200th Anniversary of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences

On the occasion of the 200th anniversary of the founding of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (MTA), an international conference was held at the Academy's renovated headquarters in Budapest, attended by more than fifty academic leaders and heads of international research funding agencies.

According to a statement released by the MTA on Wednesday, 51 academic leaders and heads of national research funding agencies from 36 countries participated in the conference entitled 'The Past, Present and Future of Scientific Societies: The Changing Role of Academies in the 21st Century'. Among them were Wim van Saarloos, President of the European Academies' Science Advisory Council (EASAC), and Paweł Rowiński, President of the All European Academies (ALLEA).

The first part of the program on November 4 focused on the rich history and renewed mission of the 200-year-old Hungarian Academy of Sciences. This was followed by a panel discussion entitled 'The Changing Role of Academies in the 21st Century', in which the leaders of national academies and the international scientific organizations that bring them together sought answers to questions such as how academies respond to social change and scientific progress, how they support the careers of the new generation of scientists, what challenges they face in terms of misleading information and maintaining public trust, and how they are transforming their research activities and providing scientific advice.

In the afternoon, Academy President Tamás Freund and Paweł Rowiński jointly welcomed the participants of the high-level workshop organized jointly by ALLEA and SAPEA, the SAPEA program being one of the pillars of the European Commission's Scientific Advice Mechanism (SAM). The event focused on the theme of 'Preserving the integrity of scientific advice: principles and challenges', the MTA statement says.