, Italy.


Gaining Momentum: Enikő Kubinyi
Fifteen new research group leaders will be able to continue their research in the coming years with the support of the Lendület (“Momentum”) excellence programme of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (MTA). We present them in our new series. First, Enikő Kubinyi, Senior Research Fellow at the Department of Ethology, Institute of Biology, ELTE Faculty of Sciences, describes her winning grant application to study the evolutionary drivers and consequences of companion animal ownership. Little is known about the impact that an animal treated as a family member has on the social behaviour of humans and how this situation changes the animals themselves. This is an important issue also because these changes are not always positive.


Women in Science – a joint statement was published as a result of the online workshop organized by the Alliance of International Science Organizations (ANSO)
The focus of the event on 18-19 November 2021 was the involvement of female researchers in science, especially in leadership positions. You can read the statement, watch the video recording of the workshop and download the talk of Enikő Bollobás, Chair of the Presidential Committee on Women in Science at MTA and the greeting speech of Ferenc Hudecz, ANSO Board member and Vice President of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.


Portrait of a Hungarian Islamic researcher – Festive commemoration and memorial conference on Ignác Goldziher
The Hungarian Academy of Sciences, the Israeli Academy of Sciences and the Avicenna Institute for Middle Eastern Studies organised a series of programmes on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the death of the Orientalist.


Health experts call for a pan-European approach to shortages of medicines
To address the current situation regarding shortages of medicines, a pan-European approach is needed to harmonise data collection across Europe and encourage multidisciplinary discussions to find broad solutions, health experts say.


Hungarian model for ensuring the rapid application of medical discoveries
In all cases, the ultimate goal of basic medical research is to increase the effectiveness of medicine, that is, to promote the healing of patients. In practice, however, it often takes decades for a new discovery to work its way through to clinical practice, which often causes measurable harm in terms of human lives. The discipline of translational medicine is trying to change this, and Hungarian researchers in the field have developed a new model for expediting the practical application of discoveries, something that has recently been reported on in the journal Nature Medicine.


The Role of Universities
Statement and a Summary of the Articles and Comments from the Forum of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.
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