ABSTRACT
In 1972 the economic policies began to be more cautious and moved backwards into the direction of a recentralization – as an effect of the concerns within the left wing of the Communist Party about rising social cleavages due to income differences. Strategic technological and economic goals were written down in the National Medium Term research and development (R&D) Plan in 1981. In the early years of the New Economic Mechanism (NEM) Hungary’s catching-up with Western Europe seemed doable. One of the ways the NEM wanted to facilitate this rapid economic development was the integration of industrial research and industry. Between 1967 and 1973 the Hungarian economy’s average annual rate of growth was 6.2%. The first economic associations with Magyar Tudomanyos Akademia institutes were formed in 1978. The policy maker’s wanted to foster exports to market economies in order to be able to import technology in the form of capital goods such as machinery.
