The university was founded in 1635 in Nagyszombat, Kingdom of Hungary, (today Trnava, Slovakia) by the archbishop and theologian Péter Pázmány. Leadership was given over to the Jesuits. Initially the university only had two colleges (College of Arts and College of Theology). The College of
Law was added in 1667 and the College of
Medicine was started in 1769. After the dissolution of the Jesuit order, the university was moved to Buda (today part of Budapest) in 1777 in accordance with the intention of the founder. The university moved to its final location in Pest (now also part of Budapest) in 1784. The language of
education was Latin until 1844, when Hungarian was introduced as an official language. Women have been allowed to enroll since 1895.
Eötvös Loránd University is a Hungarian public research university based in Budapest. ELTE is one of the largest and the most prestigious public higher
education institutions in Hungary. The 28,000 students at ELTE are organized into eight faculties, and into research institutes located throughout Budapest and on the scenic banks of the Danube. ELTE is affiliated with 5 Nobel laureates, as well as winners of the Wolf Prize, Fulkerson Prize and Abel Prize, the latest of which was Abel Prize winner Endre Szemerédi in 2012.
ELTE is Hungarys largest scientific establishment with 118 PhD programs at 17 doctoral schools, and also offers 38 bachelors programs, 96 masters programs, and over 50 degree programs in foreign languages. The course credits awarded are transferable to universities in Europe through the Bologna process.
The eight faculties are: Faculty of
Law and Political Sciences (ÁJK), Bárczi Gusztáv Faculty of Special
Education (BGGyK), Faculty of
Humanities (BTK), Faculty of Informatics (IK), Faculty of
Education and
Psychology (PPK), Faculty of Social Sciences (TáTK),Faculty of Elementary and Nursery School Teachers Training (TÓK), Faculty of Science (TTK)
Some of the notable alumni are:
Nobel prize winners: Lénárd Fülöp, Nobel Prize for Physics (1905), Albert Szent-Györgyi, Nobel Prize in
Physiology or
Medicine for discoverer of
Vitamin C (1937), Hevesy György, Nobel Prize for Chemistry (1943), Békésy György, Nobel Prize in
Physiology or
Medicine (1961), Harsányi János, Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences (1994)
Other notable alumni: Miklós Ajtai, computer scientist; Knuth Prize (2003), József Antall, Prime Minister of Hungary, 1990-1993, Wilhelm Bacher, Jewish Hungarian scholar, rabbi, Orientalist and linguist, Albert-László Barabási, physicist, concept of scale-free networks, C&C Prize (2008), Therese Benedek, Hungarian-American psychoanalyst, Károly Bezdek, mathematician, Christine L. Borgman,
information science researcher and educator, Zoltán Dörnyei, applied linguist, Ahn Eak-tai, Korean classical composer, Paul ErdÅ‘s, mathematician,Péter Esterházy, novelist
Last Updated on: Nov 27, 2024