Ferenc Krausz
A year ago, we had reason to celebrate. After a long period of preparation, our work had borne its first fruit: the Board of Trustees of the Élvonal Foundation was established, with four Nobel laureates in the natural sciences and one Abel Prize-winning mathematician. A board whose members recognize only one standard: international excellence.
It was by this standard that three North American scientists saw something in our program worth committing themselves to — even in a country to which, unlike the two Hungarian members of the Board, they owed nothing.
World-renowned scientists who have built schools of thought and turn down at least nine out of ten invitations they receive. Almost unbelievably, they made an exception for us.
One year later, as of today, the Foundation has ceased to exist. And with it, its Board of Trustees.
This was a political decision. It is not my place to judge it. I have always kept my distance from politics, and I intend to keep it that way.
I am writing this for two reasons.
To thank and pay tribute to all those who put their hearts and souls into making this initiative serve Hungary’s future and the advancement of science.
And to explain what we committed ourselves to, and what we would have done had we been given the chance. To answer the professionally unfounded and inflammatory criticism of recent months with facts.
Let us get to the point.
Hungary’s most important resource is not its natural wealth. Our greatest asset is talent. Curiosity, diligence, creativity — and the teachers who, generation after generation, recognize and nurture these qualities.
For talent to become a true national asset, it must be turned into a resource: into knowledge and creative capacity that serve the country.
This is a long journey.
From school to world-class research. From research to innovation. And from innovation to results that benefit society and the economy.
This was the mission of Élvonal.
We did not want to create another research institute. Nor another talent development program.
We wanted to build a scientific ecosystem in Hungary that, for the first time, would connect the entire journey of science in this country: from the first spark of curiosity to discoveries that can change our future.
Our aim was to give the most talented students in Hungary the opportunity to connect with world-leading researchers from an early age. To make Hungarian researchers part of international networks of excellence. To make the best research institutions abroad partners, rather than competitors, of research centers in Hungary. To give more and more Hungarian-born scientists a reason to return home — and to attract more and more outstanding scientists from abroad to Hungary.
This is why we said that Élvonal was more than an institution. It was a model in which talent development, frontier research, international cooperation and innovation would not exist side by side, but reinforce one another.
For lack of interest.
Before the decision was made to terminate Élvonal, I was never given the opportunity to present and discuss its full scientific concept in any meaningful way with those deciding the program’s future. There were personal meetings and discussions, but there was no interest in a substantive presentation and discussion of the concept.
I now read, as a criticism, that Élvonal’s concept was not sufficiently discussed with the Hungarian scientific community at the outset.
If we are criticized for not discussing the concept widely enough, I find it difficult to understand why those making this criticism were not interested in the concept itself — or in having me present it to them personally and properly.
And in this context, I would ask: what professional and public consultation preceded the presentation of Hungary’s new science and innovation strategy to Parliament at the end of August 2026?
Without substantive discussion, it is hardly surprising that a number of misconceptions emerged.
One of them is the “parallel structure”.
The criticism is essentially that the initiative was not launched under the umbrella of an existing institution.
But an independent frontier-research organization does not in itself constitute harmful duplication.
For almost eight decades, the institutes of Germany’s Max Planck Society have operated independently of the university system. So far, they have produced 24 Nobel Prizes and countless discoveries and innovations for Germany and the world. No significant political force in Germany questions the organization’s place in the system. It is part of a national consensus that regards long-term support for science as something that must transcend electoral cycles.
Élvonal, moreover, would have embedded the researchers it supported firmly and mandatorily in Hungary’s existing scientific ecosystem.
We planned to establish our first Frontiers Center in association with Semmelweis University.
This makes absurd the criticism that “research groups arriving here for large sums of money will not become integrated into the local research network and scientific community...”
Another serious misconception is the supposed conflict between “frontier research” and the “main body” of the scientific community — and the attempt to set the two against each other.
Élvonal was not about supporting a narrow elite.
It was about giving as many Hungarian researchers as possible the opportunity to become part of the world’s leading scientific communities and to work in genuinely world-class research groups here in Hungary. It was about giving the “main body” of the research community the opportunity to develop their abilities and put their knowledge to use in the most ambitious programs.
