New President at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences

Neurobiologist Dr. Tamás Freund has been elected as the President of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences following a 24-hour voting process this Monday and Tuesday.

The academician replaces László Lovász, who resigned after six years, at the head of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, founded in 1825 by Count István Széchenyi.

The post of Secretary General will be filled by civil engineer László Péter Kollár while the Deputy Secretary General will be immunologist Anna Erdei in the next three-year term.

A short statement of the MTA website says the General Assembly also decided on the names of two of the three Vice-Presidents. The leaders of the Academy may be re-elected once their term of office has expired.

Freund's predecessor, world renowned mathematician László Lovász said he could not ensure that MTA's research institute network could operate independently following the government's decision to separate them from the Academy.