Science and technology in Hungary


Science and technology in Hungary is one of the country's most developed sectors. Hungary spent 1.4% of its gross domestic product on civil research and development in 2015, which is the 25th-highest ratio in the world. Hungary ranks 32nd among the most innovative countries in the Bloomberg Innovation Index, standing before Hong Kong, Iceland or Malta. The Global Innovation Index places Hungary 33rd among the countries of the world in 2016. In 2014, Hungary counted 2,651 full-time-equivalent researchers per million inhabitants, steadily increasing from 2,131 in 2010 and compares with 3,984 in the US or 4,380 in Germany. Hungary's high technology industry has benefited from both the country's skilled workforce and the strong presence of foreign high-tech firms and research centres. Hungary also has one of the highest rates of filed patents, the 6th highest ratio of high-tech and medium high-tech output in the total industrial output, the 12th-highest research FDI inflow, placed 14th in research talent in business enterprise and has the 17th-best overall innovation efficiency ratio in the world.
The key actor of research and development in Hungary is the National Research, Development and Innovation Office, which is a national strategic and funding agency for scientific research, development and innovation, the primary source of advice on RDI policy for the Hungarian government, and the primary RDI funding agency. Its role is to develop RDI policy and ensure that Hungary adequately invest in RDI by funding excellent research and supporting innovation to increase competitiveness and to prepare the RDI strategy of the Hungarian Government, to handle the National Research, Development and Innovation Fund, and represents the Hungarian Government and a Hungarian RDI community in international organizations.
The Hungarian Academy of Sciences and its research network is the another key player in Hungarian R&D and it is the most important and prestigious learned society of Hungary, with the main responsibilities of the cultivation of science, dissemination of scientific findings, supporting research and development and representing Hungarian science domestically and around the world.

Research universities and institutions

A mining school called "Berg Schola" was the world's first institute of technology, was founded in Selmecbánya, Kingdom of Hungary, in 1735. Its legal successor is the University of Miskolc in Hungary.
BME University is considered the world's oldest institute of technology which has university rank and structure. It was the first institute in Europe to train engineers at university level.
The legal predecessor of the university was founded in 1782 by Emperor Joseph II, and was named Institutum Geometrico-Hydrotechnicum.
Among Hungary's numerous research universities, the Eötvös Loránd University, founded in 1635, is one of the largest and the most prestigious public higher education institutions in Hungary. The 28,000 students at ELTE are organized into eight faculties, and into research institutes located throughout Budapest. ELTE is affiliated with 5 Nobel laureates, as well as winners of the Wolf Prize, Fulkerson Prize and Abel Prize, the latest of which was Abel Prize winner Endre Szemerédi in 2012.
Semmelweis University in the recently released QS World University Rankings 2016 listed among the world's best 151-200 universities in the categories of medicine and pharmacy. According to the international ranking in the field of medicine Semmelweis University ranked first among the Hungarian universities. The "Modern Medical Technologies at Semmelweis University" project ensuring institution's place among the leading research universities in four main areas: Personalised medicine; Imaging processes and bioimaging: from molecule to the human being; Bio-engineering and nanomedicine; Molecular medicine.
Budapest University of Technology and Economics's research activities encouraged and is present on all levels from the B.Sc. through to the doctoral level. During the 1980s the BUTE was among the first in the Eastern bloc to recognise the importance of participating in research activities with institutions in Western Europe. Consequently, the university has the most well-established research relationships with Western European universities. There are many famous alumni at university: Dennis Gabor who was the inventor of holography got his Nobel Prize in Physics in 1971, George Oláh got his Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1994. Nowadays the university has 110 departments, 1100 lecturers, 400 researchers.
University of Szeged internationally acknowledged, competitive research activities are essential parts of its educational mission, and it is particularly important to ensure the institution's position as a research university. Its research and creative activities include basic and applied research, creative arts, product and service development.
University of Debrecen with a student body of about 30 thousand is one of the largest institutions of higher education in Hungary and its priority areas of research include: molecular science; physical, computational and material science; medical, health, environmental and agricultural science; linguistics, culture and bioethics.
University of Pécs is one of the leading research universities in the country with a huge professional research background. The Szentágothai Research Centre of the University of Pécs is covers all aspects of education, research and innovation in the fields of biomedical, natural and environmental sciences. The infrastructure, instrumentation and expertise of the 22 research groups operating on the premises provide an excellent basis to become a well-known, leading research facility in Hungary as well as in Central Europe with an extensive and fruitful collaboration network.
Hungarian Academy of Sciences's research network also contributes significantly to research output of Hungary. It comprises 15 legally independent research institutions and more than 130 research groups at universities co-financed by the academy. This research network focusing above all on discovery research is unparalleled in Hungary, accounting for one-third of all scientific publications produced in the country. Citation indices of publications posted by the academy's researchers surpass the Hungarian average by 25.5%. The research network addresses discovery and targeted research, in cooperation with universities and corporations. The main components of the network are the MTA Szeged Research Centre for Biology, the MTA Institute for Computer Science and Control, the MTA Rényi Institute of Mathematics, the MTA Research Centre for Natural Sciences, the MTA Institute of Nuclear Research, the MTA Institute of Experimental Medicine, MTA Wigner Research Centre for Physics, the MTA Centre for Energy Research and MTA Research Centre for Astronomy and Earth Sciences.

