Humanities Section

Call for Papers
38^th National Student Research Conference
Humanities Section

1. General information, organizers

Venue:

Eszterházy Károly Catholic University
Faculty of Humanities
Address: 3300 Eger, Eszterházy tér 1.
Phone: +36 (62) 520-400
Website: https://uni-eszterhazy.hu/

Section website: htotdk38.uni-eszterhazy.hu
E-mail: htotdk38@uni-eszterhazy.hu
12^th – 14^th April 2027

The National Association for Student Research (OTDT), the Humanities Section Committee of the OTDT and Eszterházy Károly Catholic University (Faculty of Humanities) as the host institution hereby announce the Humanities Section of the 38^th National Student Research Conference (OTDK) and specify the conditions of participation in the present call for papers.

The conditions of participation and registration in the Humanities Section of the 38^th OTDK are established by the General Call of the 38^th OTDK and the present Call of the OTDT Humanities Committee together.

2. Eligibility Criteria

2.1 Who is eligible to participate?

TDK papers are eligible for the 38^th National Student Research Conference (OTDK) on condition that the author (in the case of multi-author papers, each and every author) meets the eligibility criteria listed in the General Call for the 38^th OTDK.

Please note that students who have already obtained a PhD degree are not eligible to qualify for the OTDK at the institutional round. Students who already hold a degree obtained in a master’s program or an integrated master’s program and who were also enrolled in a doctoral program at the time of the institutional TDK conference may not participate in the 38^th OTDK with a TDK paper on the same topic as their doctoral research. These students must declare the topic of their doctoral research during the application to the 38^th OTDK.

The TDK papers submitted to and accepted for the 38^th OTDK must be presented in person and orally in the sessions, following the preliminary written evaluation. In exceptional force majeure cases, the organizers may, on a case-by-case basis, allow online presentation. Priorly scheduled and freely interruptible stays abroad – such as those for study or employment purposes – do not qualify as force majeure cases.

Students of cross-border universities and colleges may participate in the 38^th OTDK under the same conditions as students in Hungary. Details are available in the General Call of the 38^th OTDK.

The conference is also open to secondary school students in Hungary and across borders who present their research results at conferences of higher education institutions or national high school student research conferences (for details see Supplement 4 of the General Call for the 38^th OTDK) and are nominated for the 38^th OTDK. A detailed description of the participation of secondary school students is available in the General Call of the 38^th OTDK.

2.2 Content requirements for the TDK paper

The TDK paper must be an original academic essay based on independent research conducted by the applicants during their undergraduate studies, with which they qualify for the 38^th OTDK at the institutional student research conference during their undergraduate years.

A TDK paper can be submitted to the OTDK only once and in one section only. If an author submits multiple TDK papers, they must submit a statement during the application process to clarify that there is no substantial and significant overlap between their papers.

During the verification of submissions, the Section Committee and the Section Organizers will also check the TDK papers concerned for potential overlaps. The Section Committee may determine that the papers overlap to an unacceptable extent and request the author(s) to choose one of them for presentation; the other submissions by the same author(s) will be disqualified and deleted from the OTDT online system. If the author(s) of multiple papers fail(s) to submit the relevant declaration during the application process, all papers submitted by them will be disqualified.

The language of the 38^th OTDK is Hungarian, as specified in the General Call of the 38^th OTDK. In foreign language sessions, oral presentations may be delivered in Hungarian or in the designated foreign language for that session; however, the organizers of the Humanities Section reserve the right to specify the language of presentations for each session. Participants will be informed about the language of the sessions no later than 10 days before the start of the Section, by which deadline the organizers will also publish this information on the Section’s website. The intention to give the presentation in a foreign language must be indicated during registration in the OTDT online system.

Non-Hungarian native speakers with a student status at Hungarian higher education institutions may submit their TDK papers and deliver their presentations in English. If they are students majoring in a foreign language (other than English), they may also submit their TDK papers and deliver their presentations in the language of their program.

