mistry, estimates Stojek. Chemical industry growth is now slow, although Stojek and Hulanicki recite stories of students who have recently launched small businesses to supply speciality items such as high-quality acetone and research-grade mi-

croelectrodes. "These very small compa­nies will survive," predicts Hulanicki.

There are jobs in academia, especially for students trained in top laboratories. The equivalent of American tenure comes with the title doctor of habilitation (dok-

tor habilitowany). This promotion re­quires about 30 publications in widely dis­tributed journals, says Stojek. In addi­tion, candidates undergo a grueling review before a scientific committee that evalu­ates their research program and asks

The Technical University of Budapest

South to Hungary Although it sits geographically due south of Poland, Hungary has always considered itself part of central rather than eastern Europe, perhaps because of its long political association with Austria. Hungary has a long history of foreign domination and brave, but doomed, uprisings—first against the Turks in the 17th century, then the Hapsburgs in 1848, the Germans in World War II, and finally the Soviet Union in 1956.

Throughout changes in political cli­mate, Hungarian chemistry adjusted and endured. For example, constant cur­rent coulometry and coulometric titra­tion appear to have been developed as a result of work by two Hungarian scien­tists, L. Szebelledy and Z. Somogyi, in 1938. Because of wartime restrictions on scientific communication, their arti­cles were not generally available until af­ter the end of the war when their work was expanded and refined in the west by J. J. Lingane and his students, includ­ing Allen Bard and Fred Anson.

When the Iron Curtain fell in 1990, Hungarian science entered yet another period of adjustment. "The key word for the nineties is 'transition'," says Ti-bor Braun, a professor of analytical chemistry at the Lorand Eotvos Univer­sity in Budapest and Director of the Information Science & Scientometrics Research Unit at the Library of the

Hungarian Academy of Sciences. Because most Hungarians had spent their entire adult lives under socialist rule, and thus knew nothing about life in a market econ­omy, says Braun, adjusting to the lack of automatic funding for research, as well as the competition for grants, is proving to be difficult for most.

At least some Hungarian scientists, however, are looking to the west and ap­pear to be using international collabora­tion as a means of counterbalancing the diminishing government support. In the 1980s, says Braun, only 15% of the pa­pers published by Hungarian scientists were a result of international collabora­tion. In contrast, more than 55% of the pa­pers published during the past few years have international authorship, primarily with scientists in the United States and Germany More than 95% of the papers pub­lished by Hungarian scientists between 1990 and 1994 were publlshed in Engllsh and only 3% were publlshed in Hungarian

Much of this published research is per­formed at the Central Research Institute for Chemistry of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. Located in the Buda section of Budapest, across the Danube from the academy headquarters, the Central Re­search Institute for Chemistry was founded in 1954 and includes laboratories devoted to optical spectroscopy (primari­ly IR and Raman), MS, NMR spectrome­try, and chromatography. Although the labs relatively well equipped (the MS lab has three instruments including a high-resolution hybrid MS/MS that perform EI CI FAB and thermospray ion­ization) monev for staffing and supplies i always short

secretary of the institute

The current lack of government fund­ing has caused the focus of the institute's research to shift from basic to applied research, much of which is supported by Hungary's growing pharmaceutical indus­

try. Only 35% of the institute's activity is now devoted to "pure science," a number Vinkler believes is much too low for the scientific health of the insti­tute and the country. 'We need to per­form sufficient pure science," he says, "to stimulate future applications." With only 40% of the institute's budget com­ing from the Academy and another 15% from foundations and various EU projects however Vinkler sees the em­phasis on "practical applications for results" as likely to continue for the foreseeable future

Changes are also underway in the Hungarian educational system. At the Faculty of Chemistry and Chemical En­gineering of the Technical University of Budapest, the country's largest insti­tution of higher education, the num­ber of students has increased over the past few years, but the number of fac­ulty positions has decreased dramati­cally because of severe budget cuts. As 3. result Sciy Professors Gyorgy Pokol and Klara Toth the faculty is changing to a more American style of graduate education The traditional European system of a five-year basic university education leading to the equivalent of a master ' s degree will cont inue but

students will now have a m f lre

formal propram of studies similar to that used hv American universities

A potential problem for Hungar­ian science is a recent slight decline in the number of published papers. Braun postulates that with the borders to the west now open, increasing numbers of Hungarian scientists, hav­ing collaborated with American or Eu­ropean colleagues, are emigrating to the west or at least giving up their Hungarian institutional affiliation. But even then, says Braun, they still con­sider themselves Hungarian.

Mary Warner

Analytical Chemistry News & Features, July 1, 1996 423 A