These are highly skilled professionals who may never have had the opportunity to build a scientific school of their own, but whose excellent, dedicated and passionate work is indispensable to any major discovery.
The Frontiers Knowledge Centers, embedded in an international network of world-leading research institutions, would have opened new opportunities for them just as much as for our greatest talents.
Anyone who has ever worked closely with a leading research group knows that most of the team is not made up of the “elite”, but of this “main body”.
Without exception. Anywhere in the world.
The claim that Élvonal’s budget was “excessively high even by international comparison” is equally unfounded professionally.
Let us look at the facts.
The annual funding planned for Frontiers Fellows would have been about two-thirds of the amount provided by the Max Planck Society for the direct funding of the research programs of its active scientific members and directors. It would have approached — but not reached — the level of support provided by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator Program in the United States, which served as a model for our program in several respects.
For Frontiers Fellows, we set the bar as high as possible: at the level of Max Planck directors and HHMI Investigators.
The funding was designed accordingly.
For Frontiers Investigators, a previously awarded ERC grant — European Research Council funding — or an equivalent proof of scientific excellence was a basic entry requirement. Their funding was therefore benchmarked against ERC support.
Internationally competitive funding for a top category defined by international standards.
No more, and no less.
Our key commitments for the first six-year funding cycle were:
Excluding investment costs, Élvonal’s six-year public-service funding agreement would have provided an average of approximately HUF 32 billion per year to carry out these tasks.
There seems to be no disagreement between us and the current decision-makers that Hungary needs to spend considerably more on science and research and development than it does today.
The government itself stated in its program that Hungary does not spend enough on science and committed to increasing total domestic R&D expenditure from its current level of around 1.3 percent of GDP to 2 percent by the end of its term. This goal has been reaffirmed several times since the government took office.
So the question is not whether Hungary should spend substantial public funds on science.
The question is whether our program could have turned those resources into scientific performance measurable by international standards.
Élvonal made concrete, measurable commitments to do exactly that: among them, 25 Frontiers Knowledge Centers, another 50 Investigator groups, and the involvement of tens of thousands of secondary-school students in science talent development.
Based on these facts, I leave it to the reader to decide whether Élvonal’s budget was indeed “astonishingly excessive” or “excessively high by international comparison”.
I find it particularly disturbing that such statements were made by science-policy officials who had shown no interest in having the program and its planned use of resources presented to them — and thereby gaining a thorough understanding of either.
Against professionally unfounded claims that serve little purpose beyond influencing public sentiment, we can state one fact clearly: thanks to a lean organization based on Western European and North American best practices, and to the efficient work of an outstanding administrative team, more than 90 percent of all non-investment funding would have gone to where the actual work is done: research groups and secondary-school teachers.
That level of cost efficiency speaks for itself.
It would be worth measuring the same indicators — the proportion of funding that goes directly to professional work, measurable performance and transparency — consistently across the Hungarian institutions that have long been performing similar tasks, and comparing them with the commitments above.
Comparisons that ignore these factors are, at best, useful for shaping public sentiment.
The six-year funding budget was not the only target of criticism. Élvonal’s long-term, 25-year framework agreement also came under fire.
Those who criticized it overlooked one of the basic conditions of frontier research: there can be no frontier research without long-term predictability and the ability to plan.
Building a world-class research group or knowledge center takes many years.
It can only be worth the effort if there is a realistic and predictable prospect of continuing beyond the first six-year funding period.
This is perhaps even more important for Frontiers Investigators, from whom we expected not only this work of building, but also the relocation of their lives and families to Hungary.
The point is simple.
Without a long-term perspective, outstanding researchers currently working abroad will not move the center of their work to Hungary and relocate here with their families, as we would have expected them to do.
Of course, one might say: Germany has no such framework agreement either, yet world-leading researchers move there.
True. There is no framework agreement.
But there is a national consensus that makes one unnecessary.
And as the example of Élvonal shows: as long as there is no such national consensus, a long-term guarantee for the cause is justified.
Yet even the framework agreement itself proved insufficient.
A recent statement by a State Secretary claimed that at Élvonal “everything was in one person’s hands”.
The reality is quite different, and the law is very clear.
