ABOVE: Hungarian Parliament building
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The Hungarian Parliament on Tuesday (July 2) passed a bill that takes control for funding Hungarian research bodies away from the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and gives it to a government-led committee, Reuters reports.
In the current system, as Reuters has reported previously, the government funds the Academy, which in turn distributes the budgets for the 15 institutions within its research network.
Under the new law, the 15 research institutions will be removed from Academy oversight and brought under a new government-run entity, called Eotvos Lorand Research Network, Al Jazeera reports. Funds for research will be distributed by a committee whose chairman will be appointed by Prime Minister Viktor Orban,.Half of the committee members will come from the government, according to Reuters, and the panel will have the power to close and open research institutions.
Talk of such a government takeover of research funding ...
