Scientists march against research funding changes

Thousands of scientists took to the streets in Hungary on 12 February, holding books above their heads and forming a human chain around Budapest’s Academy of Sciences building, to protest changes to government research funding, writes Catherine Offord for The Scientist.

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 programmes to Vienna, Austria.

The latest moves, announced last month by the government’s Ministry for Innovation and Technology, funnel money away from institutions such as the Academy of Sciences and instead require individual researchers to compete with one another for funds. The country’s prime minister, Viktor Orbán, has claimed that the purpose of the changes is to better allocate resources toward innovative research, but critics have warned that the policy could mean the government is able to impose political and ideological agendas onto the projects that researchers pursue.
Full report on The Scientist site