All TDK papers submitted to the 38^th OTDK will be subject to a plagiarism check. The resultant plagiarism reports will be assessed by a special committee of three, set up by the Humanities Section Committee. Applicants are strongly advised to note that plagiarism in any form is prohibited, and even one’s own work may not be cited without proper referencing (prohibition of self-plagiarism). TDK papers that are proven to infringe copyright will be disqualified from the 38^th OTDK by the OTDT. The nominating institution will be notified about the plagiarism case immediately.

Please note that the OTDT Code of Ethics specifies the ethical principles of the TDKs and the OTDK, as well as the ethical procedures applicable to students engaged in research and creative artwork, to faculty members and researchers undertaking related tasks, and to the various bodies of the OTDT. The current Code of Ethics is available on the OTDT website.

The rules governing the use of artificial intelligence (AI) are set forth in Supplement 6 of the General Call of the 38^th OTDK. The author(s) must submit a statement about the use of AI in the OTDT online system during the application of the TDK paper to the 38^th OTDK.

The explosive advancement in artificial intelligence (AI) may lead to significant changes in academic research, including activities within the student research community. The Humanities Section expects AI systems to be used in a responsible, ethical, and transparent manner. Even when using AI-generated texts, the applicant remains responsible for any inaccuracies in the TDK paper, as well as for the correctness of the content and conclusions, and the factual accuracy of the text. The submitted TDK paper can be accepted as the applicant’s own work only if its substantive content is genuinely and clearly the result of independent effort. In the humanities, this particularly includes the independent formulation of the research problem, the reading and interpretation of sources and literature by the applicant, their processing and handling according to their own perspective, and the planning and writing of the text. These activities may not be delegated to artificial intelligence. The submitted TDK paper can only be accepted as the applicant’s own work if its substantive content is genuinely and clearly the result of independent effort. The applicant must document in the submitted TDK paper for what purposes and in what manner they relied on AI-based systems during its preparation. The Humanities Section Committee will treat misuse of AI systems in the same manner as plagiarism, applying necessary and reasonable methods and procedures to verify independent work.

2.3 Formal requirements for the TDK paper

General requirements:

The Section accepts both anonymized TDK papers and those including author information.

All TDK papers must include the closing date (month, year).

TDK papers that do not meet the minimum character limit set by the Humanities Section or exceed the maximum number of characters cannot be uploaded to the OTDT online system.

The TDK paper must be uploaded in PDF format. The maximum file size is 10 MB. A supplementary document may be uploaded, which does not count toward the maximum page limit, and it must be uploaded as a single file to the OTDT online system. The file containing the supplementary document has a maximum size of 10 megabytes.

General formal requirements

Font: Times New Roman
Font size: 12 pt
Line spacing: 1.5
Margin: 2.5 cm

Section-specific requirements

The length of the TDK paper must be between a minimum of 40,000 and a maximum of 90,000 characters (including spaces), which includes the cover, (foot)notes, the table of contents, and the bibliography, but excludes supplements. The supplements can be uploaded as supplementary documents to the OTDT online system, following the description for the supplementary document above.

Rules for the abstract

An abstract written in the same language as the TDK paper must be uploaded to the OTDT system.

Only the body text must be uploaded to the OTDT online system, other data (names of the co-authors, name of the institution, name of the supervisor(s), position, etc.) are generated by the OTDT online system.

The length of the abstract is minimum 500 and maximum 2,500 characters.

3. Sessions/topics

3.1 Planned sessions/topics

1. Aesthetics
2. Film studies
3. Philosophy
4. Translation studies
5. Children’s and young adult literature and culture
6. Library and information science
7. Hungarian literary and cultural studies
8. Literature and culture of modern languages
9. Culture and cultural theory
10. Art history
11. Ethnography
12. Linguistics
13. Classical studies – Classical philology
14. Oriental studies
15. Comparative literature and cultural studies
16. Archaeology
17. Theatre studies
18. History
19. Religious and theological studies
20. Visual culture

During registration, students must indicate the session in which they wish to present their TDK paper. The Humanities Section Committee will make the final decision regarding the session assignment of each TDK paper.