Venture capital market

According to the HVCA report joint efforts of the venture capital and private equity industry and the Hungarian government, the access of Hungarian enterprises to venture capital and private equity funding could be significantly increased. During the past two decades these financial intermediaries have also played an increasingly important role in the Hungarian economy. During this period, venture capital and private equity funds invested close to 4 billion US Dollars into more than 400 Hungarian enterprises.
However, so-called buyout transactions have accounted for about two thirds of the total volume of those investments, which were aimed at the acquisition of shares in mature companies that have been operating profitably for several years. The volume of investments in early and expansive stage companies was significantly lower. Only about 30% of the total volume of investments was directed at companies in the expansive stage and less than 5% at early stage companies. This is also reflected by the fact that over the last two decades slightly more than 10% of the total volume of venture capital and private equity investments came from funds focusing on early stage companies. The remaining close to 90% was invested by private equity funds focusing on more mature companies with greater economic strength. As for the number of transactions, companies in the expansive stage were targeted by the largest number of venture capital and private equity investments: such investments accounted for almost 60% of Hungarian transactions. Nearly a third of transactions involved early stage companies. Buy-out deals represented approximately 10% of transactions by number. Several factors have contributed to this growth. These include tax exemptions on Hungarian venture capital, funds established in conjunction with large international banks and financial companies and the involvement of major organizations desirous to capitalize on the strengths of Hungarian start up and high-tech companies. In recent years, the share of venture capital invested in the growth stages of enterprises has flourished at the expense of early stage investments.

Nobel Prize laureates

Since the first Hungarian won a Nobel Prize in 1905, the country has added a further 12 to its cache. With scientists, writers and economists all honored in the prestigious awards:
YearWinnerFieldContribution
1905Philipp LenardPhysics"for his work on cathode rays"
1914Robert BárányMedicine"for his work on the physiology and pathology of the vestibular apparatus"
1925Richard Adolf ZsigmondyChemistry"for his demonstration of the heterogeneous nature of colloid solutions and for the methods he used, which have since become fundamental in modern colloid chemistry"
1937Albert Szent-GyörgyiMedicine"for his discoveries in connection with the biological combustion processes, with special reference to vitamin C and the catalysis of fumaric acid"
1943George de HevesyChemistry"for his work on the use of isotopes as tracers in the study of chemical processes"
1961Georg von BékésyMedicine"for his discoveries of the physical mechanism of stimulation within the cochlea"
1963Eugene WignerPhysics"for his contributions to the theory of the atomic nucleus and the elementary particles, particularly through the discovery and application of fundamental symmetry principles"
1971Dennis GaborPhysics"for his invention and development of the holographic method"
1986John PolanyiChemistry"for their contributions concerning the dynamics of chemical elementary processes"
1994George OlahChemistry"for his contribution to carbocation chemistry"
1994John HarsanyiEconomics"pioneering analysis of equilibria in the theory of non-cooperative games"
2002Imre KertészLiterature"for writing that upholds the fragile experience of the individual against the barbaric arbitrariness of history"
2004Avram HershkoChemistry"for the discovery of ubiquitin-mediated protein degradation"

