Chinese campus signals Orbán’s tilt towards Beijing

Financial Times 23 January 2021

Hungary is to host the only Chinese university operating inside the European Union in a sign of deepening ties between the government of Viktor Orbán and Beijing, writes Valerie Hopkins for the Financial Times.

The Hungarian government will donate €2.2 million (US$2.7 million) to the Shanghai-based Fudan University for its new Budapest campus, which the authorities said would start operating in 2024. The announcement comes a year and a half after Central European University, founded by the billionaire philanthropist George Soros and previously the top-ranked institution in the country, was forced into exile by Orbán’s nationalist regime, after almost 30 years in the Hungarian capital.

Agnes Szunomár, a researcher at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, said the government’s accord with Fudan “is about unconditional love” between Hungary and China. “Quite a lot of countries in Europe have different agreements with Chinese universities, and many European universities collaborate with Chinese counterparts,” Szunomár said. However, she added that the agreement to bring Fudan to Budapest was evidence that Hungary is willing to undercut its own education system by bringing in a foreign competitor with greater global prestige and more resources than any domestic institution.
Full report on the Financial Times site

Receive email updates from UWN

Global newsletters    Africa newsletters    Other
    (other includes related events and webinars)

Data will be processed according to our standard terms & conditions.

Research focuses on production of jet fuel from halophytes

UAE University staff

With an eye to developing a clean, alternative aviation fuel to reduce carbon emissions, researchers at the United Arab Emirates University have been focusing on the production of jet fuel from sustainable resources such as halophytes, which are salt-tolerant plants that could be cultivated on a wider scale in the region’s coastal areas.

The value of being human: How teachers can work alongside AI

Michael Milligan

Artificial intelligence is now a part of our evolution in technology and teachers need to be encouraged to find ways to bring AI into the classroom and have students use it in a way that is beneficial to them in the long term.

Ground-breaking research on seawater biodesalination

UAE University staff

As water scarcity reaches critical levels globally, a research team at the United Arab Emirates University seeks to revolutionise seawater desalination practices, offering a path to mitigate water scarcity while championing environmental preservation.