As of 22 October, Academician András Stipsicz, Director General of Alfréd Rényi Institute of Mathematics since 2019, will take up his new role as President of HUN-REN. His responsibilities at Rényi Institute will be assumed on an interim basis by Deputy Director General Dezső Miklós, supported by Károly Böröczky, Director of the Erdős Center, who will serve as an appointed Deputy Director General.
András Stipsicz, a Professor in the Institute’s Department of Algebraic Geometry and Differential Topology, took on a new leadership role in October 2026. On 12 October, the Governing Board of the Hungarian Research Network elected him President, a position he assumed as of 22 October. His appointment is for an interim period, until the planned amendment of the legislation governing HUN-REN and the conclusion of an open selection process of a permanent leader. His key responsibilities in the new role will include reintegrating the humanities research institutes transferred to ELTE in the summer of 2025 into the research network, facilitating the drafting or amendment of the legislation governing the network, shaping the conditions for scientific research, strengthening cooperation among the network’s institutes, and refining and modernising the system for evaluating research performance.
 András Stipsicz is a mathematician internationally recognised for his research in differential topology and a full member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. Born in Budapest in 1966, he graduated in mathematics from Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE) in 1989 and earned his PhD from Rutgers University in the United States in 1994. As a researcher, he has worked at several prominent American and European universities and research institutes, including Princeton University, Columbia University, the Max Planck Institute in Bonn, and the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. He joined Alfréd Rényi Institute of Mathematics in 2002 and has served as its Director General since 2019. His research focuses on differential topology, particularly the mathematical study of manifolds of dimension four and below. His work investigates the geometric and topological structures that can exist on these spaces and how they can be described and classified using mathematical methods. Co-authored with American mathematician Robert Gompf, his 1999 book 4-Manifolds and Kirby Calculus is a major reference work in the theory of four-dimensional manifolds. He has authored more than 100 scientific papers and three major books. His research has received international funding, including two European Research Council (ERC) Advanced Grants. He also mentors young mathematicians and contributes to the training of the next generation of researchers. Under his leadership, Rényi Institute developed a modern performance evaluation system for mathematical researchers. His achievements have been recognised with numerous awards. He received the György Alexits Award in 2000, the Rényi Award in 2005, the Bolyai Plaque in 2006 and the Academy Award in 2014. In 2025, he received the Bolyai Prize, one of Hungary’s most prestigious scientific awards. The Hungarian Academy of Sciences elected him a corresponding member in 2016 and a full member in 2022. Since 2025, he has also been a member of the Scientific Council of the European Research Council, contributing to strategic questions concerning European research funding. |
As of 22 October, Dezső Miklós, the Institute’s current Deputy Director General, took over responsibility for the Director General’s duties. For decades, he has supported several previous directors of Rényi Institute, and his achievements in research management are well known within the Institute’s research community. In his interim leadership role, his main responsibilities will be to ensure the Institute’s continued and smooth operation, maintain the conditions necessary for research, and represent the Institute’s professional and organisational interests throughout the transition.
 Dezső Miklós is a mathematician, a Senior Research Fellow and Deputy Director General at Alfréd Rényi Institute of Mathematics. Born in Budapest in 1957, he graduated in mathematics from ELTE and earned his PhD in combinatorics from Ohio State University in the United States in 1986. His doctoral dissertation examined questions related to one of Chvátal’s conjectures. He has worked at Rényi Institute since 1982 and has held scientific leadership responsibilities since 1996, alongside his research. His research interests include combinatorics, particularly extremal set theory, hypergraph theory and the mathematical theory of databases. These fields explore, among other things, the structure of discrete mathematical systems, the properties of networks, and the mathematical rules governing relationships and combinations. More recent research interests include the mathematical foundations of artificial intelligence and network theory. He also has extensive teaching and educational management experience. Since 2001, he has served as the Hungarian director of the international Budapest Semesters in Mathematics programme and as a board member of the American foundation Pro Mathematica Arte, which organises the programme. From 2001 to 2003, he was acting director of the mathematics doctoral programme at Central European University. His contributions to the mathematical community also include editorial work and academic publishing. He served as an editor of Studia Scientiarum Mathematicarum Hungarica from 1995 to 2018 and as managing editor of the Bolyai Society Mathematical Studies book series from 2003 to 2020. He received the János Bolyai Research Scholarship in 2002 and the Gold Cross of Merit of the Republic of Hungary in 2009. |
Károly Böröczky, a research professor and lately appointed Deputy Director General, heads Erdős Center at Rényi Institute. A mathematician recognised with the Hungarian Academy of Sciences’ Academy Award in 2026, he has achieved outstanding results in several fields, including geometry. The academics who formally nominated him for the award also highlighted his exceptional contribution to scientific organisation management. He headed a department at Central European University (CEU) for eight years and has led Erdős Center, based within Rényi Institute, since 2022. From 2004 to 2008, he led a European Union Transfer of Knowledge project bringing together five European institutions. He has organised numerous conferences in Hungary and internationally, including events held in collaboration with the American Institute of Mathematics. A profile of Károly Böröczky on Rényi Institute’s website, entitled Scientific Achievements, Personal Motivation and a Constructive Community Mindset, is available HERE.