Language requirements (knowledge of a foreign language) Foreign Language Proficiency

1. The list of languages required for research in the given academic field is defined by the Organizational and Operational Regulations of the Doctoral School.
2. Obtaining of the doctoral degree requires at least an intermediate (B2) level complex state language exam certificate or an equivalent certificate in English.
3. The applicants' proficiency in the languages required for the given academic field and the programme, as well as the documents certifying their proficiency of the languages, shall be examined and verified by the admission boards.
4. The doctoral procedure may be conducted in English with the permission of the Doctoral Council of Informatics (IDT).

The above language examination requirements took effect on June 27, 2023, following the amendments adopted in the University Doctoral Regulation by Senate decision…CXXXVII/2023 (June 26.) of the Senate. In doctoral procedures initiated before the amendment, as well as for those who began their doctoral studies before the amendment took effect, the foreign language requirements introduced by the amendment shall only apply if they impose less strict criteria compared to the previous regulations.

Publication requirements

Prior to preparing the doctoral dissertation, the Applicant must verify his or her academic work history by providing two or more papers published in an edited scientific journal considered prestigious in the given field, volume of studies or papers accepted for publication. The papers must relate to the doctoral dissertation.

The publication list must be prepared in the MTMT database (The Hungarian Science Bibliography database, https://www.mtmt.hu/) and the recorded data must be printed out.

The requirements for a given field shall be determined by the Doctoral School Council and the academic field regarding where the papers were published, and approved by the IDT.

1. The publications do not need to meet first-author criteria.
2. Apart from the publishers on the impact factor list, the following publishers may be accepted, as a reference list:
   a) journals indexed by Computing Reviews,
   b) journals indexed by Mathematical Reviews (MR),
   c) journals indexed by Zentralblatt für Mathematik,
   d) journals indexed by Compuscience (CS),
   e) journals indexed by Referativnij Zsurnal,
   f) journals ranked SCImago D1, Q1, Q2, Q3,
   g) full-length conference proceedings ranked CORE A*, A, or B,
   h) full-length conference proceedings published in volumes published by Springer, Elsevier, IEEE, and ACM,
   i) publications referenced by Scopus, Science Direct, Web of Science,
   j) all series referenced, for example Lecture Notes in Computer Science (LNCS), etc,
   k) all journals which feature articles selected by editors,
   l) publications of all conferences featuring lectures selected by editors,
3. In the cases of publications listed in points k)-l), the IDT shall decide whether it accepts the selected publications on a case-by-case basis.
4. The provisions laid out above shall also apply to journals and conference publications available exclusively in electronic form.

Formal and Content Requirements of the Abstracts

1. The abstracts of the doctoral dissertation must be submitted simultaneously with the submission of the doctoral dissertation. The abstracts may not exceed 10 pages (including the bibliography) and shall be written in A5 format. The abstracts must be written in a word processor, with font size 12 and 1.5 line spacing. The abstracts must be prepared both in Hungarian and English, bound as a booklet, and in electronic form (PDF). In the case of a doctoral procedure conducted in English, only English-language abstracts shall be submitted.
2. The abstracts shall include:

a) a cover page containing the title of the doctoral dissertation, the title “Abstracts of the Doctoral Dissertation”, the name of the author, the names of the doctoral school and programme and their heads, the name of the topic supervisor and the year of submission,

b) the background of the work (introduction, the objectives of the project),

c) the methodologies used,

d) an outline of the author’s own results (summary of findings or theses),

e) a list of publications serving as the basis of the abstracts with complete bibliographic information along with a list of additional academic works published by the Candidate in the topic of the dissertation.

The content and formal requirements of the doctoral dissertation

1. The doctoral dissertation shall be a scholarly work summarising the goals, scientific results, scientific literature and research methodologies of the Candidate’s research work. The doctoral dissertation shall be written in Hungarian, but may also be prepared in English with the preliminary approval of the IDT in justified cases.
2. The dissertation may only be submitted with the approval of the topic supervisor and the head of the doctoral programme. In disputed cases, the position adopted by the Doctoral School Council shall prevail.
3. The abstracts submitted simultaneously with the doctoral dissertation shall contain the main goals, methodologies and scientific results of the dissertation as well as a list of the scientific publications of the Candidate on the given topic.
4. The doctoral dissertation shall be submitted with proper binding (black cover with golden lettering) in A4 format typed in a word processor (font size 12, 1.5 line spacing is recommended). The dissertation shall be submitted in two printed copies to the TNKCs. The dissertation, the abstracts booklet and all documents concerning the initiation of the doctoral procedure shall also be submitted in electronic form.
5. In the event that the dissertation deals mainly with software engineering, the source code must also be attached to the dissertation (the source code will not be published but is necessary for preparing the critique).
6. The external cover of the dissertation must feature the title “Doctoral Dissertation” along with the name of the author and the year of authorship
7. The internal cover of the dissertation must feature the title of the dissertation, the DOIID, the name of the author, the doctoral school and programme, the names of their heads as well as the name, title, academic degree of the topic supervisor, along with the name of the research centre/department where the dissertation was written.
8. A one-page summary written in Hungarian and a one-page summary written in English must be included at the end of the dissertation. The dissertation must also contain a table of contents and a bibliography compiled as required by the academic discipline. The bibliography must be complete and must include a list of the Candidate’s publications as well.
9. The internal breakdown of the dissertation must follow the norms generally accepted for and required of academic publications. The dissertation’s bibliography must include the DOI IDs of the documents referenced wherever possible.
10. Following the completion of the doctoral procedure, one printed of the dissertation shall go to the University Library, one to the doctoral school and one to the reference library of the doctoral programme.

Requesting a DOI identifier for your doctoral dissertation 

For doctoral procedures initiated after August 1, 2013, before submitting the printed and electronic copies of the doctoral dissertation and theses, the initiator of the doctoral procedure or the doctoral candidate must request a DOI identifier from the faculty office (TNKCs) on the data sheet Declaration form for disclosure of a doctoral thesis. The declaration form must be sent electronically by email to the administrator of the doctoral school in Word format, without a signature. The faculty office shall request a DOI identifier for the dissertation and theses on the electronic interface provided for this within five working days of receiving the request, and shall return the identifier to the author of the dissertation electronically. The doctoral dissertation and theses must be submitted together with the signed “Declaration Form.”

After the submission of the doctoral dissertation, the faculty office shall record the dissertation and theses in the ELTE Digital Institutional Repository (hereinafter: EDIT) within 10 working days from using the copy submitted on the electronically. The doctoral dissertation and theses shall remain non-public until the decision on the award of the doctoral degree is made, or until the deadline specified in Section 76 (2)-(3) and (6) of the the Doctoral Regulations of Eötvös Loránd University.