The executive body of the Foundation was its Board of Trustees. The law entrusted the management of the Foundation not to its President, but to the Board, including the use of the Foundation’s resources and assets in pursuit of its objectives.
Anyone who claims that at Élvonal “everything was in one person’s hands” is therefore suggesting that this could only have happened in violation of the law.
I reject even the suggestion of this in the strongest possible terms. I find it deeply offensive.
There is another possible reading of the statement, no less offensive — this time to the other members of the Board, all of whom assumed personal and financial responsibility for the consequences of the decisions taken.
If all these decisions had indeed been in the hands of one person, we would have to assume that Nobel Prize-winning physicists Donna Strickland and Steven Chu, Nobel Prize-winning biologist Randy Schekman, and Abel Prize-winning mathematician and former President of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences László Lovász simply went along with my decisions without exercising their own professional judgement or responsibility.
To suggest that any one of them served on Élvonal’s Board merely as a puppet legitimizing the President’s decisions is not only implausible. It is profoundly demeaning and offensive.
The State Secretary also claimed that “in a year and a half, not even one tenth” of the available funding had been used.
Let us start with the simplest fact.
It was not a year and a half.
It was seven months — and in reality, three.
We began building the organization last November, barely seven months before the announcement that it would be shut down. Of those seven months, we had access to the funding needed to implement our program for only the last three.
At the same time, we had committed ourselves not to make any substantial financial commitments until the new government had decided on the future of Élvonal.
In light of these facts, I leave the interpretation and judgement of the statement above to the reader.
And since those seven months have come up:
During that time, we built the organization and launched programs.
We spent HUF 397,862,710 on all of this.
Yet we are returning more money to the Hungarian state than we received.
The Foundation received HUF 22,356,600,792 in funding.
We managed the public funds entrusted to us responsibly, and the unused funds generated interest income. As a result, we are returning HUF 22,390,480,289 to the Hungarian state — HUF 33,879,497 more than we received.
And that amount will increase further with the interest credited at the end of August.
Let me return once more to the statement above.
If the measure of success had been how much money we could spend before the new government made its decision on Élvonal’s future, then we did indeed fail.
We took the opposite approach. We deliberately avoided any commitment that would have significantly restricted the new government’s room for manoeuvre.
That is why we are able to return the amount stated above.
“Opaque operations” have also been a recurring criticism in recent months.
The answer to opacity is scrutiny.
That is why I personally requested a comprehensive audit of the Foundation.
The audit was carried out.
We accounted precisely for every single forint.
The criticism directed at Élvonal received considerable public attention.
The results of the audit have still not been made public.
Once again, I leave the judgement to the reader.
In recent months, I have also been described as “Ferenc Krausz, who has good relations with Fidesz”.
Let me be clear: I have never maintained any relationship with any political party.
I did, however, seek a good working relationship with the previous government, just as I seek a good working relationship with the present one.
And I will do the same with every future Hungarian government.
For as long as I have the conviction and the strength to contribute to Hungary’s future.
I should add that I do the same in every country where I am active in science or in other fields, including humanitarian work.
A few examples: the governments of Austria and Bavaria, the German Federal Government, and, in recent years, relevant government representatives in Ukraine, Hong Kong and China.
Finally, back to our commitments.
They were not theoretical ideas.
The confidence of the international scientific community translated into tangible results within a very short time.
During our first few months, international collaborations were established and programs were launched. Two world-renowned scientists who have built major scientific schools committed themselves to establishing Frontiers Knowledge Centers.
Despite the uncertainty surrounding the Foundation, thirteen outstanding young researchers on rapidly rising career paths applied to our first Frontiers Investigator call. Six of them would have returned to Hungary from Germany, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States. Every European applicant had won an ERC grant.
These were some of the most promising researchers of their generation — people for whom the world’s best universities and research institutions compete.
A community was taking shape that Hungary could rightly have been proud of.
We built an integrated system for secondary-school talent development in mathematics, physics and computer science, including the newly established Olympiad Schools. Almost without exception, students from these schools represented Hungary at this year’s international Olympiads and won numerous awards in national and regional competitions.
With the dissolution of the Élvonal Foundation, that path has been broken.
