Governing Board

The main decision-making body of HUN-REN HQ is the Governing Board, the President of which is appointed by the Prime Minister based on the mutual recommendation of the President of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and the minister responsible for science policy coordination. Further members of the Governing Board are appointed by the minister responsible for science policy coordination upon consultation with the President of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and with the consent of the President of HUN-REN. During the appointment procedure, it must be observed that at least two-third of the members are selected from the scientific community.

The Governing Board fulfills its duties in accordance with the provisions of Article 42/C (3) of the Act on research, development and innovation (RDI Act). Its main responsibilities include issuing the research institutions’ operational documents, establishing the strategic principles of HUN-REN, determining and supervising research directions and goals, and allocating central funds.

The Governing Board is led by Balázs Gulyás, President of HUN-REN

The members of the Governing Board are:

Prof. Dr. Veronika Ádám

Veronika Ádám is a full member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and Professor Emeritus of Semmelweis University.

She served as Head of the Department of Medical Biochemistry, Semmelweis University for 24 years and as Vice Rector for scientific affairs of the university for nine years. Since 2014 she has been the Vice President of the Section of Medical Sciences of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.

As a scientist, she described the ability of key metabolic enzymes in brain mitochondria to generate reactive oxygen species under pathological conditions damaging essential brain cell functions.

She was the first to identify the metabolic enzymes in the brain most vulnerable to oxidative stress, i.e. those that get damaged first. With coworkers she demonstrated that the disease-causing mutations of one of the most important metabolic enzymes (alpha-ketoglutarate dehydrogenase) generate oxidative stress, contributing to the clinical phenotype of severe metabolic disease caused by the enzyme defect. In recent years by examining protein structures, they determined the structure of the mutated enzyme, which is an important step towards targeted drug design.

Further information

She is author of 130 scientific papers, several summary studies and book chapters. Her works have received 5500 citations (H-index: 40).

She has been guest speaker at numerous international scientific congresses and serves as a member of the editorial boards of international scientific journals: Journal of Neurochemistry, Neurochemistry International, Developmental Neuroscience, Brain Research Bulletin, Frontier in Neuroenergetics. She is the editor of the textbook Medical Biochemistry, currently in its fourth edition.

She was the First Secretary of the European Society for Neurochemistry for two terms and board member of the International Society for Neurochemistry for eight years. Her scientific achievements have been recognized by several prestigious awards and prizes, including: the Prima Primissima Award (2019), the Ignác Semmelweis Memorial Award (2013), the Széchenyi Prize (2010), the Arnold Ipolyi Scientific Development Prize (2005), and the Golden Cross of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Hungary (2000).

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Prof. Dr. Enikő Bollobás

Literature scholar and Americanist Enikő Bollobás is professor emeritus at the School of English and American Studies, Eötvös Loránd University, corresponding member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, chair of the presidential committee Women in Science, and editor-in-chief of the Academy’s monthly journal Magyar Tudomány [Hungarian Science]. One of the three faculty members who founded ELTE’s Department of American Studies in 1990, she acted as its chair for twenty years. Her main research areas encompass American and Hungarian literary history, literary theory, and lyric theory. She has written ten books and over two hundred critical studies on literature, which have been published by Hungarian and international academic publishers and in both Hungarian and international journals. Enikő Bollobás’s scholarly accomplishments include a grammetrics-based typology of English and American free verse, a reconstruction of the canons of American literature, the description of performative constructions of the (textual) subject, and the foundation of a catachrestic-performative rhetoric.

Further information: Enikő Bollobás has lectured internationally at conferences from Strasbourg to New Delhi, and has been a guest speaker at various universities, including such prestigious schools as Cambridge University (UK), Yale University, University of California/San Diego, University of California/Berkeley, Stanford University, Georgetown University, George Washington University, and the University Iowa. She has also been invited to speak at numerous research institutions such as the Brookings Institution, the Smithsonian Institution, the Chautauqua Institution, the American Jewish Committee, Meridian House, Freedom House, and the Simon Wiesenthal Center. Her opinion pieces have appeared in The Washington Post and The International Herald Tribune and were incorporated into the Congressional Record of the United States Congress.