3.2 Rules for setting up sessions and final session assignment

The fundamental rules for the establishment of the sessions are included in the General Call of the 38^th OTDK. Based on the topics and number of TDK papers submitted, the Humanities Section Committee may merge sessions or create additional ones. An independent session may only be established if at least 6 TDK papers from a minimum of two institutions are submitted for the topic, with the additional condition that at least 5 of the 6-15 papers assigned to the session are presented at the 38^th OTDK. If the number of TDK papers to be presented in a given session is fewer than 5, that session may be merged with another session at the discretion of the Chair of the Humanities Section Committee. The Humanities Section Committee reserves the right to redirect papers that do not pertain to the academic fields of the Humanities Section – while thanking the applicant for their submission – to a more relevant section of the 38^th National Student Research Conference.

The final decision on the sessions, and the session assignment of the TDK papers will be made by the Humanities Section Committee. Students will be informed of their decision via the OTDT online system by 26 March 2027 at the latest.

4. Written and oral evaluation of TDK papers

The TDK papers submitted will be evaluated in writing by two reviewers. This may also take place within the framework of session panel-based reviewing, during which all TDK papers assigned to a given session are evaluated in writing by the members of the respective Session Panel. The purpose of the written review is to examine the independent research results achieved by the student and to provide feedback in the form of points and a substantive summary evaluation of the paper’s content. The criteria for the written review were established by the OTDT Humanities Section Committee. The online review form approved by the Section Committee provides further detailed guidelines for the written evaluation.

4.1 Evaluation criteria for the TDK paper and its oral presentation

I. Evaluation of the research paper

 II. Evaluation of the presentation of the TDK paper

A total of 100 points can be awarded for the TDK paper (30 points from each of the two reviewers and an additional 40 points for the oral presentation). Only those TDK papers that receive at least 35 points from the two reviewers combined may proceed to the 38^th OTDK.

If there is a difference of 13 points or more between the scores given by the two academic reviewers, a third reviewer must be appointed. In this case, the final score of the paper will be the sum of the two closest scores.

The organizers of the Humanities Section will strive to make the written evaluations available for authors in the OTDT online system ten days before the conference at the latest. At this time, the identity of the reviewers will also be disclosed to the author(s). To ensure compliance with this deadline, the organizers aim to implement session panel-based reviewing as widely as possible. If not all reviews of a TDK paper are completed by 10 days before the conference, the paper will not be excluded from the 38^th OTDK for this reason. Any reviews received later will be made available to the authors upon their receipt.

The time-frame for oral presentations includes 20 minutes for the talk, followed by a 10-minute Q&A.

Local student research conferences are warmly advised to apply the above criteria in their evaluation.

5. Registration process

5.1. To do list for student researchers

1. Pre-registration of TDK papers

After the institutional student research conference and within 30 days of the email specified in point 4 of Supplement 2 of the General Call for the 38^th OTDK, student researchers are to upload their TDK paper in PDF format in the OTDT online system and select their preferred OTDK section. Participants who qualify for the 38^th OTDK at an institutional/faculty student research conference held within 30 days before the registration deadline for the Humanities Section of the 38^th OTDK, must upload their TDK paper to the OTDT online system by the registration deadline of the Humanities Section, even if that allows them less than 30 days for submitting their TDK papers.

ATTENTION! Please note that uploading a TDK paper does not automatically entail registration for the 38^th OTDK. Registration must be completed within the registration period – see the steps below.

2. Registration

Registration period: 16^th November 2026 – 13^th January 2027 (Wednesday), 16:00 (CET)

Registration deadline: 13^th January 2027 (Wednesday), 16:00 (CET)

Students’ tasks during the registration period:

• Fill in the online registration form in the OTDT system and provide all necessary information about yourself and your paper.
• Upload your abstract in accordance with the criteria of this call.
• On the abstract upload page, provide five keywords that do not appear in the title of your paper.
• Finalize the application in the OTDT online system.

