Law and Political Science Section

Call for Papers
38th National Student Research Conference
Law and Political Science Section

1. General Information, Organizers

Organizer of the event:
Eötvös Loránd University
Faculty of Law

Section website address: https://otdk2027.ajk.elte.hu
Section e-mail address: otdk2027@ajk.elte.hu
Date of the event: March 31, 2027 – April 2, 2027

The National Association for Student Research (OTDT), the Section Committee for Law and Political Science of the OTDT and the organizing Faculty of Law of the Eötvös Loránd University hereby announce the Law and Political Science Section of the 38th National Student Research Conference under the conditions of the following call.

The conditions for participation and registration in the Law and Political Science Section of the 38th OTDK are set out in the General Call of the 38th OTDK and in this Call of the OTDT Law and Political Science Committee.

2. Eligibility Criteria

2.1 Who is eligible to participate

In the 38th National Student Research Conference (OTDK), TDK papers and authors (in the case of multi-author TDK papers, all authors) may participate that meet the conditions specified in the General Call for the 38th National Student Research Conference (details are provided in Supplement 2 of the General Call for the 38th OTDK.)

If a TDK paper has multiple authors, it can only be presented if all authors are registered for the 38th National Student Research Conference (OTDK) and all of them participate in the presentation (exceptions to this may only be made in exceptional cases deserving special consideration, and solely with the individual approval of the Law and Political Science Section Committee).

Study circles from cross-border universities and colleges can participate in the 38th OTDK under the same professional conditions as those in Hungary. Details are available in the General Call of the 38th 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 science student conferences (for details see Supplement 4 of the General Call for the 38th OTDK) and are nominated for the OTDK. A detailed description of the participation of secondary school students is available in the General Call of the 38th OTDK.

A thesis produced in the course of continuous TDK activity during BA and BSc education, can be entered to the 37th OTDK, if it meets the format and content requirements of the Call and its Supplements and has been presented at a student research conference either during the BA/BSc or the subsequent MA/MSc training and has there been delegated to the OTDK.

Compulsory assignments prescribed in the curriculum during university or college studies, seminar papers, as well as – in the case of students in integrated master’s or MA/MSc programs – theses already defended by the time of the institutional TDK conference may not be submitted to the National Student Research Conference.

Students who, at the time of the institutional TDK conference, already hold a previously obtained PhD/DLA degree are not eligible to participate in the 38th OTDK.

Students who already hold a degree obtained in a master’s or integrated master’s program and who, at the time of the institutional TDK conference, are enrolled in doctoral training alongside their graduate studies may not participate in the 38th 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 38th OTDK. A student who wrote their TDK paper during their integrated master’s program or master’s studies and had not yet established a PhD student status at the time of the institutional/faculty TDK conference may participate in the 38th OTDK as an author.

An instructor, a student holding a PhD/DLA degree, or a student enrolled in doctoral training may not participate as an opponent in the 38th OTDK Law and Political Sciences Section; nor may the author of an accepted TDK paper act as an opponent within their own session.

Number of TDK papers that may be submitted by participating institutions:

For the 38th OTDK Law and Political Science Section

• Eötvös Loránd University Faculty of Law: up to 40,
• Pázmány Péter Catholic University Faculty of Law and Political Sciences: up to 40,
• University of Pécs Faculty of Law: up to 40,
• University of Pécs Faculty of Law: up to 40,
• University of Debrecen Faculty of Law: up to 30,
• University of Miskolc Faculty of Law: up to 30,
• Károli Gáspár University of the Reformed Church Faculty of Law: up to 25,
• Széchenyi István University Deák Ferenc Faculty of Law: up to 25,
• National University of Public Service (through relevant faculties): a total of 25

TDK papers may be submitted.

2.2. Formal requirements for participation and evaluation of TDK papers and presentations

Supplement 1 to the Section Call includes:

• the content and format requirements for TDK papers and abstracts,
• rules for the written and presentation evaluation.

Supplement 2 to the Section Call includes:

• evaluation criteria of the TDK paper and the presentation.