The path that could have led from the first spark of curiosity to world-class research, and from there to benefits for society.
Based on a concept thought through in every detail.
What has been lost is this concept. An exceptional governing body, even by international standards. And with them, a vision that could have strengthened Hungary’s scientific and economic competitiveness over the long term.
We have also lost the team devoted to this cause — a team that became a true community through the trials of recent months.
We learned of the government’s intention to terminate the agreement through social media.
And this happened without Élvonal’s full scientific concept, its commitments or the results achieved up to that point ever being presented in substance before the decision was made.
I do not believe that the absence of even this minimum level of dialogue served Hungary’s interests.
Nor did it show due respect for the cause, for the work that had been done, or for the team that had done it.
With this letter, I want to give them that respect.
Above all, to the team without whom the achievements described above would not have been possible.
In the same spirit, we are preserving the brief history of Élvonal and the commitment we made through it for future generations on https://requiem4frontiers.hu.
I thank everyone whose decisions and work gave us the opportunity to show what we could have achieved had we been allowed to continue.
I also thank those who encouraged us in the face of adversity, even if most chose to do so away from public view.
My particular gratitude goes to the international members of our Board of Trustees.
For them, committing themselves to Hungary was the least self-evident choice of all.
Donna, Randy, Steve — my deepest thanks.
Finally, the future.
The Élvonal concept described above will not be realized. But the conviction that gave rise to it has not changed for me.
It is encouraging that today even those who decided to dissolve the Foundation no longer dispute the program’s fundamental goals.
I sincerely hope that the organization now entrusted by the Hungarian government with continuing the program will have the perseverance and strength needed to succeed.
The benchmark is there: what we committed ourselves to.
In 2031, those commitments can be measured.
Performance and cost efficiency can be measured objectively.
Whatever happens, trust is the most important capital in science.
It is not created by legislation. Nor is it built through organizational charts.
Trust cannot be codified.
For the program to succeed in the future, confidence in Hungarian science policy must therefore be restored.
For the researchers and innovators currently working abroad who have already shown interest in the program to actually return home, two things are needed: a professional environment of the highest standard, and long-term predictability that extends beyond government cycles.
One example of such long-term predictability may be the Center for Molecular Fingerprinting, established in 2019.
At CMF, we are working to lay the foundations for the healthcare of the future, based on preventive medicine. Fifteen thousand of our fellow citizens are helping us through regular blood donations.
Thanks to them and to our extraordinary team, an initiative launched from Hungary — protecting.health — is now pursuing this goal through an international network spanning continents.
My path.
I have spent my life in science.
I have had the opportunity to see some of the world’s best scientific institutions from the inside, and to learn what leads to success.
In the natural sciences, we measure ourselves against international standards.
What is invisible internationally does not exist.
Performance can be measured. And support comes with responsibility.
This was the approach Élvonal stood for.
For a long time, I also took it for granted that one day it would be my duty to bring home some of what I had learned in these places.
That Hungary should benefit from the knowledge, experience and relationships I had gained abroad.
After what has happened in recent months, I find myself asking a serious question for the first time:
Is all this really needed in Hungary?
And if so, what role can I still play in it — and what role do I want to play?
For the first time in my life, I am not sure of the answer.
I agree with the Prime Minister that we should build a country “where not only do we love our homeland, but our homeland loves us in return.”
I would add: a country where everyone is treated with the respect they deserve. Especially those who work selflessly for a better future for Hungary.
It has become clear to me that there is still much work ahead.
So that Hungary may truly become a place from which the Nobel laureates of today and tomorrow do not leave,
but return home.
Allow me first to congratulate you on your election victory. Anyone who earns the trust of millions of Hungarians deserves the highest recognition. This is why I have always had the greatest respect for whoever serves as Prime Minister of Hungary, regardless of any differences of opinion. I feel the same towards you.
We were aware that the new government was taking office in difficult circumstances. We were therefore prepared for the possibility that the funding envisaged by the previous government — however justified from a professional perspective — might need to be adjusted. I made it clear in my public statements that, regardless of the legal rights provided by our agreement, we would make no further commitments before consulting the new government.
We learned through social media that the Hungarian Government intended to terminate our agreement, and that there was no need for “parallel systems”.