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Prof. Dr. Hassan Charaf

Hassan Charaf is the Rector of the Budapest University of Technology and Economics. He is an internationally recognized Professor in software development, a facilitator of the wide utilization of IT developments, a personality shaping meaningful cooperation between industry and higher education, and a committed representative of development-oriented and student-centered IT education.

In 1992, he received his Master’s degree in electrical engineering at the Technical University of Budapest, a PhD degree in 1998, a habilitation in 2013, and a doctoral degree from the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in 2017. Since 1996, he has been a member of the Department of Automation and Applied Informatics at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Informatics at BME. In 2016, he became the head of the department, and from 2019 he served as the dean of the faculty. He was appointed rector of the Budapest University of Technology and Economics in July 1^st 2024.

His scientific, development and educational activities are related to Software Development Methodologies. In his professional-scientific life path, he is constantly looking for harmony between the qualitative solution of practical problems and the professional motivation of new generations of students.

Further information

He is the leader of a series of software projects, which range from leading domestic IT companies through SMEs to foreign partners, and the creation of a dual PhD program. He continuously works to promote meaningful and mutually beneficial cooperation between industry and higher education as a committed representative of development-oriented and student-centered IT education. His research areas include Distributed Systems, Software Development Methodologies, Multiplatform Application Development Methods, Industry 4.0, Artificial Intelligence.

Memberships:

NRDI Office, Economy Digitalization Focus Area Innovation Board: member
Industry 4.0 National Technology Platform: board member
Artificial Intelligence Coalition: board member
5G Coalition: board member
Hungarian Association for Innovation: board member
National Laboratory R&D Program: Reviewer Committee member

Prizes and Awards:

“Master Teacher” award of the Hungarian Republic, 2001
IT Trainer of the Year in Informatics offered by the Hungarian Chief Information Officers' Association, 2003
IBM Faculty Award, 2004, 2008, 2012
Pro Juventute Universitatis, 2011
Kalmár László Award, 2012
Gábor Dénes Award, 2015
Knight’s Cross of the Hungarian Order of Merit, 2016

Roland Jakab

He started his professional career in 2000, joining Ericsson Hungary Ltd., where he initially worked as a strategic business consultant, and later he was involved in developing and managing mobile banking and systems integration projects. After that, he was responsible for the sales of Multimedia products in Hungary and Macedonia. In 2008 he was appointed Director of Marketing and Communications and later Deputy Managing Director.

In 2013, he was appointed Managing Director of Ericsson Hungary Ltd., a company with 2,000 employees (1,600 of them R&D staff) and from 2018 he served as the Head of Strategy for the Central Europe region, covering eight countries. In his professional corporate activities, he has played a leading role in the introduction of several technological innovations (3G, 4G, 5G) and the dissemination of cutting-edge research and development (Artificial Intelligence, IoT, Edge Computing, Cloud Technology, XR) in Hungary, as well as strengthening the company's links with universities.

Further information

Currently he chairs several professional organisations:

President of the Artificial Intelligence Coalition – an Alliance of 420 organisations with more than 1000 experts, he took an active role in the development of Hungary's Artificial Intelligence Strategy.

Chairman of the Hungarian European Business Council (HEBC), which brings together the top executives of the Hungarian subsidiaries of 15 European industrial companies. Since 2013, he has led the preparation of HEBC's annual reports.

President of the Swedish Chamber of Commerce in Hungary.

President of BME`s Supporters and Friends Association.

Founding Vice President of the Alliance for the Future Engineers, which comprises Hungary's leading industrial and technology corporations and promotes and supports the development of the engineering profession through a common determination and collective effort.

Board member of the 5G Coalition, in the establishment of which he played a crucial role.

Member of the Cooperative Doctoral Collegium

Member of the National Advisory Committee of National Laboratories.

From 2019 to 2023 he was a member of the National Science Policy Council.

From 2013 to 2018 he was the chairman of the Mobility and Multimedia Cluster (MMCluster), a cluster of 71 companies, which was established to bring together Hungarian players in mobile and multimedia technologies and the Hungarian R&D capacities and, based on these capacities, to introduce Hungarian inventions to the world market.

Between 2003 and 2013, he was a lecturer at the University of Debrecen.

He holds a Master's degree in Computer Science and Political Science from the University of Debrecen, followed by postgraduate studies at Portland State University Oregon and Case Western Reserve University Ohio.

