New survey unveils hidden costs of EU-Hungary tussle over research funding

A new report by the Hungarian Young Academy shows around 40% of early career researchers have experienced some form of negative consequence of the EU funding ban that applies to 30 research institutions, including 21 universities, in Hungary.

The survey reveals international collaborators and their funding agencies are reluctant to write joint proposals with Hungarian researchers, even if they are not working in one of the institutions affected by the ban. International consortium leaders often ask Hungarian researchers to move their projects to institutions that are not suspended, or simply to change jobs.

Sixteen percent of respondents have considered changing their affiliation or seeking additional affiliations within Hungary, while 25% have already started or are planning to start looking for jobs abroad.

The results of the survey have been sent to the Hungarian government, leaders of Hungarian universities and research institutes, the rector’s conference and to NRDI, the national agency for research funding.

The authors hope the issue will be put back on the political agenda in Brussels when the new Commission takes up office later this year.

Hungarian researchers are still elligible to participate in Horizon projects but they cannot access EU grants. The Hungarian government last year created a guarantee fund with an initial €12.8 million budget to cover the participation of researchers from the affected institutions in Horizon Europe projects.

However, one of the researchers surveyed in the report noted “Partners in several countries have indicated that their national education ministries have ‘spoken’ to the leadership of certain faculties advising against cooperation with Hungarian universities.”  

The authors of the report say the suspension could damage the reputation of Hungarian science and lower the participation rate of all Hungarian researchers in European projects.

About 20% of the respondents said that communication with international partners has become more difficult since the ban. Some international partners are also reluctant to jointly apply for EU funds that are not at all affected by the ban, such as various Interreg schemes. “They have received informal signals from their national funders that having a Hungarian partner could be a disadvantage during the evaluation process,” the report says.

The survey was conducted in January and February this year among 524 researchers and academics between the ages of 31 and 45 in Hungary.

Science|Business spoke to Imola Wilhelm, from the HUN-REN Biological Research Centre in Szeged and to Balázs Lengyel the HUN-REN Centre for Economic and Regional Studies in Budapest, two of the co-authors of the report.

According to Lengyel, “the most terrifying impact” of the ban is that “European partners are not so willing to collaborate with Hungarian institutes nowadays.”

The report was launched over the summer break but Lengyel says the Hungarian Young Academy will continue communicating the results of the survey as policymakers and stakeholders are coming back from holidays.

Lengyel hopes the issue will be put back on the political agenda in Brussels after a new Commission is installed in the Berlaymont later this year. “I have the feeling that, although a lot has happened around this issue last year in 2023, there's nothing much going on this year,” he said.

“I believe that we have to talk about this, because it's been more than one and a half years [since the ban],” Lengyel said.

“There is a financial crisis in respect of research funding independent of this Horizon ban,” Wilhelm said.

But it’s not about EU money lost, said Wilhelm. “The real loss for the Hungarian research community is this stamp that is on us, that other people don't want to communicate with us, to collaborate with us.”

Various Hungarian institutions have complained the block on accessing EU funds is being misunderstood, and that Hungarian researchers are being cold shouldered.

Earlier this year, the European Commission’s director general for research and innovation, Marc Lemaître, asked national contact points – advisers who support Horizon Europe applicants – to spread the message that Hungarian participants can still join Horizon Europe projects.

The 30 institutions have been barred since December 2022 from receiving Horizon Europe and Erasmus+ funds, due to concerns that their governance structure breaches EU rule of law principles. These institutions transfered their management to public trust foundations run by boards that were initially hand-picked by the government. Some of the government-picked trustees have resigned since then.