We agree that Hungary does not need parallel systems. It needs scientific structures that reinforce one another and are built on cooperation.
That is exactly what Élvonal was created to achieve.
We are building a model that provides world-class conditions and long-term predictability for frontier research capable of producing the deep-tech breakthroughs of the future — firmly embedded in the existing scientific ecosystem.
The Mission published on our website, frontiers.hu/ourmission, sets out our commitment concisely but comprehensively. We have not been building a “parallel system”. We have been building something entirely new and, to our knowledge, unique in the world.
New, because Hungary has never had a model that combines world-class research conditions with long-term predictability for frontier research capable of delivering the deep-tech breakthroughs of the future.
Both are essential if we want to bring world-renowned scientists and innovators back to Hungary after decades of putting their knowledge to work abroad — and if we want them to create companies here that generate high added value.
These conditions have been missing in Hungary. This is why, over the past decades, Hungary has not succeeded in bringing home, on a lasting basis, a single world-renowned scientist who has built a major school of research abroad.
With the support of the Hungarian state, Élvonal laid the foundations for such a model and for its integration into the existing scientific ecosystem.
In the short time we have been operating, we have already attracted Professor Botond Roska, a world-renowned researcher currently working in Switzerland, and we are in advanced discussions with several other scientists working abroad. Our Investigator Program has attracted interest from numerous ERC grant winners currently based outside Hungary.
We achieved all this within just a few months of starting our work.
We have set in motion a process that the existing research ecosystem had been unable to achieve for decades.
New, because we have laid the foundations for an integrated national system of talent development in the natural sciences, starting with mathematics, physics and computer science, and expanding into artificial intelligence and chemistry — bringing together some of the country’s best secondary-school teachers.
For the first time in Hungary, we established Olympiad Schools where students train together every month. These schools have already produced, with just one exception, all the students representing Hungary in this year’s international Olympiad teams.
We are doing this in close cooperation with every organization that shares our basic principles: transparency, measurable performance and cost efficiency. Resources should go where the work actually happens: to schools and teachers.
Unique, because — to the best of our knowledge — nowhere in the world does a single organization bring talent development and frontier research together under one roof.
What is taken for granted at the world’s leading football clubs has not yet become common practice in science and innovation.
We are pioneers here in Hungary, guided by four Nobel laureates and one Abel Prize-winning scientist.
Three of them are from North America. Within a remarkably short time, they became just as committed to our cause as the Hungarian members of the Board.
One small but telling example: for years, our Max Planck Institute in Munich has been trying to persuade one of them, from Stanford University, to join our scientific advisory board. He has always declined because of lack of time.
Professor Steven Chu, a distinguished former member of President Obama’s cabinet, chose to stand behind our cause.
I still find that remarkable. But it is true.
In developing the concept, I relied primarily on people rather than institutions.
People I know well and whose work has earned the respect of us all.
There are many of them: outstanding secondary-school teachers, members of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, former presidents of the Academy, university rectors and directors of research institutes here in Hungary.
And at least as many world-renowned Hungarian scientists who had to leave the country to pursue their ambitions.
I asked them what Hungary would need to do for them to come home.
Armed with all this insight, and with what I had learned about the way the Max Planck Society operates — an organization that has rewarded Germany’s support with six Nobel Prizes over the past six years — we set to work on the mission and concept of the Élvonal Foundation for Frontier Research and Talent Development.
We did so with a remarkable team: colleagues from the Center for Molecular Fingerprinting (CMF) and MATFIN.
The results of our first ten months, summarized above, show the value of the team behind them.
And since I have mentioned CMF:
At CMF, we are laying the foundations for the preventive medicine of the future, since May 2026 under the umbrella of Élvonal.
Our results are so promising that two leading universities, one in Europe and one in Asia — Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich and the University of Hong Kong — have entered into a three-party agreement with CMF and committed to launching the medical diagnostic study that CMF has been conducting in Hungary for the past five years.
The aim is to work with CMF to develop a screening program based on a simple blood test for the early detection of major widespread diseases, including cancer, cardiovascular, respiratory and metabolic diseases.
The first of its kind in the world.
