The Budapest Fellowship Program enters its third year – Széchenyi's American descendant to conduct research in Hungary

At the initiative of Mathias Corvinus Collegium and The Hungary Foundation, the Budapest Fellowship Program was launched in 2022 to offer American researchers a 10- month fellowship in Hungary. The Budapest Fellowship Program aims, on the one hand, to provide fellows with tangible, useful professional experience and knowledge about Hungary and Central and Eastern Europe, and, on the other hand, to allow MCC students to learn about not only domestic but also international approaches and to get acquainted with other countries and cultures as well. Fellows will be able to benefit from their first-hand knowledge of our country in the United States.

Anna Smith Lacey, director of the Hungary Foundation, said the program was launched two years ago with the aim of nuancing Hungary's image in the US. Smith Lacey explained that the program's participants range across a relatively wide spectrum of political affiliations. During their stay, the fellows will participate in a series of history seminars, Hungarian language classes, and film and book discussions to learn more about Hungarian culture through the works of Krisztián Nyáry, Antal Szerb and Imre Madách, among others. The program also aims to showcase the built and cultural values that make Hungary great, and to cultivate a community of researchers who understand and, not least, feel Hungary.

MCC Director General Zoltán Szalai added that the Budapest Fellowship Program was the fruit of the close and good cooperation between the Hungary Foundation and MCC. According to the expert, one of the unique features of the program is that the participants get to know the Hungarian language and culture in depth, as only with this knowledge can they understand the events in Hungary. Moreover, the researchers who come here will be able to meet researchers not only from Hungary but also from other countries in the Carpathian Basin. The Director General stressed that the researchers who have completed the program are considered as experts in their home countries and some have stayed in Hungary to continue their research even after the end of the program. Zoltán Szalai highlighted that MCC will start the academic year with a record number of nearly 6,000 students this year.

The new cohort of the Budapest Fellowship Program will include four more US researchers from September this year. Tom Pearson is a lawyer who graduated from George Mason University. He spent 6 years in Cambodia, where he taught law at the Royal University of Law & Economics and was responsible for two of the university's English LL.M. programs. Before joining the BLF, he worked as a legal consultant. At the Institute for Foreign Affairs and Trade, he will conduct research on the geopolitical context of the Russia-Ukraine war and energy security.

Luke Larson graduated from Minnesota State University with a degree in International Relations in 2017 and studied theology at the University of Saint Thomas before becoming a certified English teacher. From 2020 until joining the BLF, he worked as an English teacher at Szent László Catholic High School in Kisvárda. During his time there, he had the opportunity to develop his language skills and is now confident in everyday conversations in Hungarian. He will be doing research at the Research Institute for National Policy. His research topic is the situation of Christian values in post-communist countries.

Hungary's relations with the European Union and Russia will be the focus of the research conducted at the Danube Institute by Logan West who holds degrees in International Studies and Strategic Intelligence Studies from Ohio State University and the Institute for World Politics. Prior to his admission to the BLF, he worked as a foreign policy analyst at the Jacobs Corporation.

Bence Szechenyi's research topic is the refugee crisis in Ukraine, which he will study at the Migration Research Institute. He graduated in English Literature from Bates College in 2021 and spent a year in Hungary as a Fulbright Fellow. During his stay, he wrote a series of essays on his predecessor, István Széchenyi, in which he explored the impact of his legacy on contemporary Hungarian politics.