Hungarian inventions

In August 1939, Szilárd approached his old friend and collaborator Albert Einstein and convinced him to sign the Einstein–Szilárd letter, lending the weight of Einstein's fame to the proposal. The letter led directly to the establishment of research into nuclear fission by the U.S. government and ultimately to the creation of the Manhattan Project. Szilárd, with Enrico Fermi, patented the nuclear reactor).

Science

Scientists and inventors

Important names in the 18th century are Maximilian Hell, János Sajnovics, Matthias Bel, Samuel Mikoviny and Wolfgang von Kempelen. Ányos Jedlik physicist and engineer invented the first electric motor, the dynamo, the self-excitation, the impulse generator, and the cascade connection. An important name in 19th-century physics is Joseph Petzval, one of the founders of modern optics. The invention of the transformer, the AC electricity meter and the electricity distribution systems with parallel-connected power sources decided the future of electrification in the war of the currents, which resulted in the global triumph of alternate current systems over the former direct current systems. Roland von Eötvös discovered the weak equivalence principle. Important names in the 18th century are Maximilian Hell, János Sajnovics, Matthias Bel, Samuel Mikoviny and Wolfgang von Kempelen. Ányos Jedlik physicist and engineer invented the first electric motor, the dynamo, the self-excitation, the impulse generator, and the cascade connection. An important name in 19th-century physics is Joseph Petzval, one of the founders of modern optics. The invention of the transformer, the AC electricity meter and the electricity distribution systems with parallel-connected power sources decided the future of electrification in the war of the currents, which resulted in the global triumph of alternate current systems over the former direct current systems. Roland von Eötvös discovered the weak equivalence principle. Rado von Kövesligethy discovered laws of black-body radiation before Planck and Wien.
Hungary is famous for its excellent mathematics education which has trained numerous outstanding scientists. Famous Hungarian mathematicians include father Farkas Bolyai and son János Bolyai, designer of modern geometry 1820–1823. János Bolyai is together with John von Neumann considered as the greatest Hungarian mathematician ever. The most prestigious Hungarian scientific award is named in honor of János Bolyai. Paul Erdős, famed for publishing in over forty languages and whose Erdős numbers are still tracked;
and John von Neumann, Quantum Theory, Game theory a pioneer of digital computing and the key mathematician in the Manhattan Project. Many Hungarian scientists, including Zoltán Bay, Victor Szebehely, Mária Telkes, Imre Izsak, Erdős, von Neumann, Leó Szilárd, Eugene Wigner, Theodore von Kármán and Edward Teller emigrated to the US. The other cause of scientist emigration was the Treaty of Trianon, by which Hungary, diminished by the treaty, became unable to support large-scale, costly scientific research; therefore some Hungarian scientists made valuable contributions in the United States. Thirteen Hungarian or Hungarian-born scientists received the Nobel Prize: von Lenárd, Bárány, Zsigmondy, von Szent-Györgyi, de Hevesy, von Békésy, Wigner, Gábor, Polányi, Oláh, Harsányi, and Herskó. Most of them emigrated, mostly because of persecution of communist and/or fascist regimes. István Juhász, inventor of one of the earliest electro-mechanical computers, Gamma-Juhász stayed at home. A significant group of Hungarian dissident scientists of Jewish descent who settled down in the United States in the first half of the 20th century were called The Martians. Some went to Germany: István Szabó Béla Gáspár patended the 1st one-strip fullcolor film: Gasparcolor. Names in psychology are János Selye founder of Stress-theory and Csikszentmihalyi founder of Flow- theory. Tamás Roska is co-inventor of CNN Some highly actual internationally well-known figures of today include: mathematician László Lovász, physicist Albert-László Barabási, physicist Ferenc Krausz, chemist Julius Rebek, chemist Árpád Furka, biochemist Árpád Pusztai and the highly controversial former NASA-physicist Ferenc Miskolczi, who denies the green-house effect. According to Science Watch: In Hadron research Hungary has most citations per paper in the world. In 2011 neuroscientists György Buzsáki, Tamás Freund and Peter Somogyi were awarded one million Euro with The Brain Prize " for ".. brain circuits involved in memory..."
After the fall of the communist dictatorship, a new scientific prize, Bolyai János alkotói díj, was established, politically unbiased and of the highest international standard. In 2006 Domokos created a new geometrical shape: Gömböc. In 2008 Barabási won the C&C prize.In 2010 László Lovász won the Kyoto prize. In 2012 Endre Szemerédi won the Abel prize. In 2012 László Lovász won the Fulkersson prize. In 2103 Ferenc Krausz won the Otto Hahn Prize. In 2015 Attila Krasznahorkay might have found the Fifth force. In 2017 mathematician János Kollár won the Shaw prize.
In 2018 mathematician László Székelyhidi was awarded the Leibniz Award, as the third Hungarian. In 2018 physicist Örs Legeza was awarded the Humboldt prize.
In 2018 was awarded the Bressler Prize, in 2019 the Louis-Jeantet Prize for Medicine and in 2020 the Körber award Péter Horváth, in Szeged, is a biophysicist, explaining minimal changes in a cell.
Tamás Vicsek won the Lars Onsager Prize for 2020.

