The Scientific Students' Associations (TDK) Conference gives students in higher education the opportunity to explore a professional or academic question that interests them beyond the requirements of their degree programme, to carry out independent research or analysis, and to present their findings to an academic audience.
The Faculty's TDK programme is built around independent learning, meaningful work beyond course requirements, and the development of students' academic potential.
What is TDK, and why take part?
explore a professional or academic question of your choice in greater depth;
gain experience in independent research, analysis and academic writing;
develop your academic presentation and discussion skills;
receive individual academic guidance and feedback.
A TDK project can become the basis for further research, Project Work, or a thesis. Strong performance may also lead to nomination for the National Scientific Students' Associations Conference (OTDK).
Who can participate?
Students enrolled at ELTE, regardless of their Faculty, may apply. There is no special prior requirement regarding research experience, grades, or professional accomplishment. Naturally, however, participants must meet the current conference deadlines and submission requirements.
Students from another higher education institution may participate following prior consultation and approval.
A paper may be written by one student or jointly by two students, and may have up to two supervisors. In the case of two authors, each author’s own contribution must be clearly identifiable.
How to get started
To begin, you need a research question or topic related to the Faculty's academic fields, a preliminary research plan, and a supervisor who can support your work.
Contact a lecturer working in the relevant field as early as possible as completing a new research project may take several months. Your supervisor can help refine the research question, identify an appropriate theoretical and methodological framework, and design a fitting research process.
If you already have a research idea but cannot identify a suitable supervisor, briefly describe your planned topic and send it to tdk@gtk.elte.hu. Do not forget to identify you with your full name, programme, and Neptun code.
Research areas
In line with the Faculty’s teaching and research profile, TDK papers may address the following main areas:
Argumentation Theory
Economic Policy and Comparative Economics
Marketing
Management
Finance
Accounting
Business Law
You will need to select one of these areas when you register. The actual conference sections are formed, based on the topics of the submitted papers, after the registration process.
Research topics and supervisors
We encourage those interested in the project to contact a relevant instructor as soon as possible. If you are unable to find a consultant or do not know who to contact regarding a particular topic, the following colleagues can provide guidance on the main topics:
Accounting: Dr Éva Karai (karai@gtk.elte.hu)
Business law: Dr Kinga Pétervári (petervari@gtk.elte.hu)
Finance: Dr Tamás Tóth (totht@gtk.elte.hu)
Macroeconomics, economic policy, international finance & political economy: Dr Ákos Dombi (dombi@gtk.elte.hu)
Management: Dr Eszter Daruka (daruka@gtk.elte.hu)
Marketing: Dr Ibolya Brávácz (bravacz.ibolya@gtk.elte.hu)
Theory of Argumentation & Business Communication: Dr Gábor Forrai (forrai@gtk.elte.hu)
In your email, please briefly describe your planned research topic, on the basis of which a consultant/supervisor can be recommended.
Contact: tdk@gtk.elte.hu
What qualifies as a TDK paper?
A TDK paper is not simply be the resubmission of a paper completed for a course. It must present independent academic work that goes beyond the routine application of material taught in the degree programme.
A well-developed TDK paper should make it possible to identify the following:
the research question and the purpose of the research;
the relevant literature and theoretical background;
the research or analytical approach used;
the author’s own analysis and results;
the answer to the research question and the conclusions drawn.
Research may address a specific business problem, organisation, or project. However, academic TDK work must go beyond simply applying established principles or methods from a field: it requires an independent research question, analysis, and results.
A strong Project Work paper can provide a useful starting point, but cannot be submitted as a TDK paper without substantial academic elaboration.
How does the TDK process work?
Choose a topic and supervisor
Develop the research question and the research plan, and carry out the research
Register for the current Faculty TDK Conference
Complete the research and prepare the paper
Submit the final paper
Prepare the conference presentation
Present the paper and the results at the conference
Receive academic feedback and results, and, in the case of outstanding performance, an OTDK (national competition) nomination
Registration is preliminary: the paper title and abstract submitted at the time of registration may still be refined when the final paper is submitted.
You can register in two languages and the choice depends on your language group and not on the language of the paper. International students should use the English-language registration form, while native Hungarian speakers should use the Hungarian-language form. If your registration is successful, you are sent a confirmation email with a registration ID. Save it as you will need it later when submitting your paper.
The exact deadlines and the registration and submission links for each year are published on the current Faculty TDK Conference page.
Main requirements for the TDK paper
The paper is prepared with the academic support of a supervisor chosen by the student. The supervisor helps refine the research question, strengthen the academic and methodological framework of the paper, and shape the research process and structure. The student remains responsible for the final academic content and quality of the submitted work.