Supplement 3 to the Section Call includes:

• mandatory cover template for the TDK paper

3. Sessions/topics

3.1. Planned sessions/topics

1. Agricultural and Cooperative Law Session
2. Constitutional Law Session
3. Penitentiary Law Session
4. Criminal Procedure Law Session
5. Criminal Law Session
6. Universal and Comparative Legal History Session
7. European Law Session
8. Consumer Protection Law Session
9. Infocommunications Law Session
10. Legal and State Philosophy Session
11. Environmental Law Session
12. Administrative Law Session
13. Criminalistics Session
14. Criminology Session
15. Hungarian Legal and Constitutional History Session
16. Labor Law Session
17. International Law Session
18. Private International Law Session
19. Financial Law Session
20. Civil Procedural Law Session
21. Civil Law Session
22. Roman Law Session
23. Social Law Session
24. Competition Law Session

During the application process, students must indicate which session would be the most suitable for presenting their TDK paper, as well as another session that could also be appropriate. In the online system, when selecting the most suitable session, students can choose from the list above, while for the appropriate session a free-text field is available.

3.2. Rules for the establishment of the final session assignment

The fundamental rules for the establishment of the final session assignment are included in the General Call of the 38th OTDK. The Law and Political Science Section Committee may, based on the number of TDK papers received and their topic, merge some of the planned sessions/topics or create additional ones, so that the TDK paper may be assigned to a different session than the one indicated by the author(s) during registration. The condition for starting an independent session is the receipt of at least 6 TDK papers in the given topic, on the condition that at least 5 of the 6 to 15 papers will be presented at the OTDK. If the number of TDK papers to be presented in a given session is fewer than five, that session may be merged with another session at the discretion of the Chair of the Section Committee. The organizing institution, with the agreement of the Section Committee, reserves the right to redirect submissions with content that does not align with the Section’s field of study to another session of the National Student Research Conference that is more appropriate for the topic, with thanks for the application.

The final sessions and the classification of TDK papers are determined by the Law and Political Sciences Section Committee; students will be informed via the OTDT online system no later than 29 January 2027.

4. Application procedure

4.1. Steps of registration for applicants

4.1.1. Pre-registration of TDK papers

Following the student research conference:

The upload of the TDK paper and the selection of the section must be completed within 30 days of the email specified in point 4 of Supplement 2 to the 38th OTDK General Call being sent, which students receive at the address indicated in the minutes of the institutional round. ATTENTION! Also participants who will be eligible to submit a TDK paper at a student research conference held within 30 days before the application deadline for relevant section of the 38th OTDK must upload their TDK paper to the OTDT online system by the application deadline.

The complete TDK paper must be uploaded to the OTDT online system with a cover page that includes only the title of the paper and the date of completion of the manuscript (year, month, day). (Neither the cover page nor the paper as a whole may contain any data or information that could be used to identify the author(s), the supervisor(s), or the submitting institution.) The template for the cover page of the TDK paper is provided in Supplement 3 to this call, and its use is mandatory.

ATTENTION! Uploading a TDK paper does not constitute an entry to the OTDK, applications must be submitted during the registration period, following the steps described in the next section.

4.1.2. Deadline for holding institutional conferences

All institutions are required to hold local conferences by November 27, 2026 (Friday). TDK papers presented at institutional conferences held after this date cannot be submitted to the 38th OTDK Law and Political Sciences Section.

4.1.3. The application

Registration period: November 16, 2026 – December 9, 2026 (Wednesday) 16: (CET)

Students’ tasks during this period are:

• filling in the information related to the uploaded application,
• uploading the abstract,
• on the abstract upload interface, the provision of five keywords not included in the title of the paper,
• finalizing the application in the OTDT online system.

After the registration deadline for students (December 9, 2026, 16:00, CET) it will no longer be possible for students to upload application documents to the OTDT online system.

4.2. Additional tasks for students who have obtained a pre-degree certificate or are expected to obtain a pre-degree certificate in the semester of registration

Students who obtained a pre-degree certificate between the qualifying institutional TDK conference and the 38th OTDK must declare the date of obtaining their pre-degree certificate in the OTDT online system during the application process (those who are expected to obtain their pre-degree certificate in the semester of application, after the application deadline, must indicate that they are expected to obtain it in the semester of application).

In the case of students who qualified at ETDK, FTDK, KTDK, or VMTDK conferences, the expected date of finalizing the application to the 38th OTDK must be indicated as the date of the pre-degree certificate, as this has already been verified upon their acceptance at the qualifying conference.