Technology

Early milestones in technology and infrastructure (1700–1918)

The first steam engines of continental Europe was built in Újbánya – Köngisberg, Kingdom of Hungary in 1722. They were similar to the Newcomen engines, it served on pumping water from mines.

Railways

The first Hungarian steam-locomotive railway line was opened on 15 July 1846, between Pest and Vác. By 1910, the total length of the rail networks of the Hungarian Kingdom had reached ; the Hungarian network linked more than 1,490 settlements. This has ranked Hungarian railways as the sixth-most dense in the world.
Locomotive engine and railway vehicle manufacturers before World War One were the MÁVAG company in Budapest and the Ganz company in Budapest. and the RÁBA Company in Győr.
The Ganz Works identified the significance of induction motors and synchronous motors commissioned Kálmán Kandó to develop it. In 1894, Kálmán Kandó developed high-voltage three-phase AC motors and generators for electric locomotives. The first-ever electric rail vehicle manufactured by Ganz Works was a 6 HP pit locomotive with direct current traction system. The first Ganz made asynchronous rail vehicles were supplied in 1898 to Évian-les-Bains, with a, asynchronous-traction system. The Ganz Works won the tender of electrification of railway of Valtellina Railways in Italy in 1897. Italian railways were the first in the world to introduce electric traction for the entire length of a main line, rather than just a short stretch. The Valtellina line was opened on 4 September 1902, designed by Kandó and a team from the Ganz works. The electrical system was three-phase at 3 kV 15 Hz. The voltage was significantly higher than used earlier, and it required new designs for electric motors and switching devices. In 1918, Kandó invented and developed the rotary phase converter, enabling electric locomotives to use three-phase motors whilst supplied via a single overhead wire, carrying the simple industrial frequency single phase AC of the high voltage national networks.

Electrified railway lines

The first electric tramway was built in Budapest in 1887, which was the first tramway in Austria-Hungary. By the turn of the 20th century, 22 Hungarian cities had electrified tramway lines in Kingdom of Hungary.
Date of electrification of tramway lines in the Kingdom of Hungary:
The Budapest metro Line 1 is the second oldest underground railway in the world, and the first on the European mainland. It was built from 1894 to 1896 and opened in Budapest on 2 May 1896. Since 2002, the M1 line was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
The M1 line became an IEEE Milestone due to the radically new innovations in its era: "Among the railway’s innovative elements were bidirectional tram cars; electric lighting in the subway stations and tram cars; and an overhead wire structure instead of a third-rail system for power."

Automotive industry

Prior to World War I, the Kingdom of Hungary had four car manufacturer companies; Hungarian car production started in 1900. Automotive factories in the Kingdom of Hungary manufactured motorcycles, cars, taxicabs, trucks and buses. These were: the Ganz company in Budapest, RÁBA Automobile in Győr, MÁG in Budapest, and MARTA in Arad.

