Trust Researchers

A declaration to the attention of the
European Council of Ministers and the Parliament.

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Comments from Hungary

27 comments.  (Note: Some comments are not made public accessible.)


23 Mar 20:04   Hungary   Botany Department of Eger College  Tamás Pócs
It is deteriorating, when we have to spend more time for writing applications and reports than for the research itself.

24 Feb 15:21   Hungary   Budapest Institute for Policy Analysis  Ágota Scharle
Would be very willing to trade some admin off against tighter publishing/peer review rules.

6 Mar 08:54   Hungary   Budapest University of Technology and Economics  Gergely Öllös
Scientists are bad administrators.

24 Mar 10:37   Hungary   Budapest University of Technology and Economics  Tibor Berceli
I think it would be very important to keep a well established consortium together for a longer period than the duration of a 3-4 year long project.

30 May 00:26   Hungary   Budapest University of Technology and Economics  András Korn
Not only are the rules complex, its often almost impossible to obtain authoritative interpretations, and even the rules themselves dont necessarily filter down to the people who should be following them. I had a SATIN grant and it was almost completely unclear to me how I could spend it (the bureaucracy of our own university didnt make things any better, to be sure). In the end I was only able to use a very small fraction of the grant, so it didnt serve its purpose of facilitating better cooperation between universities in different countries as well as it could have, by far.

The problem is thus not just one of administrative complexity but also one of communication, and lack of access to people with answers to administrative questions. Where local laws and institutional regulations intersect EU regulations (contradictions are likely), the situation deteriorates even further. I grew disillusioned with these processes to the extent that Im now pursuing a career as an engineer in industry instead of a researcher at the university (administrative hurdles were certainly not the deciding factor, but an important one).

10 Mar 15:19   Hungary   Budapest University of Technology and Economics, Dept. of Electronics Technology  Hunor Sántha
Administrative load on projects should be proportional to the size of grants. (eg. for a small 5000 Euro project / 1-2 page documentation).

Reseachers are typically idealists hoping, that they can make the world better, thus, financial guidlines should focus not on how to prevent misuse of R&D grants, but on how to provide researchers with more flexible budgeting when many factors cannot be exactly predicted few years in advance.

16 Mar 06:32   Hungary   Central European University  Herbert Gintis
Writing an EC Framework proposal was the most bureaucratic, time consuming, resource using task I ever went through. The mumbo-jumbo and stupidity of the grant-writing process makes Kafkas experience with the justice system seem light and airy.

6 May 16:24   Hungary   Chemical Research Center Hung Acad. Sci.  Karoly Heberger
simplify is a weak word for that. Even a draw (after pre-selection) would be more justified, more honest....

28 Apr 18:02   Hungary   Chemical Research Center of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences  Istvan Mayer
It is unfortunate that researchers often have to spend a comparable amount of time (and forces) with the bureaucracy as with the actual research.

11 Feb 22:47   Hungary   Computer and Automation Research Institute,  Geza Haidegger
Bureaucracy and unuseful paperwork hinders efficiency and generates expensive waste.

3 Mar 18:22   Hungary   Corvinus University of Budapest  Edina Berlinger
Paperwork should be minimised.

12 Feb 10:10   Hungary   Department of Anatomy and Histology Fac. Vet.Sci. Szent Istvan University  Halasy Katalin
Buerocracy has nothing to do with science. I agree that the processes should be simplified.

14 Mar 23:25   Hungary   Department of Neurosurgery, University of Pecs  Tamas Doczi
Paperwork on Euroropean grants are too cumbersome! Communications are slow. It may hinder efficiency!

6 Mar 12:16   Hungary   Dept. of Telecommunications & Media Informatics, Budapest Unviersity of Technology & Economics  Géza Németh
Research includes work for which we do not see the results in advance, including possible failures, wrong paths if really new ideas are tested. I would like to see titles of papers like How to increase error rates.... I would like to see trust on researchers that they do honest work including longer range programs. Currently most of my time is wasted on reading calls, organizing partners, waiting for evaluations, preparing reports and budgets. Very little is left for concetrated thinking...

2 May 12:43   Hungary   Eotvos University, Fac. Sci, Institute of Chemistry  Peter Surjan
If a scientific project is financed, control should take care of the scientific production rather than of financial details.

Never ask a researcher what he/she is going to investigate after a year. Science is developing too fast to expect a frank a serious answer to such a question.

When a project is evaluated, emphasize should taken on previous scientific success of the applicant, rather than the promises written in the project, which are, by the logic of science, always tentative.

14 Feb 13:36   Hungary   Inst Biochem., Biol.Res. Centre, Hung. Acad. Sci.  Laszlo Vigh
The present bureaucratism of European research funding practice kills the spirit of science.

11 Feb 16:18   Hungary   Institute for Geochemical Research, Hungarian Academy of Sciences  Attila Demény
Financial regulations in basic research should be significantly simplified and based on trust and consequence. Very few researchers would risk her/his scientific life for a little profit that can be gained from misuse project money. The present financial regulations cause a lot of work without any result, that is waste of money.

11 Feb 17:26   Hungary   Institute for Geochemical Research, Hungarian Academy of Sciences  István Fórizs
Now time and money spent for administrative purposes in a framework of a project are unproportionally high, should be lowered.

11 Feb 23:27   Hungary   Institute of Experimental Medicine  Gabor Makara
Administrative burden is the single most important obstacle to the progress of European science. Please, remove as much red tape as possible.

28 Apr 15:38   Hungary   Institute of Experimental Medicine  Laszlo Acsady
I have already applied to Framework and it took to much of my research time.

7 May 09:35   Hungary   Institute of Isotopes, Hungarian Academy of Science  Zoltán Schay
In the case of a consorcium, the administrative burden is annoying when the formal positon of a partner organisation changes. In the case of the CONCORDE project it took more the 4 month to get all the paperwork done when the Institue of Isotope got an independent status and was split off the Chemical Research Centre. This change hindered the EU financing of the whole consortium.

11 Feb 23:10   Hungary   KFKI Research Institute for Particle and Nuclear Physics of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences  Fülöp Bazsó
Smaller administrative burden will produce more results.

6 May 15:08   Hungary   KFKI RMKI  Tamas Csorgo
Decrease the burden of administration and simplify the rules as much as reasonably possible but please increase funding to science and education in the EU.

23 Mar 14:05   Hungary   Plant Protection Institute of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences  Levente Kiss
As a participant in an FP7 project, I had to spend long weeks to get a simple ID number (PIC) from the FP7 system and had to face other bureocratic obstacles which did not help in any ways to achieve the goals of the project.

10 Mar 18:12   Hungary   Thormed Research, Development, Medical Device Manufacturing LLC  Gyorgy Ferenczi
We are spending more time with bureaucracy than work.
In the meantime our competitors in Asia, especially in China are working like hell.

We are losing ground ! The whole European Economy gets less and less competitive compared to Asia, especially China !

Simplify the bureaucracy !
Impose customs againist products from non-democratic countries, especially those ones that use illegal state aid to support their exports and keep their currency artificially low !

Wake up ! We are going in the wrong direction ! We are losing ground !

7 May 11:50   Hungary   University of Miskolc  Sandor Barany
I tried to participate in two EU founded projects but the administration was so horrible that I gave up

3 Mar 10:15   Hungary   University of Pécs  Lorand Bartho
We love working but hate administration!



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