Op-ed: From scholarship to science – How global students are re-shaping Hungary’s research output

Over the past decade, Hungary has quietly become one of Europe’s most attractive destinations for international students. This rise is not accidental, nor is it merely a product of marketing or tourism appeal. What is happening is deeper: Hungary is experiencing a strategic shift in the composition of its academic community — and young researchers are increasingly leading it from abroad.

The numbers illustrate this transformation clearly. In the 2020/21 academic year, around 32,400 international students were enrolled in Hungarian universities. By 2024/25, this number surpassed 40,200. This is not a marginal fluctuation. This is the equivalent of adding more than 8,000 new foreign students within just four academic cycles — almost the full size of a medium Hungarian university added entirely from abroad.

The research output has seen a sharp hike in research. However, the impact becomes truly meaningful not at the bachelor’s level — it is at the doctoral level.

In the 2015/16 academic year, Hungary hosted just over 7,300 PhD and DLA students. By 2024/25, this number had risen to 11,017.

In other words — almost 4,000 more doctoral researchers joined the country’s academic ecosystem in less than a decade. This is one of the strongest drivers behind Hungary’s emerging research competitiveness — because doctoral students are not passive learners, they publish articles, they attend conferences, they co-author international papers, they connect Hungary’s research to networks across Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and beyond.

Behind this rise stands one major instrument: the Stipendium Hungaricum scholarship program. In 2015, there were only 1,300 Stipendium recipients. By 2020, this number had climbed to nearly 11,000. This tenfold increase is not symbolic — it directly injected thousands of research-oriented scholars into Hungarian labs and universities. The research output got a hike due to the rise in international students. From 2015 to 2023, Hungary’s Scopus-indexed output rose from ~17.2k to 24.3k documents — roughly a 40% increase over eight years, showing steady growth in national research output.

As this talent arrived, something else rose in parallel: Hungary’s research economy. Between 2021 and 2023, Hungary’s scientific R&D production value grew from €1.16 billion to €1.27 billion to €1.31 billion. It would be simplistic to claim that every euro increase is due solely to foreign doctoral talent — but it would be equally incorrect to ignore the alignment of these two trends. Globally, the logic is proven. Countries with the highest shares of international students — Canada (≈39%), Australia (31%), United Kingdom (27%) — are precisely those leading the world in international co-authorship, citation impact, and knowledge export.

Israel, although having only around 2% international students, has foreign scholars making up almost half of all postdocs, and Israel is one of the most research-productive per capita nations in the world.

These countries are not admitting foreign students out of generosity.
They are doing it out of economic strategy. Hungary sits in a very promising position — around 14% international share in its higher education system. Not at the top — but rising. Importantly — rising strategically.

Foreign PhD candidates are accelerating: co-authored Hungarian research publications, international conference representation, cross-country academic collaboration, and visibility of Hungarian universities abroad. Hungary is not just receiving students — it is importing knowledge networks. And the European Innovation Scoreboard 2024 confirms this pattern: the countries scoring highest on “attractive research systems” are those with strong foreign doctoral communities. Switzerland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Sweden — these are not large countries, but they understood early that global research excellence requires global research talent.

So, the question now is not whether international students benefit Hungarian universities.
One of the brilliant initiatives of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences is to set up the Hungarian consortium EISZ, which has established an agreement to support authors in Hungary who wish to publish open access with reputed publishers. Like that, Hungary need to take a few initiatives to retain the growth upward. the question is whether Hungary will convert this momentum into a long-term scientific advantage. To do that, Hungary needs to:

• make post-PhD residence pathways easier
• -Initiate the post-doctoral opportunities 
• -Expand Stipendium Hungaricum Scholarship strategically toward STEM and technology priorities
  – Increase the different scholarship options for research students
• Smoother immigration process for the research students and his/her family members
• Reward co-authorship and international publication in research funding models

Hungary does not need to copy Anglo-American tuition systems. Its comparative advantage is different — it is scholarship-driven research internationalization. And that is exactly why this moment matters. Because international students are not temporary classroom guests. They are the fuel of Hungary’s future scientific output.

Every foreign doctoral candidate brings methods, networks, and collaboration channels that Hungary did not have before. If Hungary keeps these students — if it integrates them, supports them, and turns them from students into permanent researchers — Hungary can shift from being a regional educational destination into a Central European research power. The opportunity is already here. The data already proves its direction. And the next steps depend on one strategic choice:

Does Hungary want to simply “host” international students — or does Hungary want to compete for them? The answer to that question will determine Hungary’s research strength for the next generation.

Written by: Mohammad Fakhrul Islam
PhD Candidate, Hungarian University of Agriculture and Life Sciences (MATE), Gödöllő, Hungary & Visiting Researcher, Széchenyi István University, Győr, Hungary. Email: islam.mohammad.fakhrul@phd.uni-mate.hu

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