The National Association for Student Research (OTDT), under the patronage of the Minister of Culture and Innovation, the President of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, and with the moral, professional and financial support of the ministries and institutions, organizations and foundations involved in higher education, announces the 38th National Student Research Conference (38th OTDK) for the spring of 2027.
The national tradition of associations for student research is the broadest and most comprehensive form of talent management in Hungarian higher education, a platform for self-education, elite training and education to become scientists. It is in the stimulating atmosphere of the different Associations for TDK circles around masters, supervisors and researchers that most talented students have their first scientific experience.
By announcing the 38th OTDK, OTDT invites university and college students, including non-Hungarian native speaker students studying within international programs in Hungary, to submit their high-quality TDK papers and creations to the qualifying TDK conferences, where they can earn the right to participate in the 38th OTDK, and thus present their results at the national conference in front of their fellow students and the most outstanding experts in their field. At the same time, OTDT calls on professors, researchers and developers in higher education, science and practice to help the new generation to develop as masters and reviewers.
The aim of the OTDK
The 38th OTDK is a national presentation and evaluation forum for the most outstanding scientific and artistic achievements of university and college students in the period between 2025 and 2027, already qualified at qualifying conferences.
Its aim is to encourage scientific and artistic TDK activities as well as support talented students and their masters. Also, it offers help for further research and career development and encourages applications for doctoral programs.
Sections of the national conference, system of evaluation and recognition
Traditionally, the 38th OTDK will be organized in 16 disciplinary sections. Sections are organized into sessions. The OTDK section organizers may, with the agreement of the OTDT Section Committees, plan sessions with a minimum of 6 and a maximum of 15 papers. An additional condition is that sessions can only be organized if several institutions are involved. A ranking and a special prize of the Session Panel can only be awarded in the session if at least 5 and no more than 15 of the 6 to 15 classified papers are presented. If the number of papers presented in a section is less than five, the session may be merged with another session at the discretion of the OTDT Section Committee Chair responsible for the OTDK section. To be eligible for merging, the merged session must include at least 5 and no more than 15 TDK papers, so that rankings and prizes can be awarded.
Details of the 38th OTDK Sections are given in Supplement 1 of the General Call.
The harmonized conditions for participation in the 38th OTDK (specified by OTDT) are set out in Supplement 2 of the General Call.
Additional rules for participation, which reflect the specificities of the sections and may vary from one section to another, will be jointly developed by the section committees representing the main higher education institutions in the fields and the organizing institutions and published in the Section Calls that will complement the General Call. The section-specific requirements for TDK papers are set out in the relevant supplements to the Section Calls.
All official documents of the OTDT and the section committees related to the 38th OTDK can be found at https://otdk.hu/.
OTDT operates an online system (OTDT online system) to ensure the quality of student research conferences and the OTDK, which can be accessed from the OTDT website.
Accepted applications for the conference must be presented at the sessions – after a written preliminary evaluation – in the manner and according to the rules specified in the Section Calls.
The language of the OTDK is Hungarian. For non-Hungarian native speaker students studying in Hungary through international programs, the language of the conference is English. Students from non-Hungarian-speaking cross-border higher education institutions can also submit their paper in English. Other rules for the acceptance and presentation of TDK papers in foreign languages are set out in detail in the Section Calls.
Study circles from cross-border universities and colleges can participate in the 38th OTDK under the same professional conditions as those in Hungary. For them, the student research conferences are exclusively the national conferences in the country where they study and the student research conferences mentioned in this call, namely the Transylvanian Student Research Conferences (ETDKs) in Romania, in the field of real sciences and humanities the student research conferences of Sapientia Hungarian University of Transylvania and Partium Christian University, the Hungarian Scientific Conference of Vojvodir Students (VMTDK) in Serbia, the Student Research Conference in the Highlands (FTDK) in Slovakia and the Student Research Conference in Transcarpathia (KTDK) in Ukraine. Students from other countries can apply to be accepted to any student research conferences in Hungary or across borders. In the field of military science and law enforcement, in addition to these conferences, students may also be eligible to participate in the student research conferences of their own Hungarian higher education institutions (only for TDK papers submitted to the Military Science and Law Enforcement Section). OTDT supports the participation of cross-border students and professors in the 38th OTDK through the TDK without Borders (HTDK) Program.
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 (see Supplement 4 of the 37th OTDK General Call) and are nominated for the OTDK. The presentations of high school students will be classified in the section corresponding to their topic, and will be evaluated and awarded according to the internal rules of the host sections, following the same rules as the presentations of university and college students.
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.
After the section meetings of the conference, first place winners of the 37th and 38th OTDK sessions (first place winners of the 37th OTDK if they also presented a paper at the 38th OTDK) can apply for the Pro Scientia Gold Medal, and institutions can nominate their professors who have been outstanding in talent development for the OTDK Gold Medal (Supplement 5). OTDT also contributes to the organization of innOtdk.
Student research conferences
OTDT calls on the heads of higher education institutions, the TDT chairs, TDK referents, professors, researchers and students to create the possibility of organizing qualifying student research conferences at their institutions prior to the OTDK. TDK papers by students from Hungarian institutions not organizing a student research conference, as well as by cross-border students from countries not organizing a conference of their own, should also be accepted on request.
Nomination for the national conference should be a sign of professional and moral appreciation. Our common goal is to ensure that the best TDK papers and the most talented applicants, measured by a single scientific yardstick, are presented at the national conference. We strive to ensure that the institutions and scientific schools participating in the 38th OTDK are not judged by the number of TDK papers submitted, but by their professional quality. The evaluation, ranking and awards at student research conferences should also help to achieve this.
OTDT considers it an important task to integrate the OTDK into the system of student research conferences organized by the institutions and to make it a national final. It therefore proposes that TDK papers nominated by the institutional student research conferences for the OTDK should be judged on the basis of an evaluation system developed by OTDT’s own scientific field-specific section committee.
The National Association for Student Research calls on the heads of higher education institutions, professors and researchers of universities and colleges, heads of doctoral schools, as well as student and doctoral student governments to contribute to the success of the institutional student research conferences and then the national conference by supporting the young generation of scientists, by supporting TDK activities, as well as by their helpful criticism and personal participation.
It also invites the relevant authorities, research institutes, foundations, financial institutions, companies, technical and scientific associations and individuals sponsoring scientific activities to support the 38th National Scientific Student Conference and the institutional student research conferences nominating for the OTDK, in accordance with the tradition of the past decades, by showing interest and providing professional and financial support to the sections, as well as by offering monetary prizes, professional community and material rewards.