News

poltextLAB welcomes four new researchers, one data scientist and one developer. Their short bio and areas of expertise are available here.

On November 20, 2023, a new article has been published by Miklós Sebők, Sven-Oliver Proksch, Christian Rauh, Péter Visnovitz, Gergő Balázs, Jan Schwalbach in the  International Political Science Review. The title of the article is: “Comparative European legislative research in the age of large-scale computational text analysis: A review article.” The article is available here: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/01925121231199904. 

PoltextLAB organises a workshop on November 23-24, 2023. The workshop’s title is “Studying Central-Eastern European Politics in the Age of AI – A workshop on data and methods”, and is taking place at the Centre for Social Sciences. The official programme can be found here.

DATA ANALYST JOB ADVERTISEMENT The Director General of the Centre for Social Sciences is inviting applications to fill the position of Data Analyst in the Artificial Intelligence National Laboratory Project. Responsibilities Data analysis, text mining and machine learning tasks in Python and/or R related to the CSS Artificial Intelligence National Laboratory project and the poltextLAB research group (https://poltextlab.com/); Modelling tasks related to the application of large language models; Automation of data collections. Our requirements Completed university degree in computer science and/or other natural or social sciences Advanced level of Python and/or R programming skills; Experience in the use of virtual servers; High-level English language skills No criminal record, legal capacity In the case of a university education level certified by a foreign certificate or diploma, the existence of a recognition or naturalization procedure under The Act C of 2001 Advantages Experience with large language models (LLM) Frontend knowledge Degree or research experience in social sciences Advanced quantitative or qualitative methodological skills Demonstrated high levels of English academic language skills The application must include Your CV A copy of the certificate attesting your qualifications A copy of the certificate attesting your language skills A cover letter in English (1 page) A declaration of consent to the processing of personal data contained in the application file in connection with the application procedure (a model declaration can be downloaded from https://tk.mta.hu/adatvedelem). The administration of the application process involves the processing of specified personal data of the applicant. The rules on data processing at the Centre for Social Sciences, including detailed information on data processing in the context of the application procedure, are available at https://tk.mta.hu/adatvedelem. Office location: Centre for Social Sciences, Artificial Intelligence National Laboratory, 4 Tóth Kálmán Street, 1097 Budapest. Application deadline: November 22, 2023.Applications can be sent via email to Laura Seben at the following e-mail address: lauraanna.seben@tk.hu. (please include in the subject line of the letter the following: ADATELEMZŐ/TK MILAB/2023) OR you can use Easy Apply on LinkedIn. Evaluation: The application will be evaluated based on your materials and an interview. All applications will be confirmed via email; however, feedback will only be given to those invited for an interview. The interview can be conducted in person or online. Salary: Please indicate your salary requirements when applying.The position will be filled with either a 20h/week or a 40h/week contract for one year, with a four-month probationary period, and is renewable depending on performance and funding. All application materials received (except the successful application) will be destroyed or, if the applicant explicitly requests it, kept for one year for possible future vacancies. For further information on the post please contact Orsolya Ring at ring.orsolya@tk.hu.

This year’s PSA Parliaments Annual Conference was held at the London School of Economic and Political Science on 2-3 November 2023. Miklós Sebők presented co-authored work with Rebeka Kiss on  “The (worst) laws of the land: The concept of legislative basket cases in Central-Eastern Europe”. The conference website is available here: psaparliaments.org/annual-conference. 

A new journal article by Miklós Sebők, Fruzsina Gárdos-Orosz, Rebeka Kiss, István Járay has been published in the Studia Iuridica Lublinensia. The title of the article is: “The Transparency of Constitutional Reasoning: A Text Mining Analysis of the Hungarian Constitutional Court’s Jurisprudence.” The article is available online here: https://journals.umcs.pl/sil/article/view/15641.

PoltextLAB is hiring a DATA ANALYST and a PROJECT RESEARCHER. If you are interested in joining a research lab that works with state-of-the-art AI methods to tackle the most relevant issues of social science, please follow the links: Data Analyst –> Project Researcher –> For more information, please reach out to us at lauraanna.seben@tk.hu.

The journal article by Ákos Máté, Miklós Sebők, Lukasz Wordliczek, Dariusz Stolicki and Ádám Feldmann has been published in Computational Communication Research on September 28, 2023, entitled “Machine Translation as an Underrated Ingredient? – Solving Classification Tasks with Large Language Models for Comparative Research.” The article is available here: https://doi.org/10.5117/CCR2023.2.6.MATE.  The PDF version can be found here: https://www.aup-online.com/docserver/fulltext/26659085/5/2/CCR2023.2.6.MATE.pdf?expires=1695992371&id=id&accname=guest&checksum=4170BC037ED6EF84A42CFE9098A5E14E.

On September 26, Miklós Sebők received the grant award of the new Lendület (“Momentum”) research group at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. The President of the Academy decided on 31 May 2023 on the ranking of excellence and the amounts of funding to be awarded to the research teams to be supported. As a result, a new Lendület (“Momentum”) research group was established at the Centre for Social Sciences (CSS), Budapest, led by Miklós Sebők. The five-year project, funded with over EUR 560 000, is entitled: “The changing global relations of the Visegrad countries in times of war – An artificial intelligence-assisted comparative analysis“. Dr Sebők is a research professor at the Institute of Political Science CSS, and the National Laboratory for Artificial Intelligence at CSS, as well as the principal investigator of poltextLAB (poltextlab.com), a research lab dedicated to text mining and artificial intelligence applications in the social sciences. The project will extend the lab’s machine learning-based analysis of public policy agendas to the history and current data sources of the Visegrad countries after 1990, with the help of the lab’s collaborators and national and international partners. Details on the Momentum research project of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences can be found here (in Hungarian): https://mta.hu/mta_hirei/a-bronzkortol-a-nanotechnologiaig-19-uj-lendulet-kutatocsoport-alakul-az-mta-tamogatasaval-112990.