Prizes and Awards:

„Most Successful ICT Manager of the Year” – 2020. "His natural medium is the Artificial Intelligence, knows all about 5G and is a flag-carrier of digital transformation."

Neumann János Award – 2020.

Puskás Tivadar Award – 2013.

Prof. Dr. Melinda Beatrix Kovács

Melinda Kovács is a Széchenyi Prize-winning veterinarian, full member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, professor at the Hungarian University of Agriculture and Life Sciences (MATE), head of the Institute of Animal Physiology and Nutrition and the HUN-REN–MATE Mycotoxins in the Food Chain Research Group.

She graduated as a veterinary doctor at the University of Veterinary Medicine (Budapest). In 2005, she became a doctor of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (DSc). She was elected to corresponding and full member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in 2013 and 2019, respectively. Since 1982, she has been working in the predecessor institutions of the MATE Kaposvár Campus (Agricultural College of Kaposvár, Pannon Agricultural University, Kaposvár University).

Her main research fields include production physiology, feed and food safety, One Health, mycotoxicoses. Her research work mainly serves feed and food safety aspects of animal production.

Further information

She held various university management functions in several periods (2019-2020: rector of Kaposvár University, 2006-2010: vice rector of Kaposvár University, then of Szent István University and MATE in 2020-2021, head of department and institute director since 1991). She is the founder and head of the MTA and then HUN-REN Mycotoxins in the Food Chain research group, which explores the health-damaging effects of mycotoxins. She is the leader or participant of several national and international projects. Thirteen young scientists have obtained doctoral (PhD) degrees under her leadership or co-leadership, and she is currently supervising the work of three doctoral students.

Her teaching and scientific achievements have been recognized by several awards, including Szent-Györgyi Albert Award (2010), Hungarian Gold Cross of Merit (2014) and Széchenyi Prize (2022). She is Honorary citizen of Kaposvár County City (2023).

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Prof. Dr. Gábor Szabó

Szabó Gábor is a physicist, full member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, professor at the Department of Optics and Quantum Electronics at the Faculty of Science and Informatics of the University of Szeged (SZTE), and head of the university’s Doctoral School of Physics. In 1996-2000, and again in 2007-2011, he headed the Institute of Physics of SZTE. Between 2000 and 2002 he worked as the deputy state secretary for research and development at the Ministry of Education. In 2004-2010, he was Director of the Institute of Engineering and Materials Science at SZTE. He has occupied several posts at SZTE: from 2010, and then from 2014 he served two terms as rector of the university. Since the introduction of the new funding model in 2021, he has chaired the Board of Trustees of the University of Szeged Foundation. He maintained active and fruitful relations with leading research places (Max-Planck-Institut für biophysikalische Chemie, Göttingen; Rice University, Houston; Osaka University; Jena University) where he worked as a visiting professor on several occasions.

Further information

Professor Szabó has played a key role in the establishment of ELI-ALPS Laser Research Institute in Szeged and in the development its international relations. From 2010 to 2019, he acted as a member of ELI-ALPS’ Scientific Advisory Committee, and has been occupying the post of Managing Director since January 2020.

His scientific interest focuses on ultrafast laser spectroscopy, the generation of femtosecond pulses, nonlinear optics, material processing with lasers, medical applications of lasers, the optimum control of quantum systems, and lately the development of laser-driven neutron sources. In addition to conducting fundamental research, the Photoacoustic Research Group, which he founded at SZTE, has developed important industrial applications. The utilization of their patents yields significant licensing revenues for the University of Szeged.

Prof. Dr. Zoltán Oszkár Szántó

Zoltán Oszkár Szántó (PhD) is full Professor of economic sociology and social theory at Corvinus University of Budapest, where he works currently as Dean of Corvinus Institute for Advanced Studies.

Earlier he served Corvinus as Dean of Faculty of Social Sciences (2000-2004), Vice Rector for Education (2012-2017), Vice Rector for General Affairs (2018-2019), and Vice President for International Relations and Accreditations (2020-2022). He is Scientific and General Director of the recently established Human Potentials Observatory nonprofit LLC (2023- ).

Further information: He has numerous Hungarian and English publications and his empirical studies of privatization, economic organization, financial culture, and corruption have focused on the concepts of social capital, network, and trust. He presently explores and develops the concept of Future Potentials of various social entities, such as countries, institutions, and families.

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