Hungarian Researchers Protest Against Government Changes to Funding

Demonstrations took place in the country’s capital on Tuesday following what many researchers see as a threat to academic freedom.

Written byCatherine Offord

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Thousands of scientists took to the streets in Hungary on Tuesday (February 12) to protest changes to government research funding. The demonstrations, which saw people hold books above their heads and form a human chain around Budapest’s Academy of Sciences building, are just the latest in a series of clashes between researchers and the country’s populist government over academic freedom.

“This is an attack on science,” agricultural science researcher Emese Gutai tells AFP. “The government wants to reward loyalists with funding, rather than support research.”

Tension between the Hungarian government and academic institutions has been building for months. Last December, the Central European University, a Budapest-based institution founded by investor and philanthropist George Soros, announced it would be forced to move most of its programs to Vienna.

The government argued that the university had failed to comply with regulations for higher education institutions, but critics said ...

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Meet the Author

Catherine Offord
After undergraduate research with spiders at the University of Oxford and graduate research with ants at Princeton University, Catherine left arthropods and academia to become a science journalist. She has worked in various guises at The Scientist since 2016. As Senior Editor, she wrote articles for the online and print publications, and edited the magazine’s Notebook, Careers, and Bio Business sections. She reports on subjects ranging from cellular and molecular biology to research misconduct and science policy. Find more of her work at her website.
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