Hungary is developing legislation that would wrest control of the country's research network from the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Reuters reports, citing the website index.hu. Researchers, it notes, have protested the plan.
According to Reuters, this draft legislation would move the academy's research institutions under the auspices of a new public institution with a governing board made up of six government delegates, six academy delegates, and a chair appointed by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban based on a proposal from the board. Orban, Reuters notes, has increased his control over the courts, education, and media in Hungary.
The academy passed a motion earlier this month, Reuters says, that noted its disapproval of the "political motivation for the arbitrary restructuring of the institutional network."
Earlier this year, Orban, along with the Ministry for Innovation and Technology, also proposed that researchers vie for research funding rather than the funding go to the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, which receives about 40 billion forints ($142 million) in government funds a year. This, too, drew protests from Hungarian researchers.