Aeronautical industry

The first Hungarian hydrogen-filled experimental balloons were built by István Szabik and József Domin in 1784.
The first Hungarian designed and produced airplane was flew in 1909 at Rákosmező. The International Air-race was organized in Budapest, Rákosmező in June 1910. The earliest Hungarian radial engine powered airplane was built in 1913. Between 1913 and 1918, the Hungarian aircraft industry began developing. The 3 greatest: UFAG Hungarian Aircraft Factory, Hungarian General Aircraft Factory, Hungarian Lloyd Aircraft, Engine Factory, and Marta in Arad. During the WW I, fighter planes, bombers and reconnaissance planes were produced in these factories. The most important aeroengine factories were Weiss Manfred Works, GANZ Works, and Hungarian Automobile Joint-stock Company Arad.

Electrical industry and electronics

Power plants, generators and transformers
in the armature of a Ganz turbo generator
In 1878, the Ganz company's general manager András Mechwart founded the Department of Electrical Engineering headed by Károly Zipernowsky. Engineers Miksa Déri and Ottó Bláthy also worked at the department producing direct-current machines and arc lamps.
In autumn 1884, Károly Zipernowsky, Ottó Bláthy and Miksa Déri, three engineers associated with the Ganz factory, had determined that open-core devices were impracticable, as they were incapable of reliably regulating voltage. In their joint 1885 patent applications for novel transformers wound around iron wire ring core or b) surrounded by iron wire core. The two designs were the first application of the two basic transformer constructions in common use to this day, which can as a class all be termed as either core form or shell form or b), respectively. The Ganz factory had also in the autumn of 1884 made delivery of the world's first five high-efficiency AC transformers, the first of these units having been shipped on September 16, 1884. This first unit had been manufactured to the following specifications: 1,400 W, 40 Hz, 120:72 V, 11.6:19.4 A, ratio 1.67:1, one-phase, shell form. In both designs, the magnetic flux linking the primary and secondary windings traveled almost entirely within the confines of the iron core, with no intentional path through air. The new transformers were 3.4 times more efficient than the open-core bipolar devices of Gaulard and Gibbs.
and practical parallel-connected distribution circuits.
The ZBD patents included two other major interrelated innovations: one concerning the use of parallel connected, instead of series connected, utilization loads, the other concerning the ability to have high turns ratio transformers such that the supply network voltage could be much higher than the voltage of utilization loads. When employed in parallel connected electric distribution systems, closed-core transformers finally made it technically and economically feasible to provide electric power for lighting in homes, businesses and public spaces. Bláthy had suggested the use of closed cores, Zipernowsky had suggested the use of parallel shunt connections, and Déri had performed the experiments; The other essential milestone was the introduction of 'voltage source, voltage intensive' systems' by the invention of constant voltage generators in 1885. Ottó Bláthy also invented the first AC electricity meter. Transformers today are designed on the principles discovered by the three engineers. They also popularized the word 'transformer' to describe a device for altering the emf of an electric current, although the term had already been in use by 1882. In 1886, the ZBD engineers designed, and the Ganz factory supplied electrical equipment for, the world's first power station that used AC generators to power a parallel connected common electrical network, the steam-powered Rome-Cerchi power plant. The reliability of the AC technology received impetus after the Ganz Works electrified a large European metropolis: Rome in 1886.
Turbines and Turbogenerators
The first turbo-generators were water turbines which propelled electric generators. The first Hungarian water turbine was designed by the engineers of the Ganz Works in 1866, the mass production with dynamo generators started in 1883. The manufacturing of steam turbo generators started in the Ganz Works in 1903.
In 1905, the Láng Machine Factory company also started the production of steam turbines for alternators.
Light bulbs, radio tubes and X-ray
Tungsram is a Hungarian manufacturer of light bulbs and vacuum tubes since 1896.
On 13 December 1904, Hungarian Sándor Just and Croatian Franjo Hanaman were granted a Hungarian patent for the world's first tungsten filament lamp. The tungsten filament lasted longer and gave brighter light than the traditional carbon filament. Tungsten filament lamps were first marketed by the Hungarian company Tungsram in 1904. This type is often called Tungsram-bulbs in many European countries. Their experiments also showed that the luminosity of bulbs filled with an inert gas was higher than in vacuum. The tungsten filament outlasted all other types. The British Tungsram Radio Works was a subsidiary of the Hungarian Tungsram in pre-WW2 days.
Despite the long experimentation with vacuum tubes at Tungsram company, the mass production of radio tubes begun during WW1, and the production of X-ray tubes started also during the WW1 in Tungsram Company.
signal generators, oscilloscopes and pulse generators
The signal generators, oscilloscopes and pulse generators manufactured by Orion's instrumentation class have done a good job for the domestic industry as well as for export.
Home appliances
The Orion Electronics was founded in 1913. Its main profiles were the production of electrical switches, sockets, wires, incandescent lamps, electric fans, electric kettles, and various household electronics.

