Hungary's National Research, Development and Innovation Office (NRDI Office) has awarded HUF 7.05 billion (roughly EUR 17–18 million) across five HUN-REN research centre projects under its Mission-Driven National Laboratories programme, according to results published on 7 September 2026.

The awards form part of a wider competitive call that drew 30 applications requesting more than HUF 76.5 billion in total. Fourteen projects secured funding, sharing HUF 20.92 billion from the National Research, Development and Innovation Fund. That gives the call an overall success rate of just under 47% by application count — but HUN-REN institutes captured roughly a third of the total pot, a concentration worth noting for R&D portfolio planners watching where Hungarian state research money is flowing.

Who won what?

The HUN-REN Biological Research Centre in Szeged leads the pack with two funded programmes:

• Mission-Driven National Laboratory for Antimicrobial Resistance and Microbial Health — HUF 1 billion
• Mission-Driven National Laboratory for a Single-Cell Multi-Omics Atlas and Research Platform for Precision Medicine — HUF 1.5 billion

The HUN-REN Centre for Energy Research takes HUF 1.25 billion for its LOHC Mission-Driven National Laboratory, focused on liquid organic hydrogen carrier technology — a storage and transport route Hungary clearly wants to build domestic capacity in.

The HUN-REN Institute for Computer Science and Control (SZTAKI) also lands two projects:

• Mission-Driven National Laboratory for Cooperative and Robust Autonomous Mobile Systems — HUF 2 billion, the single largest HUN-REN award
• Mission-Driven National Laboratory for Agent-Based Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare and Manufacturing — HUF 1.3 billion

What does the programme aim to change?

The initiative builds directly on the previous National Laboratories Programme and the Thematic Excellence Programme. Its stated goals are twofold: fund research and innovation collaborations tackling major societal, economic and environmental challenges, and build knowledge centres with the potential to become leading national scientific hubs in their fields.

For lab managers, the model matters as much as the money. Mission-Driven National Laboratories are structured as collaborative environments for discovery and experimental research, pooling Hungary's leading research capacities with explicit emphasis on the societal and economic utilisation of results — a translation requirement, not just a basic-science grant.

How competitive was the call?

Demand ran at more than three and a half times the available funding. Applicants requested over HUF 76.5 billion against HUF 20.92 billion awarded. Whether that gap reflects constrained budgets or a deliberately selective scheme, the result is that fewer than half of submissions succeeded — a signal for institutes weighing future bid preparation costs against realistic win probabilities.

The projects are implemented with support from the Ministry of Science and Technology, with the involvement of the NRDI Office, and financed by the National Research, Development and Innovation Fund.

For research groups in antimicrobial resistance, single-cell multi-omics, hydrogen carrier chemistry and applied AI, the next milestone to watch is what these five laboratories deliver — and whether the utilisation-focused mandate translates their HUF 7.05 billion into measurable societal and economic outcomes.