19 September 2024 – Nagy served twice on EMBO Council and is confident of the benefits to Hungary of its membership of EMBC, the international funding body of EMBO. He is particularly positive about the importance to his country of the initiative increasing participation in the EMBO Programmes throughout Europe.
“There’s solid evidence that EMBO cares about the smaller countries. This changed the attitude and the mood dramatically,” he says. Nagy is using the new EMBO opportunities to further internationalize the life sciences at his own institute and more widely across Hungary.
“Internationalization is absolutely important,” he says. “Having these bilateral exchanges and helping people to go out to collaborate — this is important for many reasons.”
The initiative started in 2022, and Nagy acknowledges it is not possible to fully measure the impact after only two years.
“It is not long enough to see the overall impact but already we are engaged in nearly all the activities. We have Young Investigators, but not too many, and these are the people forming the first nuclei which then will grow and then you will get a network,” he says.
Nagy says the life sciences in Hungary are gaining momentum because the national government understands the critical importance of science to the country’s future.
But Nagy also believes researchers should do more to translate their knowledge into innovation: “We have to do good science – not ‘applied’ or ‘basic’ science but good science – and turn our breakthroughs into market value and commercial value. This is a very strong emphasis,” he says.