Given that the new OTDT online system to be introduced for the 38^th OTDK is not yet operational, further instructions from the OTDT Office will clarify the technical details regarding the upload of registration documents (registration form and relevant statements listed below). Please follow the https://otdk.hu/ website closely for updates.

Statements to be submitted in the OTDT online system:

(1.) On the use of AI (applicable to all authors)

(2.) On the (expected) date of obtaining the pre-degree certificate (applicable only to authors specified in Section 4.2 of Supplement 2 to the General Call)

(3.) On the lack of overlaps between TDK papers submitted by the same author(s) (applicable only to authors submitting multiple papers)

(4.) On the doctoral research topic (applicable only to students who, at the time of the institutional TDK conference qualifying them for the 38^th OTDK, held both an undergraduate and a PhD student status)

The Section does not require printed documentation from students during the application process.

After the students’ registration deadline – 13^th January 2027 (Wednesday), 16:00 (CET) – it will no longer be possible for students to upload documents in the OTDT online system.

5.2. To do list of the institutional TDT chairs

5.2.1 After the student research conference:

Please, upload the documents of the student research conference and send them to the OTDT Office. For details, see point 3 of Supplement 2 of the General Call for the 38^th OTDK.

5.2.2 After the students’ registration deadline:

• Approve registrations from your institution in the OTDT online system (registrations are automatically approved, you will not have anything to do with this, unless you disapprove of a registration).
• In the OTDT online system, approve the register of TDK papers and authors your institution has entered into the Humanities Section, and/or
• Generate the register from the online system, and add your electronic signature to it, or print it off, sign and scan it. Upload to the OTDT online system.

By approving/signing the register, the TDT Chairs also declare that all TDK papers and their authors included therein meet the requirements specified in Supplement 2 to the General Call of the 38^th OTDK.

The Section does not require print documentation from institutions in the course of the registration process.

Deadline for institutional/faculty TDT Chairs to upload documents to the OTDT online system: 18^th January 2027 (Monday) 16:00 (CET). After the deadline it will no longer be possible to upload application documents in the OTDT online system.

Applications submitted individually are invalid.

6. (Notification of) acceptance

In order to present their papers at the 38^th OTDK, authors must comply with all the registration rules listed above and their registration must be accepted by both the OTDT Office and the host institution of the Humanities Section. The OTDT Office, the Humanities Section Committee and the host institution assess registrations together and students will be notified electronically through the OTDT online system about their decision to accept or reject them. The TDT Chairs/Referents of the sending institutions can track the registrations through the OTDT online system, including acceptance, rejection or a request for missing documents.

7. Awards at the 38^th OTDK

At the 38^th OTDK, ranked awards (1st, 2nd, 3rd place) based on the written reviews and oral presentation may be granted, as well as special prizes of the Session Panel. A maximum of one first-place award may be given per session, and the total number of awards may not exceed one-third of the number of entries submitted to the Humanities Section. The Section Panel may award a special prize to those papers that do not achieve ranking but are judged by the Session Panel to be worthy of recognition on the basis of their professional merit (total points), and which are judged to be immediately behind the winning applications. The total number of TDK papers awarded a ranked place or a special prize by the Session Panel may not exceed 50% of the number of TDK papers presented. Further regulations on professional recognition are set out in Supplement 3 to the General Call of the 38th OTDK.

8. The Pro Scientia Gold Medal application

Following the conference, the first-place winners of each session in each section – if they meet the additional criteria outlined in the call – may apply for the Pro Scientia Gold Medal. Institutions may also nominate their consistently outstanding instructors in talent development for the OTDK Gold Medal. Details of this are provided in Supplement 5 of the 38^th OTDK General Call.

9. Registration and conference fees

The registration and conference fees will be decided at a later stage, subject to the availability of resources.

All motivated students and their supervisors are warmly invited to join the event!

Budapest, 21 April 2026

• 38th OTDK Humanities Section Call