On 12 December 2025, Miklós Sebők received the Bibó István Memorial Prize, awarded by the Hungarian Political Science Association. The prize, founded in 2014, is regarded as the most prestigious lifetime achievement award in Hungarian political science and is conferred annually on a single Hungarian scholar. In his talk, Dr Sebők presented the opportunities and challenges of using AI in political research.
As part of the Data-SHS Week 2025 Paris Île-de-France, researchers and engineers gathered to discuss the growing role of data and methods in the humanities and social sciences. The week featured conferences, workshops, and training sessions organized locally by the Paris-region University Data Platforms, in collaboration with numerous institutional partners. Within the session “Recent advances in the use of AI methods in the humanities and social sciences,” Barbara Babolcsay from poltextLAB presented work on improving the exploration and accessibility of research data through the automated assignment of concepts in research data repositories. The presentation highlighted how AI-based methods can support researchers in navigating large and complex corpora, enhancing data reuse and fostering new research perspectives in the humanities and social sciences.
On 9 December 2025, guest researcher Nathalie Neptune gave her second workshop at poltextLAB titled An Integrated Geospatial–Policy Analysis of Forest Loss in Hungary. She presented how satellite-based indicators of forest loss and vegetation stress can be integrated with legal and policy data to analyse forest management and wildfire control in Hungary. The workshop illustrated how changes in forest legislation, public spending, and policy discourse can be linked to observable environmental outcomes using advanced statistical methods. The presentation highlighted the importance of combining geospatial and legislative evidence to support data-driven forestry and fire management decisions. The Hungarian Academy of Sciences Distinguished Guest Scientists Fellowship Programme supports this research.
On 2 December 2025, Barbara Babolcsay delivered a presentation at the 17th European DDI Users Conference as part of the panel “Challenges of Interoperability”. In her presentation, titled Using NLP Methods in Social Sciences – Experience and Opportunities, she outlined recent applications of clustering, topic modelling and automated text classification developed within the Ontolisst project, highlighting their relevance for large-scale social science research. Further details of the event can be found here: https://events.geant.org/event/1879/timetable/
On 2 December 2025, Miklós Sebők served as panel chair of a session at the 17th European DDI Users Conference. The main theme of the panel was about the METACURATE-ML project within the “ESRC Future Data Services Programme”. Further details of the event can be found here: https://events.geant.org/event/1879/timetable/
PoltextLAB is a host institution in the Hungarian Academy of Sciences’ (MTA) Momentum MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowship Programme, through which we welcome applications for our V-SHIFT project. The programme supports 16-18 exceptional postdoctoral researchers, offering them the opportunity to work within Hungarian Momentum (Lendület) research groups. This initiative fosters career development in dynamic research environments while enhancing the international visibility of Momentum projects. Additionally, it strengthens Hungary’s R&D and innovation ecosystem and promotes interdisciplinary collaboration across disciplines and sectors. Our research team offers postdoctoral researchers joining the programme the opportunity to use state-of-the-art AI-based methods to investigate the emergence of global powers on the domestic policy agenda of the V4 countries and to analyse attitudes and changes in attitudes towards them. The fellowship lasts up to 36 months. The first round of applications opens on 1 December 2025. Our research team will host postdoctoral researchers until August 2028. Further details can be found here: https://momentummsca.mta.hu/application Source: https://www.facebook.com/MomentumMSCA
On 21 November 2025, Miklós Sebők took part in a panel discussion at the Magyar Hang event space in Budapest during the session How Does AI Transform the Press and Reality?, held as part of the event “Reality, Freedom, Responsibility – Why Does Independent Press Matter?”.
On 19 November 2025, poltextLAB delivered a full-day, corporate-focused training for HungaroControl Ltd. on the practical application of generative AI. Led by Orsolya Ring and Rebeka Kiss, the session demonstrated how generative AI tools can be integrated into everyday workflows in a professionally sound, transparent, and organisationally supportive way. Participants received a practice-oriented overview ranging from the basics of generative AI to more advanced use cases. Examples included supporting data analysis and processing tasks, prompt reviewing and organising source materials, producing visualisations, and making the creation of presentations and internal communication materials more efficient. The training also addressed data protection considerations and ethical questions. To conclude the course, participants applied what they had learned to their own examples, exploring how generative AI could be integrated into HungaroControl’s air navigation services.
Ádám Kerényi, researcher at the V-Shift Momentum research group, presented at the international conference “High-quality Development of the Belt and Road Initiative: Concepts and Actions” in Beijing on 17–19 November.In his talk, “The Emergence of the Digital Silk Road – Case Study from Budapest”, he highlighted global trends in central bank digital currencies (CBDCs), China’s leading role with the e-CNY, and the growing use of digital currencies in cross-border trade and BRI cooperation. He also presented the Hungarian case, noting the rapid expansion of RMB clearing in Budapest and Hungary’s increasing integration into China’s digital financial ecosystem.
On 13 November 2025, Martin Bánóczy delivered a lecture at the HUN-REN Centre in Budapest as part of the “HUN-REN Cloud Meetup”. His presentation, titled Optimising the Fine-Tuning of Large Language Models, addressed key challenges in computational social science, with a focus on improving the efficiency of text classification tasks. He outlined the limitations of manual coding and presented machine-learning-based solutions developed within the Babel Machine project. Bánóczy discussed three major classification tasks: the Comparative Agendas Project, its extension using an enhanced codebook for media analysis, and a further expansion incorporating media-specific coding schemes. He examined factors affecting model performance and highlighted obstacles that complicate multilingual fine-tuning processes.