Ferenc Rabar

Between 1950 and 1955, he worked in planning and accounting positions for commercial and transport companies. Between 1955 and 1960, he was a group leader in the Directorate of Economic Railways at the Ministry of Transport and Postal Services.

Between 1960 and 1965, he was the head of the Mathematical Models and Computer Applications Department of the Institute of Industrial Economics and Computer Science (KGM ISZSZI) of the Ministry of Metallurgy and Mechanical Industry. Here, his outstanding organizational and group communication skills were evident: in a short time, he organized an operations research group of excellent and ambitious young mathematicians.

In 1965, he was invited by the Central Statistical Office (KSH) to found and lead an independent institution, the Information Processing Laboratory (Infelor), dealing with the research and development of computer applications. The institute, which quickly grew to over 400 people, became an institute with a leading spirit of the time, operating with freedom and openness in contrast to the trends of the time. It became a model for the feasibility of a social model based on human dignity and personal freedom. Many of the later key figures in Hungarian IT life emerged from the walls of this Laboratory, “genetically carrying” the spirit of the “Rabári School”. As part of his own research at this time, he dealt with the simulation of energy systems.

In 1975, he was invited to Laxenburg, Austria, to the International Institute for Applied System Analysis (IIASA), as head of the agricultural program. Here, his international community of scientists (including Nobel laureates) developed agricultural models for 25 countries. During his time there, from 1975 to 1983 and again from 1985 to 1987, he also headed the environmental program.

Between 1982 and 1985, he was a senior research fellow at the Marx Károly University of Economics (MKKE) and then the acting head of department at the National Planning Office (OT), where he gained expertise in the mysteries of national economic planning.

He returned to university in 1987, and was then invited by József Antall to serve in his government as Minister of Finance. Ferenc Rabár held this position as a non-partisan from May 23, 1990 to December 20, 1990, when he voluntarily resigned due to internal disagreements within the cabinet and the minor obstruction of his crucial role in consolidating the taxi blockade.

Between 1991 and 1994, he was the director of the Christian Democratic Political Academy. From 1991, he was an associate professor at the Budapest University of Technology (BME), then a university professor between 1993 and 1996. Between 1996 and 1999, he was a university professor at the Pázmány Péter Catholic University (PPKE).

He has published numerous works of journalism, a selection of which can be found attached. His posthumous work is "The Loneliness of the Tightrope Walker - Selected Writings" (Osiris Publishing House, 2002), in the foreword of which Tamás Bácskai analyzes Ferenc Rabár's oeuvre.