The KEMPELEN Academy of Sciences Foundation pays tribute to the memory of its founding president, Géza Szőcs. It was his idea to reach out to and bring together university professors and researchers who had started their careers in Hungary and then gone on to pursue ambitious professional careers in Western countries. This is how we were able to hold the first Scientists’ Meeting in 2018. Géza Szőcs initiated the establishment of the Foundation and invited the founders. The powers that be did not allow him to live to see the registration of the KEMPELEN Foundation.
We continue our activities as Géza Szőcs had envisioned. In December 2025, we held the eighth Scientists’ Meeting, organized by the University of Dunaújváros.
Géza Szőcs (1953-2020) was a poet, writer, playwright, politician, chief cultural advisor to the Prime Minister, and chairman of the board of VALOR HUNGARIAE Zrt. He was born in Marosvásárhely, attended high school in Kolozsvár, and graduated from the Faculty of Arts at the University of Kolozsvár.
He was a well-known figure in the resistance against the Ceaușescu dictatorship, a civil rights activist, and editor of the underground publication Ellenpontok (Counterpoints) in 1981-1982. From 1989 to 1990, he was the head of Radio Free Europe’s Budapest office. From 1990 to 1993, as secretary-general of the Hungarian Democratic Union of Romania (RMDSz), he planned and directed the structural development of the organization. From 1990 to 1992, he was a senator for the city of Cluj-Napoca. For two years, he was a special guest of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (April 22, 1991 – February 1, 1993). From 1996 to 2000, he was a member of the governing bodies of Duna TV and the Hungária Public Foundation, from 2010 to 2012 he was State Secretary for Culture, and from 2011 until his death on November 4, 2020, he was president of the Hungarian Pen Club. From 2014 to 2016, he was a government commissioner, and from 2015, he also served as president of the National Library Board of Trustees.
Literary legacy: 30 volumes of poetry, prose, and drama.
He received numerous awards, including: the Graves Prize (1986), the Füst Milán Prize (1986), the Déry Tibor Prize (1992), the Bethlen Gábor Prize (1993), the József Attila Prize (1993), the Grand Prize of the European Academy of Vienna (2009), the Giacomo Leopardi Prize (2010), the Hungarian Laurel Wreath Award (2013), the Knight’s Cross of the Austrian Army (2014), the Kossuth Prize (2015), the Széchenyi Heritage Certificate (2020), and Knight of Hungarian Culture (2023, posthumously).