Technological change and automation are the largest challenges of our times, which may only be addressed by strengthening competitivity, as well as by innovation, which is its essential condition. Hungary must also adapt to global trends, this is the reason why an independent ministry has been established for the coordination of innovation activities. 

Therefore, according to the set target, by 2020, Hungary intends to allocate at least 1.8 percent of the GDP for the purpose of research and development that has become a priority area in the Hungarian government structure. In order to have a coherent innovation and science policy, the previous fragmentation of the management of budgetary resources should be eliminated.

Both in the domestic budget and in the next EU budget cycle a significant amount of funds will be available for the purpose of research and development and innovation expenditure. The Ministry for Innovation and Technology is in charge of supervising whether domestic funds are used by the institutions as efficiently as possible, on the one hand, and whether the interested parties apply for financial support for the best possible facilities in order to fully absorb the available EU funds, on the other hand.

This is the reason why it has been decided that the allocation of funds devoted to research, held by State institutions, amounting to about HUF 70 billion in total, will be coordinated by the Ministry for Innovation in the future. Thus, the support for research and development of higher education institutions, currently amounting to HUF 29.1 billion, the total budget of the Hungarian Scientific Research Fund, amounting to HUF 12.7 billion, as well as the budgetary support used for research purposes by the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, amounting to HUF 28.1 billion, will be uniformly coordinated by the Ministry for Innovation and Technology

In the future, institutions will be entitled to apply for financial support for their different projects the same way as before, but the priorities of research areas should be identified in a coordinated way, with due regard to the interests of the Academy and the companies so as to make the best use of the funds; this purpose is also served by the budgetary programming under one heading.

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