The Faculty's Project Work and Thesis guidelines can also provide useful guidance on questions like structure, formatting, referencing, and documenting your research. Where TDK-specific requirements differ, the requirements on this page, the Faculty TDK template and the current TDK call take precedence.
Project Work and Thesis – English-language Faculty guidance
The paper may be written in Hungarian or English. You may use the Faculty TDK paper template, or the Faculty thesis template provided that all TDK-specific requirements are applied. The final paper must be submitted in DOCX format.
Abstract requirements
At registration, submit a preliminary abstract in the planned language of your paper. If you plan to write the paper in English, submit the preliminary abstract in English.
The preliminary abstract may be revised and refined as the research and paper develop.
At final submission, the required final abstract or abstracts must be entered in the submission form and they must also appear in the uploaded paper. For an English-language paper, an English abstract is required; in such cases, a Hungarian abstract is not needed.
Abstracts must be 1,500–2,500 characters including spaces.
The final abstract(s) submitted with the paper replace the preliminary abstract provided at registration.
The maximum length of the paper is 80 pages, counted from the first page of the Introduction to the last page of the Conclusions. There is no minimum page requirement.
The paper must include the required declaration and documentation concerning authorship, appropriate use of sources and data, and the use of artificial intelligence.
TDK papers cannot be submitted as confidential documents, and the abstract may be published online. If your research uses confidential or sensitive data, design the study so that publication is possible through appropriate anonymisation, aggregation, or another academically sound data-protection approach.
Conference format and presentation
The Faculty holds one TDK Conference per academic year, during the autumn semester, usually in November.
The TDK Conference is a public academic event. Presentations are open to visitors up to the capacity of the classrooms/lecture halls.
This is primarily an in-person event. If a student is studying abroad under the Erasmus scheme during the relevant semester, online participation may be arranged.
Presenters must arrive 15 minutes before the start of their section to set up their presentation.
Presentations do not need to be uploaded or sent in advance. For in-person presentations, copy the slides from a USB drive to the computer in the classroom. Slides must be in Microsoft PowerPoint-compatible (.pptx) or PDF format. Personal laptops cannot be used. For PowerPoint presentations, standard Microsoft PowerPoint-compatible fonts are recommended to avoid layout problems.
Presentations are 10 minutes long, followed by approximately 5–10 minutes of questions and academic discussion.
There is no prescribed slide structure/order. Focus primarily on the research question, your own research or analysis, the academic results, and your conclusions.
The presentation order is set in advance and is fixed so that the programme of parallel sections remains predictable and visitors can move between the sessions.
The conference is conducted in a supportive, respectful, and constructive academic atmosphere.
Programme and abstract brochure
The final section allocation, the detailed programme, and the online abstract brochure are published on the current conference page. The programme lists the location of each section and the fixed presentation order. The online abstract brochure contains the final publishable abstracts of the participating students’ research.
Assessment and feedback
The Faculty TDK Conference follows the current paper and presentation assessment criteria and the 60/40-point structure of the Economics Section of the National Scientific Students' Associations Conference (OTDK).
Performance is assessed on a 100-point scale:
paper: up to 60 points;
presentation and academic discussion: up to 40 points.
The paper is assessed by an independent academic reviewer. The section committee finalises the written assessment after reviewing all the papers in the given section and may, where academically justified, modify it by a unanimous and documented decision.
The presentation and the academic discussion are assessed by the members of the section committee.
The detailed assessment criteria are available in advance and can, therefore, also guide you through the preparation of the paper and its presentation.
Scores are internal assessment data. After the conference, each student receives the written academic review of their paper without the numerical score.
Awards and OTDK
The section committee decides on the places and special prizes based on the academic assessment of the paper and conference performance.
Awards are based on academic and professional merit. The limit (given in percentages) on the number of awards determines the maximum number of awards, and is not a target number of awards to be handed out (i.e. if the target number is 50% of all papers in a section, it is not an automatic rule that half of the papers receive an award). As a general rule, no more than 50% of the papers presented in a section may receive 1st, 2nd, or 3rd place. In exceptional, academically justified cases, the committee may depart from this rule.
A special prize may be awarded to a paper that does not earn a place but is judged to be closest to the awarded papers and merits special recognition for its academic quality. The same paper cannot earn both a place and a special prize.
Only papers awarded 1st, 2nd, or 3rd place at the ELTE Faculty of Economics conference may be nominated for OTDK. The section committee decides on the nominations.
Useful documents and contact
Directly downloadable documents:
Further information:
Project Work and Thesis – English-language Faculty guidance
If you have any questions, please contact Dr Bálint Bedzsula, Faculty TDK Coordinator, at tdk@gtk.elte.hu.