Abstract
Being Hungarian is a good recommendation in international scientific circles. (As a native of Hungary, I can particularly appreciate this since I have been bearing the name of another country on my badge, occasionally experiencing a prejudice of the opposite sense ... ) Hungarians are widely perceived as more than commonly productive in mathematics and science, and while this may partly be an exaggerated myth, there is undoubtedly some core of truth to it. This is shown for instance by the widely publicized fact that relative to its population, Hungary is very much overrepresented among the birth countries of Nobel prize winners. A number of studies
have convincingly linked this excellence of Hungarians in science to the characteristics of the country's educational system [1]. In fact, if you want to make a case for a direct cause-effect relationship between investment in education and excellence in science, Hungary may be one of the most clear-cut cases on offer.