Hungarian government to ensure funding for universities to participate in European research programmes

The government will provide every university the necessary funding to ensure their participation in European research cooperation programmes, the ministry of culture and innovation said on Wednesday.

“The government will not allow that because of decisions by Brussels Hungarian researchers and students should suffer a competitive disadvantage. It will continue to provide funding for the programmmes including Erasmus, Horizon or the European Cooperation in Science and Technology (COST),” the ministry said in a statement.

It said that the government set up this year a  HUF 5 billion (EUR 13m) fund dubbed Önero Alap to directly support EU research programmes which it could later increase.

According to the National Research, Development and Innovation Office’s website, the Onero Alap has been set up to support Hungarian universities that operate under a new structure and have been excluded from European programmes under a European Council decree passed last December.