Telecommunication

The first telegraph station on Hungarian territory was opened in December 1847 in Pressburg/ Pozsony /Bratislava/. In 1848, – during the Hungarian Revolution – another telegraph centre was built in Buda to connect the most important governmental centres. The first telegraph connection between Vienna and Pest – Buda was constructed in 1850. In 1884, 2,406 telegraph post offices operated in the Kingdom of Hungary. By 1914 the number of telegraph offices reached 3,000 in post offices, and a further 2,400 were installed in the railway stations of the Kingdom of Hungary.
The first Hungarian telephone exchange was opened in Budapest. All telephone exchanges of the cities and towns in the Kingdom of Hungary were linked in 1893.
By 1914, more than 2,000 settlements had telephone exchange in the Kingdom of Hungary.
The Telefon Hírmondó service was established in 1893. Two decades before the introduction of radio broadcasting, residents of Budapest could listen to news, cabaret, music and opera at home and in public spaces daily. It operated over a special type of telephone exchange system and its own separate network. The technology was later licensed in Italy and the United States..
The first Hungarian telephone factory was founded by János Neuhold in Budapest in 1879, which produced telephones microphones, telegraphs, and telephone exchanges.
In 1884, the Tungsram company also started to produce microphones, telephone apparatuses, telephone switchboards and cables.
The Ericsson company also established a factory for telephones and switchboards in Budapest in 1911.

Navigation and shipbuilding

The first Hungarian steamship was built by Antal Bernhard in 1817, called S.S. Carolina. It was also the first steamship in Habsburg-ruled states. The daily passenger traffic between the two sides of the Danube by the Carolina started in 1820. The regular cargo and passenger transports between Pest and Vienna began in 1831. However, it was Count István Széchenyi, who established the Óbuda Shipyard on the Hungarian Hajógyári Island in 1835, which was the first industrial scale steamship building company in the Habsburg Empire. The most important seaport for the Hungarian part of the k.u.k. was Fiume, where the Hungarian shipping companies, such as the Adria, operated. The largest Hungarian shipbuilding company was the Ganz-Danubius. In 1911, The Ganz Company merged with the Danubius shipbuilding company, which largest shipbuilding company in Hungary. Since 1911, the unified company adopted the "Ganz – Danubius" brand name.
As Ganz Danubius, the company became involved in shipbuilding before, and during, World War I. Ganz was responsible for building the dreadnought Szent István, supplied the machinery for the cruiser Novara.
Diesel-electric military submarines:
The Ganz-Danubius company started to build U-boats at its shipyard in Budapest, for final assembly at Fiume. Several U-Boats of the U-XXIX class, U-XXX class, U-XXXI class and U-XXXII class were completed, and a number of other types were laid down, remaining incomplete at the war's end. The company built some ocean liners too.
In 1915, the Whitehead company established one of its largest enterprise, the Hungarian Submarine Building Corporation, in Fiume, Kingdom of Hungary. SM U-XX, SM U-XXI, SM U-XXII and SM U-XXIII Type diesel-electric submarines were produced by the UBAG Corporation in Fiume.