The preventive medicine of the future could emerge under the leadership of a Hungarian research center, through an international collaboration spanning continents.
With the support of the Bavarian and Hong Kong governments — and, I hope, every Hungarian government, now and in the future.
For the better protection of the health of present and future generations.
On costs and institutional structure
The system of 25 Knowledge Centers, together with its comprehensive talent development program in science and engineering, would cost approximately five percent of the Max Planck Society’s annual budget.
This ratio broadly reflects the relative size of the Hungarian and German economies.
If we want to catch up with the world’s scientific leaders, investment as a share of GDP is an unavoidable benchmark.
Mór, Stockholm, and now Budapest.
I have spent my life in science. I have had the privilege of learning in some of the world’s best institutions and seeing how they work from the inside.
One thing I know for certain: in science, what is invisible internationally might as well not exist.
I believe — and you have also identified this as a fundamental principle — that Hungary’s future lies in becoming a high-value, knowledge-based society.
To achieve that, we need to bring the best international models into Hungarian practice.
There is no other way.
We also fully agree that the use of public funds must be transparent, open to scrutiny and accountable.
I therefore ask that our organization undergo a comprehensive audit covering every aspect of its operations.
We also welcome proposals from the new government on what institutional structure could ensure both transparent public oversight and scientific freedom.
Finally, a personal note
There are few more rewarding feelings than knowing that your work can contribute to the progress of your country.
I believe that those who have received much from their country owe much in return.
That is why I would like to devote most of the rest of my life and work to Hungary.
I want to help make Hungary a country that does not simply send its most talented young people out into the world, but is able to keep them — or bring them home — once they have become scientists, innovators and outstanding professionals.
A country where scientific achievement is valued, and where our most important raw material — talent — is transformed through knowledge into a resource that plays a central role in shaping our future.
Over the past few days, I have seen many comments on social media that shook me.
Deeply.
Because for a moment, I felt that perhaps everything I have believed in throughout my life might not, after all, be possible in Hungary.
Then the messages started coming.
Phone calls.
From people I know and people I do not. Researchers, teachers, students, parents, friends.
Telling me not to give up.
Because there are far more people in this country who believe in knowledge and in the future we can build on it together than there are those who attack it.
That is why I wrote this letter.
Dear Prime Minister,
Whatever decision your government ultimately makes about the future of Élvonal and CMF, I sincerely hope that Hungarian science, innovation and talent development will receive stronger support in the coming years than ever before.
And if I may express one personal wish:
I hope to live to see Hungary become a country where people dare to say openly — whatever the issue — when they support someone or something.
And a country where the Nobel laureates of today and tomorrow do not leave, but come home.
With the greatest respect and best wishes,
Ferenc Krausz
Budapest, May 18, 2026
Website operator:
Website:
https://requiem4frontiers.huThis website presents the Frontiers Foundation’s history and mission, preserves its values and key milestones, and provides an accurate overview of its activities for interested visitors.
The content published on this website is the intellectual property of the operator. Further use of this content is permitted in accordance with applicable copyright laws.
Last updated: August 31, 2026.Frontiers Foundation / ÉLVONAL
Conceived in 2018, the idea became an institution in 2025 and, by 2026, grew into a functioning ecosystem for science and talent development. Frontiers was built for the long term, with one goal: to connect Hungarian science with the world’s best. Just months after the funding agreement was signed, and only weeks after the Campus foundation stone was laid, a political decision ended the Frontiers Foundation’s work.
I.
2018
Nobel Prize-winning physicist Ferenc Krausz and Prime Minister Viktor Orbán held their first informal discussion about the possibility of creating a system in Hungary that would support both exceptional scientific talent and world-class research. Early documents relating to this idea were later placed in the time capsule of the planned Frontiers Campus.
2018–2024
The initial idea gradually develops into the concept of a scientific ecosystem. The aim is not to create a single research institute, but to build a system that connects young talent, the world’s leading researchers, state-of-the-art infrastructure and the translation of scientific results into benefits for society.
2023
Ferenc Krausz’s Nobel Prize brings international attention and creates a new opportunity to turn the earlier idea into a nationwide program.
II.
