According to the 2025 programme strategy of the National Research, Development and Innovation Fund (NRDI Fund), this year HUF 40 billion is available in the National Research Excellence Programme (NKKP) to support leading researchers and research projects. This is more than double the amount allocated a year earlier. In the first and second decision rounds of the NKKP Excellence sub-programme, an excellence-based research funding scheme, the Research Council of Hungary (KKT) awarded HUF 700 million to five outstanding researchers.

The KKT recently decided on the project proposals submitted to the Excellence sub-programme of the National Research Excellence Programme by 31 August 2025. Researchers may win significant funding – up to HUF 160+40 million – if their previous achievements already prove that they are strong contenders for the most prestigious European research grants announced by the European Research Council (ERC). The KKT’s decision was based on the researcher’s earlier ERC project proposal and its evaluation. The panel examined what changes the principal investigator made to the research plan in response to the comments received on the ERC proposal. The panel considered all five submitted proposals worthy of support, awarding a total of HUF 700 million to the five researchers. In the Excellence sub-programme, applications are evaluated on a rolling basis, with researchers able to submit their proposals until 10 September 2025

The winning researchers of the current decision

Edit Mátyus graduated in chemistry at ELTE, pursued her postdoctoral studies in Zurich, then worked at the University of Cambridge and ELTE. The development and application of quantum technology and atomic clocks to the study of everyday matter open up new perspectives in understanding molecules. The project aims to develop computational methods of molecular quantum mechanics that keep pace with advances in measurement techniques and are necessary for interpreting precision spectroscopic experiments. In addition to enabling the design of new experiments, the new quantum chemical computational methods will, over the coming decades, lead to the technological utilisation of molecular quantum states.

Ervin Welker, a chemist, graduated and obtained his PhD at ELTE, then worked at Cornell University and the Szeged Biological Research Centre, and is now at the HUN-REN Research Centre for Natural Sciences. His field is genome editing, which has undergone tremendous progress in recent years, opening up possibilities that were previously unimaginable. However, today’s technologies are not always accurate and safe enough, therefore they carry risks, particularly in medical applications. The aim of the project is to develop new methods that make gene editing much safer and more reliable for practical use. In the long run, this could help cure diseases, accelerate research and improve people’s quality of life, while also reducing healthcare costs.

István Groma, after completing his university studies in physics, joined ELTE where he also earned his PhD. His project at the HUN-REN Wigner Research Centre for Physics aims to develop a new theory of plasticity that takes into account the sudden, “avalanche-like” rearrangements and drastic changes occurring in the internal structure of materials, which eventually lead to material failure. The new model helps predict when and how structural materials will fail, thereby reducing the risk of accidents and enabling safer and more reliable engineering solutions

Levente Littvay studied political science at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, where he also obtained his PhD. After working at the Central European University, he is currently conducting research at the ELTE Centre for Social Sciences. His project, AskAI, uses artificial intelligence to reconstruct what people might have thought about a given issue in the past, and can even predict how public opinion would react to a future event. This “time machine” creates virtual respondents who react in the same way as real people would in different eras or situations. This could not only revolutionise public opinion research but also support other research by filling in missing data or testing ideas, giving decision-makers well-grounded situational analyses without costly fieldwork.

Tamás András Halm, a linguist, studied at Corvinus University of Budapest and Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE), conducted research and worked at Pázmány Péter Catholic University, and is now pursuing research at the ELTE Research Centre for Linguistics in a particularly interesting field. His project investigates how everyday fragmentary sentences function in conversation (“Be right back!”, “Coffee?”). These often lack basic elements, yet the interlocutor easily understands them from the context and situation. The research helps uncover what constitutes the true “core” of a sentence and brings us closer to a deeper understanding of the structure and syntax of human language. This is not only important for linguistics but may also be useful in language teaching or translation technology, and even in the development of speech-processing artificial intelligence, so that machines can also understand everyday, informal and fragmentary communication.

The funded researchers will start implementing their projects by January 2026 at the latest. The strategic aim of the Research Council of Hungary is that from the HUF 40 billion budget of the NKKP, funding should go to research projects that result in significant scientific novelty and thereby contribute to the international recognition of Hungarian researchers and research.

The list of funded projects is available on the NRDI Office’s website:
National Research Excellence Programme – Funded EXCELLENCE_25 research project

Budapest, 16 September 2025