Organizer of the event:
Károli Gáspár University of the Reformed Church in Hungary
Faculty of Law
| Address: | 1042 Budapest, Alkotás utca 2-4. |
| Phone: | +36 1 370 8601 |
| Website: | https://ajk.kre.hu/ |
The Section’s website address: https://otdk2025ajk.kre.hu/
Section e-mail address: ajk.otdk25@kre.hu
Date of the event: 24–26 March 2025.
| Chair of the Organizing Committee: | Prof. Dr. Zoltán J. Tóth |
| University Professor, Dean, Head of Department | |
| Károli Gáspár University of the Reformed Church in Hungary Faculty of Law |
|
| Phone: (+36-1) 370-8601/110 | |
| E-mail: ajk.otdk25@kre.hu |
| Chair of the Organizing Committee: | Prof. Dr. Ádám Boóc |
| University Professor, Head of the Department, Vice Dean for International and Scientific Affairs, Faculty TDT Chair | |
| Károli Gáspár University of the Reformed Church in Hungary Faculty of Law |
|
| Phone: (+36-1) 370-8601/110 | |
| E-mail: ajk.otdk25@kre.hu |
| Co-Chair of the Organizing Committee: | Dr. Szilvia Dobrocsi |
| Associate Professor | |
| Károli Gáspár University of the Reformed Church in Hungary Faculty of Law |
|
| Phone: (+36-1) 370-8601/110 | |
| E-mail: ajk.otdk25@kre.hu | |
| Secretary of the Organizing Committee: | dr. Boglárka Lilla Schlachta |
| Assistant Professor, TDT Secretary of the Faculty | |
| Phone: (+36-1) 370-8601/110 | |
| E-mail: ajk.otdk25@kre.hu |
| Student delegate: | dr. Botond Székely |
| PhD student, President of the Doctoral Student Council | |
| Phone: (+36-1) 370-8601/110 | |
| E-mail: ajk.otdk25@kre.hu | |
| Deputy student delegate: | Dóra Kiss |
| student, President of the Student Government, KRE ÁJK | |
| Phone: (+36-1) 370-8601/110 | |
| E-mail: ajk.otdk25@kre.hu |
The National Association for Student Research (OTDT), the Law and Political Science Section Committee of the OTDT and the organizing Károli Gáspár University of the Reformed Church in Hungary hereby announce the Law and Political Science Section of the 37th 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 37th OTDK are set out in the General Call of the 37th OTDK and in this Call of the OTDT Law and Political Science Committee.
In the 37th 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 37th National Student Research Conference. Details are provided in Supplement 2 of the General Call for the 37th OTDK.
If a TDK paper has multiple authors, it can only be presented if all authors are registered for the 37th 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 Section Committee).
Study circles from cross-border universities and colleges can participate in the 37th OTDK under the same professional conditions as those in Hungary. Details are available in the General Call of the 37th 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 37th 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 37th 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 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.
A student enrolled in a PhD program and simultaneously in an undergraduate or graduate program cannot submit a TDK paper on the same topic as their doctoral research for the 37th National Student Research Conference (OTDK). A student who wrote their TDK paper during their 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 37th OTDK as an author.
A student who already holds a PhD or a PhD candidate may not act as an opponent in the 37th OTDK Law and Political Science Section.
Number of papers allowed per participating institution:
For the 37th OTDK Law and Political Science Section
TDK papers may be submitted.
Supplement 1 to the Section Call includes:
Supplement 2 to the Section Call includes:
Supplement 3 to the Section Call includes:
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.
The fundamental rules for the establishment of the final session assignment are included in the General Call of the 37th 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 37th 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 decision on the sessions and the classification of the TDK papers will be made by the Law and Political Science Section Committee. Students will be informed of this decision via the OTDT online system by 31 January 2025 at the latest.
4.1.1. Pre-registration of TDK papers
Following the student research conference:
TDK paper upload and section selection within 30 days after receiving the email specified in point 4 of Supplement 2 of the General Call for the 37th OTDK. 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 37th 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 completion date of the manuscript (year, month, day). (The document must not contain any data or information that could identify the author(s) or the supervisor(s) or the nominating institution!) The mandatory cover page template for the TDK paper is provided in Supplement No. 3 of this call.
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 qualifying conferences
All institutions are required to hold local conferences by November 29, 2024 (Friday). TDK papers presented at institutional conferences held after this date cannot be submitted to the 37th OTDK Law and Political Sciences Section.
4.1.3. The application
Registration period: 15 November 2024 – 11 January 2024 (Wednesday), 16:00 (CET)
Students’ tasks during this period are:
A common expectation for documents signed by hand or electronically:
a) A document authenticated using the identification-based document authentication service (Client Gateway AVDH, available at https://niszavdh.gov.hu/index) via the Client Gateway.
OR
b) a printed and hand-signed document may be accepted in scanned (PDF) format.
After the registration deadline for students (11 December 2024, 16:00, CET) it will no longer be possible for students to upload application documents in the OTDT online system.
Uploading the documents of the student research conference and sending them to the OTDT Office according to point 5 of Supplement 2 of the General Call for the 37th OTDK.
A) Approval of participant registrations in the OTDT online system (all registrations are automatically approved in the system, so action is only required if the institution/faculty does not wish to delegate a submitted TDK paper to the OTDK).
