1 Disciplinary Barriers between the Social Sciences and Humanities National Report on Hungary

Hungarian higher education underwent a number of reforms during the last century and in 2004 it is again being transformed. In order to understand the extent of the changes, and the specific meaning of certain concepts that emerge in relation to this process, it is important to look back on the beginning of the last century, when a major re-structuring of the system of higher education took place. In explaining the changes, it is also necessary to keep in mind the special dynamics of these events. While political power, on the one hand, influences the organisation of administration and the content of curricula with the intention of bringing about fast and thorough changes, actual modifications of institutional structures are always slower to follow. At the beginning of the 20th century there were a number of problematic issues relating to university education, one of them concerning the question of academic freedom. The autonomy of universities at the time was relatively limited in terms of personal, educational and economic questions, and it was restricted to the internal organisation only, which was rather bureaucratic and slow. The head of the state could appoint professors without the approval of the university, and the highest state authorities had to confirm the appointments o