5. Tasks of the TDT Chairs in relation to the 38th OTDK

5.1. Following the student research conference:

The documents of the institutional TDK conferences must be recorded in the OTDT online system / submitted to the OTDT Secretariat by the faculty TDT Chair (or the faculty TDT Secretary) within two weeks following the conference, in the manner described below:

• Minutes of the institutional TDK conference must be prepared in the format specified by the OTDT. The form for completing the minutes and the related instructions are available on the OTDK website: https://tdkjegyzokonyv.otdk.hu.
• The completed minutes, filled in fully with the required data and saved in XML format, must be uploaded to the OTDT online system.
• The completed minutes, signed by the jury members, must be scanned and uploaded to the online system, or sent by email to the OTDT Office.

In other respects, the provisions of point 5 of Supplement 2 to the 38th OTDK General Call issued by the OTDT Office shall apply to the upload and submission of the documents of the institutional TDK conference.

5.2. Following the participants’ registration deadline

Approval of students’ applications in the OTDT online system. (Applications are approved automatically; the TDT Chair only has a specific task in this regard if they do not approve a particular application.)

Approval in the OTDT online system of the consolidated list containing the approved applications of TDK papers and their authors submitted to the Law and Political Science Section, and/or its generation from the online system and signature with a qualified electronic signature, or printing and signing, followed by electronic upload to the OTDT online system. By approving/signing the consolidated list, the TDT Chairs also declare that all TDK papers and their authors included therein meet the requirements set out in Supplement 2 to the General Call of the 38th OTDK.

Deadline for institutional and faculty TDT Chair/Secretary to upload documents to the OTDT online system: December 14, 2026 (Monday) 16:00 (CET). After the deadline it will no longer be possible to upload application documents to the OTDT online system.

We are unable to accept TDK papers that do not meet the requirements outlined in the Section Call; such applications will be rejected.

Applications submitted individually are invalid.

6. Registration fee

The registration fees for the 38th OTDK will be determined at a later stage, subject to the availability of funding.

7. The awards that can be granted at the OTDK and the Special Prize of the Session Panel

A certificate of participation in the OTDK will be awarded to all authors and supervisors of each paper presented. In addition, a maximum of one third of the papers presented may be awarded one of the first, second and third places per section, taking into account that a maximum of one entry per session may be awarded first place. 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, and which are judged to be immediately behind the winning applications. The authors of the winning papers and those of the papers receiving the Special Prize of the Session Panel will each receive a certificate for the ranking or the Special Prize of the Session Panel.

The total number of winning papers and papers awarded the Special Prize of the Session Panel may not exceed 50% of the total number of papers presented in a section. Further rules on prizes are set out in Supplement 3 to the General Call.

8. Submission of Pro Scientia Gold Medal application

The authors of TDK papers that have been awarded first place at the national conference may apply for the Pro Scientia Gold Medal, provided they meet the additional criteria set out in the call. Details are given in Supplement 5 of the 37th OTDK General Call.

We invite and welcome all interested students and their masters!

Budapest, April 21, 2026

SUPPLEMENT 1 TO THE CALL FOR PAPERS, 38TH OTDK
LAW AND POLITICAL SCIENCE SECTION

1. The language of the TDK paper and the presentation:

The language of the OTDK is Hungarian. The application must be submitted in Hungarian, and the presentation must be held in Hungarian.

2. Content requirements for the TDK paper:

A TDK paper can be entered for the OTDK only once and in one section. If an author submits more than one TDK paper, they must declare during the submission process that there is no substantial or significant overlap between the papers, and any overlap between the submitted papers will also be examined by the Section Committees and the Section organizers during the verification of submissions. The Section Committee may determine that the extent of overlap is not acceptable; in such cases, the author must choose which paper to present, and the remaining applications will be deleted.  If the student fails to make the declaration during the application process, all submitted papers will be disqualified.

At the 38th OTDK, the use of AI must be indicated during the application process in the OTDT online system by means of a separate declaration in a way that allows for subsequent identification (the declaration will be available to reviewers and members of the Session Panel in connection with the TDK paper). The declaration must specify the relevant part of the content, the purpose of use, a brief description of the prompt (AI query), the name of the AI application used (model and version), and the date of access. In the OTDK presentation, the use of AI must be referenced in the ppt slides. In all other respects, Supplement 6 of the General Call of 38th OTDK on the ethical use of artificial intelligence shall be followed.

All TDK papers submitted to the OTDK will undergo AI and plagiarism checks. For the evaluation, the Law and Political Sciences Section Committee will establish a three-member special committee to review the results of the AI and plagiarism screenings. We specifically draw the attention of submitting students to the fact that plagiarism is not permitted in any form; even one’s own work may not be cited without proper referencing (prohibition of self-plagiarism). TDK papers that demonstrably violate copyright laws or the rules on the use of artificial intelligence set forth in the OTDK calls will be disqualified from the OTDK by the OTDT Law and Political Sciences Section Committee, with simultaneous notification of the submitting student and their institution.

