This year’s recipients of the Róbert Bárány Awards have been announced

The Róbert Bárány Award was established to honour the outstanding scientific achievements of HUN-REN researchers under the age of 40. In selecting awardees, the evaluation takes into account not only the results achieved, but also the innovative approach to the research, its inherent potential, and the scope for further development – such as involvement in diverse projects and participation in international collaborations.

Recipients of the 2025 Róbert Bárány Awards

Humanities and Social Sciences

• Réka Horeczki – HUN-REN Centre for Economic and Regional Studies
  She uses demographic and economic history approaches to shed light on aspects of small-town development and the complex phenomenon of underdevelopment in rural areas.
• Janka Kovács – HUN-REN Research Centre for the Humanities
  Her research focuses on the history of the “psi sciences” in Hungary during the 18th and 19th centuries. She is currently conducting a postdoctoral OTKA project on the prehistory of institutional psychiatry in Hungary, focusing on the period between 1830 and 1868.
• Ágnes Major – HUN-REN Research Centre for the Humanities
  Her research explores 20th-century Hungarian literature, including the reception history of Géza Csáth, theories of biofiction and adaptation, cult studies, and philological-textological issues.

Life Sciences

• István Fodor – HUN-REN Balaton Limnological Research Institute
  His primary research area is the functional and evolutionary characterisation of the nervous and neuroendocrine systems of molluscs.
• Richárd Sinkó – HUN-REN Institute of Experimental Medicine
  His research focuses on the regulation of tissue thyroid hormone (TH) homeostasis, the pathological conditions and factors that influence TH balance, and the identification of tissue TH markers and TH action in patients.
• Vivien Reicher – HUN-REN Research Centre for Natural Sciences
  She pioneered non-invasive sleep research in dogs, opening up new directions in comparative studies. Her current work investigates the relationship between sleep and emotion regulation difficulties in adolescents with ADHD.

Mathematics and Natural Sciences

• Duncan Mifsud – HUN-REN Institute for Nuclear Research
  Duncan V. Mifsud conducts astrochemical experiments aimed at modelling, under laboratory conditions, the chemical changes induced by ionising radiation in ices found in space.

• Attila Kunfi – HUN-REN Research Centre for Natural Sciences
  His research focuses on the development of photoswitches based on a dithienyl-arene core structure that can be isomerised by visible light, along with the investigation of their electronic and optical properties and their application in solar energy storage.

• Tímea Nóra Török – HUN-REN Centre for Energy Research
  Her research involves the development, characterisation, and application of memristors – nanoscale building blocks of neuromorphic circuits – for neuromorphic data processing tasks.

Continuing a tradition of previous years, the award certificates will once again be presented to the recipients at HUN-REN’s end-of-year celebratory gala.