B) For TDK papers and authors registered in the Law and Political Science Section, the summary list of approved registrations must be printed from the OTDT online system, signed by hand, scanned, and uploaded in PDF format to the OTDT online system, OR the summary list generated in Excel format from the OTDT online system must be converted to PDF, electronically signed, and then uploaded to the OTDT online system.
Common expectations for documents signed by hand or electronically:
a) A document authenticated using the identification-based document authentication service (Client Gateway AVDH, available at https://niszavdh.gov.hu/index) via the Client Gateway.
OR
b) a printed and hand-signed document may be accepted in scanned (PDF) format.
Deadline for institutional and faculty TDT Chairs to upload documents to the OTDT online system: 16 December 2024 (Monday) 16:00 (CET). After the deadline it will no longer be possible to upload application documents in 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.
The registration fees for the 37th OTDK will be determined at a later stage, subject to the availability of funding.
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.
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, 9 April 2024.
| Dr. Judit Balogh | Dr. Ádám Boóc |
| Associate Professor | University Professor |
| Chair of the OTDT Law and Political Science Section Committee | Chair of the Organizing Committee of the 37th OTDK Law and Political Science Section |
Note: If any interpretational issues arise between the Hungarian call and its English translation, the Hungarian version shall prevail.
The language of the OTDK is Hungarian. TDK papers can be submitted in Hungarian. The language of the presentation is Hungarian. For non-native Hungarian-speaking students studying in Hungary through international programs (particularly Stipendium Hungaricum) (referred to as ‘international students’ in the General Call), the language of the conference is English. Students from non-Hungarian-speaking cross-border higher education institutions can also submit their paper in English.
At the time of submitting their paper for the OTDK, authors of papers recommended for presentation at the institutional conference must declare whether they used artificial intelligence in the substantive content of the TDK paper preparation (yes/no). If yes, they must briefly explain which program(s) were used, to what extent, and for what purpose. The statement must be placed in the paper immediately following the cover page, and its character count does not count towards the total length of the paper.
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.
General requirements:
Deadline for uploading the TDK paper to the OTDT online system: within 30 days after the acceptance of the TDK record, as described in Supplement 2, point 4 of the 37th OTDK General Call. Participants who will be eligible to submit a TDK paper at a student research conference held within 30 days before the application deadline for the 37th OTDK Law and Political Science Section must upload their TDK paper to the OTDT online system by the application deadline.
ATTENTION! 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 completion date of the manuscript (year, month, day). The document must not contain any data or information that could identify the author(s) or the supervisor(s) or the nominating institution! The mandatory cover page template for the 37th OTDK Law and Political Sciences Section is provided in Supplement 3 of the Section Call.
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
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 generated by the online system).
The language of the abstract is Hungarian. If the TDK paper is written in a foreign language, the summary must be in both Hungarian and English (in PDF format, uploaded as an “English-language abstract file” in the Document Upload section).
The length of the abstract is minimum 500 and maximum 2500 characters.
In the abstract, the student’s 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.
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, with a maximum possible score of 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 OTDT and 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, considering their technical capabilities. 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 publicly in Hungarian. 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.
| Criteria |
Highest possible |
Score |
||
| Topic selection (the author examines a topic beyond the university curriculum or provides an in-depth, comprehensive, and scholarly investigation of a topic included in the university curriculum; the novelty of the topic or, in the case of current law, its relevance) |
5 |
|||
| Literature (the quantity and quality of sources and literature processed, the choice and application of the method of analysis) |
15 |
|||
| Elaboration of the topic (the quality of the elaboration of the topic, the justification and clarity of the delimitation of the topic, the effective pursuit of the chosen objective) |
15 |
|||
| Originality of the TDK paper (original, creative findings, clear distinction between the findings and research results of the author of the TDK paper and those of other authors, systematic classification, reasoned – de lege ferenda – proposals) |
15 |
|||
| Formal requirements (the structure of the TDK paper, its internal proportions, its logic and clarity; the style of the paper, a correct and complete referencing system) |
10 |
|||
| Total |
60 |
|||
| Budapest, | day | month 2025 | ||
| Reviewer | ||||
| Criteria |
Highest possible |
Score |
||
| Designation of the subject of the presentation (the effectiveness of defining the chosen TDK paper/section for presentation, the coherence of the presentation, the continuity of the thought process throughout, and the clarity of the “message”) |
5 |
|||
| Presentation of research findings (highlighting original, creative insights, organization, and emphasizing well-reasoned – de lege ferenda – proposals) |
10 |
|||
| Logic and style of the presentation (structure, balance, logic, and clarity of the presentation; style, balance of functionality and illustration, coherence, audience engagement, presenter’s demeanor, choice and use of presentation tools, adherence to presentation standards; harmony between spoken presentation and/or read text, coordination in the use of various tools) |
10 |
|||
| Debate skills, reflections (maximum points if the responses to the reviewer’s comments, the opponent’s opinion, and orally asked questions are convincing, concise, and accurate) |
10 |
|||
| Time management (maximum points if the author utilized, but did not exceed, the allotted presentation time (+/- 1 minute) and provided brief, concise answers to the questions raised in the opponent’s opinion, the review, and those asked orally) |
5 |
|||
| Total |
40 |
|||
| Budapest, | day | month 2025 | ||
| Panel Member | ||||