The Research Group held its 2025 inaugural meeting

| 2025. February 14.

On February 12, 2025, the Research Group on Cross-Border Cooperation held its first regular meeting of the year at the Ludovika University of Public Service. At the meeting, Dr. Zsuzsanna Fejes, head of the Research Group, reported on the diverse activities of the Research Group in 2024, and the members present discussed the plans for 2025.

Journal
During 2024, we took important steps towards launching an internationally indexed, open access journal. By November 2024, the pilot issue of the Journal of Advanced Studies on Borders, Cooperation and Development, or ABCD Journal for short, was published in 1,000 printed copies and online with the support of the European Commission and the Association of European Border Regions. The theme of the pilot issue was a scientific analysis of the results so far of the EU initiative b-solutions, launched to identify and eliminate cross-border obstacles. The official launch of the journal is expected in 2025, as a joint publication of the Research Group and the University of Eastern Finland, under the editorship of James W. Scott.
Tender
One of the result of our activities last year was the Mecenatúra tender, within the framework of which we are organising a two-day English-language, international event in May this year in cooperation with the Faculty of Law and the European Network of Euro-Institutions (TEIN), which includes an international conference, a PhD seminar, a strategic workshop, and two university lectures. More information about the conference can be found here.
Conferences, workshops
The Research Group also placed great emphasis on participation in national and international conferences and workshops during 2024. We represented ourselves at a total of four conferences with presentations, and we participated in the organisation of two additional international conferences. On October 16, 2024, the Research Group, in cooperation with the Department of Governance and Public Policy of the Faculty of Public Governance and International Studies, organised an international conference entitled “Rethinking Cross-Border Cooperation and Governance in the Era of Transformational Processes”. On November 28, 2024, we organised a hybrid international conference together with the University of Granada.
Online lecture series
Our online lecture series, in which members of the Research Group introduce themselves, continued: Melinda Istenes-Benczi spoke about the role of national minorities in cross-border economic cooperation, and László Vájlok gave an overview of the Schengen system. Eleven new publications were published during the year with Research Group affiliation.

At the opening session, the members present also discussed the plans for 2025 in detail.

The activities of the Research Group will continue to be based on the most important goals of international visibility. In this context, the main event of the spring semester will be the international conference, which will be organised with nearly 30 international speakers and 120 participants.

The most important tool for international visibility is the publication, the framework of which we plan to achieve with the publication of the first issue of the ABCD Journal, by publishing the presentations of the international conference in open access format. In the second half of the year, the publication of the second issue is also planned, which will be dedicated to the future of European cohesion policy. The plans of the Research Group include the publication of a joint publication with the Határőr Kultúráért Association on the 40th anniversary of the Schengen Agreement. In order to disseminate their own research results, the members of the Research Group will also strive to publish in indexed international journals in 2025, as well as to give scientific presentations at conferences related to Hungarian and international border studies. Four more lectures are expected within the framework of the online lecture series, the first of which will be on February 25: Teodor Gyelník will speak about the impact of the Slovak national narrative on Hungarian-Slovak relations.