Building on a history of research excellence

Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE) is the oldest continuously operating and largest university in Hungary. With five Nobel Prize winners among its alumni, it’s not surprising that it has a commitment to producing outstanding research. Two of its academics were recently awarded prestigious Consolidator Grants from the European Research Council (ERC), which fund scientists to establish cutting-edge research teams.   

Gergely Endrődi, a professor at the Institute of Physics and Astronomy at ELTE, recently joined the university from the physics department at the University of Bielefeld in Germany. His focus is on understanding how particles of matter interacted after the Big Bang almost 14 billion years ago. After an initial state of intense heat, the universe expanded and cooled, which allowed for the fundamental particles to form composite states.

“My research looks at the elementary particles of nature to explain how this cooling and expansion took place,” Endrődi explains. “We can only do this through large-scale simulations using supercomputers.” ELTE and other Hungarian institutions have a strong reputation for research in lattice field theory – a means of understanding how particles interact – so this was a natural destination for Endrődi to build his research team, starting in early 2025. 

Ambrus Kaposi, associate professor at the Institute of Computer Science at ELTE, received his ERC grant to support research into higher observational type theory (HOTT), a new system that aims to provide an “explainable, computational, efficient” metatheory for structural mathematics. Basic type theory describes how we classify and organise information in maths and computer programming, and means we can explain or prove whether a calculation is correct and why. HOTT takes this a step further, with research beginning in May 2025. “My focus is to improve type theory in certain aspects, making it more accessible to ordinary mathematicians,” Kaposi says. “The traditional foundations of type theory are usable for computer checking but are further away from informal reasoning. My new theory brings formal and informal reasoning closer to each other.” 

Some of the world’s most powerful computers will be used to solve the underlying equations for Endrődi’s research, so financial and practical support from ELTE, the Research Grant Hungary and the ERC grant have been crucial to the success of the project. “The grants are generous and give me the freedom to build up the computing infrastructure and an international research team that is competitive worldwide,” he says. This is fundamental research that improves understanding of particle physics that could inform how physicists approach theoretical problems using supercomputers in years to come, he adds.  

ELTE’s long-standing excellence in theoretical computer science provided an ideal foundation for Kaposi’s research, along with tailored assistance during the grant application. He took his undergraduate degree at ELTE and was keen to return after his PhD at the University of Nottingham. “They gave me complete freedom to work on what I was interested in,” he says. As a hub for research excellence in Central and Eastern Europe, ELTE’s commitment to such projects ensure it will remain at the forefront of academia in the region for many years to come. 

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