Professor József Bokor Receives This Year’s HUN-REN Excellence Award

The HUN-REN Excellence Award is presented to researchers who have gained wide recognition in both national and international scientific communities, have demonstrated outstanding scientific performance over many years, and have achieved exceptional research results and patents.

As a moral and financial recognition of outstanding professional work, the award is given annually to a researcher working at a research site under the direction of HUN-REN Headquarters. The 2024 HUN-REN Excellence Award was presented to Professor József Bokor during the HUN-REN Award Ceremony Gala held at the Hungarian National Museum on 5 December.

Professor József Bokor is an electrical engineer, university professor, full member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, and Director of Research at the HUN-REN Institute for Computer Science and Control (HUN-REN SZTAKI). He graduated in 1972 from the Faculty of Electrical Engineering at the Budapest University of Technology (BME), specialising in automation. He earned his Ph.D. in 1977 and his D.Sc. in 1990. From 2011 to 2017, he was a member of the HAS Presidium, serving as its Vice-President from 2017 to 2020. He was delegated by HAS to the Governing Board of the Eötvös Loránd Research Network, where he held the position of Vice-President from 2020 to 2023.

He has been teaching at the Budapest University of Technology and Economics since 1982, is an honorary professor at the Hungarian University of Agriculture and Life Sciences, and serves as the President of the Vehicle Industry Research Center at Széchenyi István University in Győr. He is also a Doctor Honoris Causa of Óbuda University and the Politehnica University of Timișoara.

He has held visiting research positions at Imperial College London, MIT, and Delft University. He is an Adjunct Research Professor at the Department of Aerospace Engineering and Mechanics of the University of Minnesota and has participated in NASA, ONR, and NSF research projects.

He is the recipient of the Széchenyi Prize, the Middle Cross of the Hungarian Order of Merit, the Simonyi Award, the Donát Bánki Award, the Apáczai Award, the Héliosz Award, and the Dénes Gábor Award. He is a Fellow of the International Federation of Automatic Control (IFAC) and a Life Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). He has also served as a member of the IFAC Council.

His research focuses on the theory and control of multivariable linear and nonlinear dynamic systems, with applications in the design of vehicle structures and vehicle dynamics models both in Hungary and globally. He is the author or co-author of more than 10 specialised books and 600 scientific papers, which have received thousands of citations.