Foreign national is the newest Ministerial Commissioner in the Orbán government

János Csák, the Minister for Culture and Innovation, has formally appointed Ballester Esquivias Rodrigo María as the Ministerial Commissioner for the Internationalisation of Hungarian Higher Education and Research.

According to the ministry, Rodrigo Ballester, a Spanish national, has more than two decades of international experience, having worked for 15 years in the EU institutions and five years as a member of the cabinet of the EU Commissioner for Education. He pursued education at the College of Europe and worked as an EU civil servant, attaining a broad knowledge in EU decision-making processes and internal structures. He has studied in several countries and has been a regular lecturer in EU law and EU affairs for 14 years, mainly at Sciences Po University in Paris.

As head of the MCC’s European Studies Workshop, Rodrigo Ballester frequently speaks at conferences and seminars and contributes to the press.

Ballester is fluent in five languages, but Hungarian is not one of them. According to his biography, which is publicly available on the MCC, he is only a beginner in Hungarian.

The objectives

According to the statement, the new ministerial commissioner’s tasks include renewing the internationalisation strategy of Hungarian higher education, expanding international mobility programmes, enhancing their efficiency and developing solutions to strengthen the participation of foreign students in Hungarian higher education.

The government aims to host 100,000 international students in Hungary by 2030, within a revitalised, competitive higher education framework. Therefore, the newly appointed ministerial commissioner’s most important tasks include developing programmes to support the participation of international academics and researchers in Hungarian higher education and research institutions, the ministry said. Additionally, the ministry underscores aspirations for at least one Hungarian institution to secure a position among the world’s top 100 universities and at least three within Europe’s top 100 universities by 2030.

As previously reported, the latest university rankings from the UNIside.hu higher education website have been released, providing valuable insights for those contemplating their further education, details HERE.

Moreover, as we wrote earlier, The Financial Times has once again evaluated Europe’s premier business schools this year, with Corvinus University of Budapest emerging as the only Hungarian representative, further details can be found HERE.