Research Leaders Discuss HUN-REN Founding Charter, Organisational Rules, and Transformation Program Steps

At the first meeting of research institute leaders after the adoption of the HUN-REN law, it was announced that the Ministry is already working on the founding charter for HUN-REN's central organisation. As outlined in the law, the charter will be issued by the minister responsible for coordinating science policy, acting on behalf of the state as the founder. Ministry officials emphasised their openness to feedback from HUN-REN research institutions, and work on the public task funding agreement (hereafter referred to as the agreement) is set to begin soon.

The signing of the agreement is conditional on securing an additional 18 billion HUF this year for salary increases and operational development. The agreement will also include the task of creating a new researcher career model aimed at retaining and attracting researchers. The salary increases must align with this long-term career and income model.

The leadership of the HUN-REN Headquarters presented the proposed table of contents for the central founding charter to the leaders of the research institutions. Additionally, the HUN-REN Headquarters will send a draft template of the proposed founding charters for the research institutions for review. Institutions will have a specified deadline to provide feedback and make adjustments to reflect their unique needs and specialisations.

The development of the central organisation for the HUN-REN Hungarian Research Network is moving forward steadily. Under the proposed structure, the Chief Executive Officer, as the operational leader, will be responsible for communications, strategy and performance management, central project management, legal and compliance matters, artificial intelligence, and exercising ownership rights.

The Deputy CEO for Research and Innovation will oversee international scientific relations, grant management, innovation, and coordination and monitoring activities. Meanwhile, the Deputy CEO for Operations will manage financial services, technical support, human resources, and IT services.

The leaders of the research institutions were also briefed on the progress of the Transformation Program. There are 167 people working within the transformation organisation, with approximately 20% of the participants coming from the central office and around 80% from the research network. The Scientific Network Expert Group will include 29 experts from 13 research institutes, who will support the Scientific Subprograms focused on performance evaluation, grants, and innovation.

Each subprogram has developed its task plan for the stabilisation phase. The Program Steering Committee (PSC) considers the efficient flow of information between subprograms to be crucial, as well as organising the completion of cross-cutting tasks while regularly monitoring the work in each specialist area.

As part of data harmonisation efforts, the first phase has begun with the collection of HR data, given the high importance of salary development.

The leadership of the HUN-REN Headquarters will continue to provide detailed updates on the organisational renewal this year. Following the redesign of the hun-ren.hu website, the central organisation will also launch a transformation website, which will go live in the coming days.