3. Formal requirements for the TDK paper:

Length limit:

The maximum length of the TDK paper is 2.5 author’s sheets, or 100,000 characters (a maximum of 50 pages in any layout), including spaces, notes, bibliography, and appendices. TDK papers that exceed the maximum length cannot be uploaded to the OTDT online system.

TDK papers must be uploaded in PDF format. The maximum file size is 10 megabytes.

General formal requirements:

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

Cover:

The complete paper must TDK be uploaded to the OTDT online system with a cover page containing only the title of the paper and the date of completion of the manuscript (year, month, day). Neither the cover page nor the paper as a whole may contain any data or information that could identify the author(s), the supervisor(s), or the submitting institution.

The mandatory cover page template for the 38th OTDK Law and Political Sciences Section is provided in Supplement 3 of the Section Call.

4. Printed TDK paper is not required.

5. Rules for the abstract:

Only the main text of the abstract needs to be uploaded to the OTDT online system (the other data: names of authors, institution, supervisor, etc. are automatically generated by the online system).

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

In the abstract, the students’ original findings must be presented in a brief (maximum 500 characters) summary. The abstract summary must include the research results and a brief extract of the conclusions, in line with the general evaluation criteria. A volume will be prepared from the abstracts of the TDK papers selected for presentation.

6. Evaluation rules for the TDK paper:

The TDK paper is subject to an independent preliminary evaluation by jury members centrally appointed by the institution organizing the Law and Political Sciences Section. The submitted TDK paper is evaluated through a written review. The maximum score that can be obtained in the written review is 60 points. The final evaluation score is the average of the scores of the three evaluations. The criteria for the written evaluation and the calculation method for the scores are provided in Supplement 2 of the Law and Political Sciences Section Call. Section Panel members record their evaluations of the submitted papers in the OTDT online system by the deadline specified by the Law and Political Sciences Section. Written reviews — without scores — are published by the organizing institution of the Law and Political Sciences Section in the OTDT online system before the opening day of the conference.

The faculties nominating the Section Panel members undertake the responsibility to prepare their nominees to use the online review system appropriately. The TDT secretaries of the faculties also monitor whether the Section Panel members fulfil their review duties by the specified deadline. Each review must be uploaded so that Section Panel members can view each other’s evaluations only after all panel members have submitted their opinions. If a Section Panel member does not upload their review by the specified deadline, that faculty cannot nominate the individual as a jury member in the next OTDK.

In each session of the conference, TDK papers are presented before the Section Panel, reviewed by student opponents from partner institutions, and discussed in a public debate held in Hungarian that also includes questions from the Session Panel. At the conference, participants will have 15 minutes to present their TDK paper (presentation), followed by a discussion. During the oral presentation of the TDK paper, evaluation is conducted through an oral review and scoring, with a maximum possible score of 40 points. The final oral evaluation score is the average of the three review scores. The presentation is evaluated by a Section Panel composed of members delegated by the faculties that submitted the papers. During the oral evaluation and scoring of the presentation, the reviewers and student opponents consider the criteria specified in Supplement 2 of the Law and Political Sciences Section Call.

The TDK papers and the performance of the authors during their presentation are evaluated by a three-member Section Panel for each session. The organizers of the Law and Political Science Section strive to ensure that the Section Panel members for each section are qualified academics. The members of the jury must be recognized experts in the field of law and political science. The supervisor of a paper presented in the category cannot be a jury member.

Student opponents cannot be instructors, PhD students, or authors of any TDK paper accepted for the OTDK in their own category.

SUPPLEMENT 2 TO THE CALL FOR PAPERS
38TH OTDK
LAW AND POLITICAL SCIENCE SECTION

EVALUATION SHEET

for the TDK paper ………….. by …………………. (author)

1. Evaluation of the TDK paper

EVALUATION SHEET

for the TDK paper ………….. by …………………. (author)

1. Evaluation of the oral presentation of the TDK paper

SUPPLEMENT 2 TO THE CALL FOR PAPERS
38TH OTDK
LAW AND POLITICAL SCIENCE SECTION

• Supplement 3

• 38th OTDK Law and Political Sciences Section Call
• Supplement 1
• Supplement 2
• Supplement 3