ELTE supported its outstanding researchers for the fourth time

01.12.2025.

In 2025, 210 successful applications received a total of 409 million forints under the calls of the University Excellence Fund.

�鶹��ý established the University Excellence Fund (EKA) in 2022, in order to measurably strengthen participation in international university competition, setting as a goal the increase of the University's international scientific embeddedness and reputation.

In 2025, similarly to previous years, the submission deadline was October 15, and decisions on the applications received so far were made at the meeting of the Operational Committee on November 5: 198 successful applications received a total of 377 million forints in support. At its spring meeting, the committee had already supported the organization of 12 conferences with 32 million, thus this year it awarded 409 million to a total of 210 winners.

The aim of Call 1 was to support the authors of outstanding scientific publications published between October 1, 2024 and September 30, 2025 (in D1 and, in certain fields of science, Q1 prestige journals). The EKA Operational Committee was able to support all applications that were formally compliant: 152 ELTE researchers received a total of approximately 107 million forints. This year, for the second time, those who had published with ELTE affiliation in one of the “TOP journals” designated by the Shanghai Ranking subject rankings, or in the journals Nature and Science, could apply in a separate category and receive double support. Into this priority category, more ELTE scientists than last year entered: 23 ELTE scientists out of the 152.

The rector’s instruction on the use of the EKA stipulates that approximately 25% of the amount is to be allocated to innovation use (Call 7); this year the Operational Committee supported 8 applications with 108 million forints, including many innovative initiatives ranging from drug development through digital tests measuring children’s cognitive skills to the development of a career-orientation board game.

Thanks to Call 3, which serves to support research groups founded by young researchers, 11 groups have been able to start their work in recent years. With this year’s decision, Gábor Erdős (TTK) joins them with his project entitled “ELTE Computational Protein Dynamics Research Group”. The group may access a total of 66 million forints over three years, provided that it continuously achieves the undertaken objectives. This year, for the second time, it was also possible to apply for seed funding support for the submission of a major international application; here, 2 applicants from IK and 1 from TTK were successful.

The ELTE Computational Protein Dynamics Research Group has set as its goal the development of a new-generation framework that integrates artificial intelligence (AI) and molecular dynamics (MD) in order to better understand the operation of complex biological systems such as multi-state proteins and intrinsically disordered regions. The method combines generative models with Boltzmann-distribution–based energy learning, thus accelerating conformational sampling while maintaining physical accuracy, enabling the efficient mapping of the high-dimensional energy surface of proteins. The procedure will first be applied to the investigation of large-scale conformational transitions of redox-potential-sensitive disordered regions and viral fusion proteins, thereby gaining insight into protein

regulation and the mechanics of viral infections. The project also aims to develop a freely usable AI-MD platform.

Besides the above, Call 6, which supports the organization of scientific conferences and summer schools, was also popular, where there was one spring and one autumn evaluation round, and

“50% more than last year, a total of 24 events, received 65 million in support.”

Call 2 of the EKA rewards the submission of major international applications; here 19 applicants received the recognition, 7 of them for the time being conditionally, as the international evaluation process of these applications has not yet been completed.

With the help of Call 4 of the EKA, which supports the employment of foreign visiting researchers, in 2026 Burkhard Luy, professor of the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (upon the invitation of Andrea Bodor), will arrive at the Faculty of Science, and Johanna Czamanski-Cohen from the University of Haifa (upon the invitation of Renáta Cserjési) at the Faculty of Education and Psychology.

At Call 5 of the EKA, announced for the preparation of launching joint degree programmes connected to the internationalisation strategy and for the development of training plans, this year Andrea Perlusz submitted a successful application for the development of a joint special needs teacher training programme connected to the Kenyan inclusive school development project of the Bárczi Gusztáv Faculty of Special Needs Education, in which the Faculty’s partner is Rongo University (Migory, Kenya).

The list of the applications supported in 2025 from the University Excellence Fund can be found here.