May 13–14, 2025
Legislative preparations for the program and its public presentation. The goal: to create a world-class research environment in Hungary, involving both Hungarian and international researchers.
June 19, 2025
Act LII of 2025 on the Frontiers Foundation for Frontier Research and Talent Development is promulgated. The program has three core areas:
July 30, 2025
AFrontiers begins discussions with existing Hungarian talent development programs. The aim is to create a transparent, complementary nationwide system built around measurable results.
November 24, 2025
The Frontiers Foundation for Frontier Research and Talent Development officially begins its work.
December 2025
Frontiers becomes a legally registered organization. Ferenc Krausz is the Foundation’s initiator and President of its Board of Trustees. The international Board includes Nobel and Abel Prize laureates.
III.
November–December 2025
Élvonal adopts Frontiers Foundation as its international name and public identity. The central idea capturing its story emerges:
From Spark to Discovery.
The “spark” is the first moment of curiosity. “Discovery” is the scientific breakthrough that can become reality with mentoring, the right support and infrastructure, and the highest standards.
Early 2026
The Frontiers mission takes shape as one integrated system:
Frontiers is not designed to create parallel institutions, but to serve as an umbrella connecting research and talent development initiatives.
IV.
February 20, 2026
The Hungarian government and the Frontiers Foundation sign a 25-year strategic framework agreement and a six-year public-service funding agreement. The agreements are designed to provide long-term predictability for the research and talent development system.
March 31, 2026
The foundation stone for the Frontiers Campus was laid in Budapest. The Campus is conceived as a place bringing talent development, frontier research, basic research, technological development and societal applications under one roof.
The time capsule contains early documents recording the origins of the idea, decisions relating to its launch, and personal messages from members of the Board of Trustees.
April 2, 2026
Wolf Prize-winning neurobiologist Botond Roska becomes the first Frontiers Fellow. His decision to join marks the beginning of a Hungarian network of researchers and research groups operating at the international frontier.
April 2, 2026
The first call opens for outstanding researchers seeking to establish internationally competitive research groups in Hungary. The planned system was designed to support 25 Frontiers Fellows and 50 Frontiers Investigators over the long term.
April 2026
The new talent development model takes shape: a system that extends from identifying talented secondary-school students through university and into research careers, built around mentoring and measurable results.
April 15–24, 2026
Talks with the National Academy of Scientist Education break down. Frontiers publicly sets out its position, emphasizing that it intends to use public funding only for programs that are transparent, accountable, and measurable.
V.
May 15, 2026
Prime Minister Péter Magyar announces in a Facebook post that the government intends to terminate the HUF 261.7 billion public-service funding agreement with the Frontiers Foundation. The Foundation’s leadership receives no prior official notification of the decision.
May 18, 2026
Government Resolution 1164/2026 (V. 18.) orders a comprehensive extraordinary review of the contractual relationship between the state and Frontiers. Temporary restrictions are imposed on the Foundation’s operations and financial commitments.
May 2026
Ferenc Krausz calls for dialogue, a fact-based review and a comprehensive audit. He argues that the program’s scientific objectives, commitments and financial management should be judged publicly and on the basis of documented facts.
May 27, 2026
Government talks begin on arrangements for the operations, commitments and funding of ÉLVONAL, the Frontiers Campus, the Center for Molecular Fingerprinting and related programs.
VI.
June 9, 2026
The proposal prepares for the dissolution not only of Frontiers, but of all public-interest asset management foundations performing public functions outside higher education.
June 29, 2026
Act XVIII of 2026 repeals Act LII of 2025, which established Frontiers. The legislation provides for the dissolution of non-higher-education KEKVA foundations, the settlement of their assets, and the transfer of their functions to the state.
July 31, 2026
The government decision sets August 31, 2026, as the date on which Frontiers will cease to exist.
The comprehensive audit finds no irregularities; instead, it points to precise and responsible financial management. Despite operating for only a few months, Frontiers returns more money than it originally received, thanks to responsible financial management and interest earned on the funds.
August 31, 2026
Under the statutory timetable, August 31, 2026 is the final date for removal from the register and for transfering of functions, rights and obligations to the designated state budgetary body.
Ferenc Krausz publishes his second open letter on the achievements, closure and legacy of Frontiers.