We kindly ask the organizers of conferences, workshops (including Erdős Center workshops), summer schools, and other events to follow the steps below, in the order indicated:

  1. The members of the organizing committee should designate one person as the principal organizer. In what follows, this person will be referred to as the Scientific Organizer, to distinguish them from the Financial Organizer and the Administrative Organizer. The Scientific Organizer should send an email to the current Institute Conference Coordinator (currently Máté Matolcsi), specifying the title, topic, planned dates, and expected number of participants of the proposed conference.
  2. The Institute Conference Coordinator, together with the Director and Deputy Director of the Institute (currently András Stipsicz and Dezső Miklós), will decide whether the Institute supports the organization of the conference in principle. The Scientific Organizer will be informed of this decision. (It is expected that support will be granted in the vast majority of cases.)

  3. The room or rooms in which the conference will take place must be selected. Smaller workshops of up to 20 participants may be held in the Tondós Room or at the Erdős Center, while workshops of up to 30 participants may be held in the Turán Room. Larger conferences with 30–100 participants should be held in the Main Hall. Conferences with more than 100 participants must be held at an external venue, which must be arranged by the Scientific Organizer.

    Room availability can be checked on the Institute website (currently at the following link, although this may change as the website is continuously updated):
    https://www.renyi.hu/teremfoglaltsag

  4. The selected room(s) must be reserved for the relevant period. Reservations are made by the designated staff member of the Institute Secretariat (currently Ildikó Fodor), who should be contacted by email. The approval received under Point 2 should be attached to the request.
  5. A Financial Organizer and an Administrative Organizer from the Institute must be appointed for the conference. For this purpose, the Scientific Organizer should email the Head of the Finance Department (currently Dr. László Kökényesi) and ask them to appoint a Financial Organizer. The Scientific Organizer should also email the Deputy Executive Director of the Institute (currently Márta Szomolányi) and ask them to appoint an Administrative Organizer. During the organization of the conference, the responsibilities of the Scientific, Financial, and Administrative Organizers will be kept separate.

  6. With the assistance of the IT Department, the Scientific Organizer should create an email address that will serve as the official email address of the conference and should set up the conference website.

    There are essentially two possibilities for the conference website:

    The Scientific Organizer is responsible for managing the website and keeping the information on it up to date. If necessary, the Scientific Organizer should ask the IT Department for assistance in learning how to do this. It is not the responsibility of the IT Department to manage or maintain the conference website; this must be handled by the Scientific Organizer or by another member of the scientific organizing committee.

The appropriate registration and payment arrangements depend strongly on the size and type of the conference. We distinguish the following categories:

a. Conferences with no registration fee (e.g. Erdős Center events):

These are the simplest conferences from an organizational point of view. In this case, we recommend stating under “Registration” on the conference website that participants should indicate their intention to register by emailing the conference email address.

The purpose of this arrangement is to allow the organizing committee to accept or reject individual registrations. If a registration is accepted, the applicant should be notified by email and asked to provide all necessary information, such as affiliation for the preparation of name badges, participation in the conference dinner, etc. The information collected should be stored and managed by the Scientific Organizer or another member of the organizing committee.

This is a relatively basic solution, but experience shows that it works effectively.

Alternatively, an automatic registration module may be used. In practice, however, this tends to create more problems than advantages. For example, the organizing committee has no control over who registers; the information submitted during registration is often incomplete and must subsequently be collected separately; and the module may not support even certain simple searches among registered participants.

If the organizing committee nevertheless chooses this option, an appropriate registration interface should be created on the conference website. The IT Department can provide assistance with this, but the organizing committee will be responsible for dealing with any difficulties arising from the use of the module.

b. Conferences with a registration fee and no online payment option, with a maximum of 100 participants:

In this case, participants should pay the registration fee by bank transfer to the Institute’s bank account. Experience shows that this is by far the simplest solution and creates the fewest administrative difficulties. If the organizers nevertheless insist on offering online payment, see Point c below.

If bank transfer creates difficulties for a particular participant, the registration fee may, in exceptional cases, be paid in Hungarian forints in person at the Institute’s Finance Department during the conference. This should, however, genuinely remain exceptional and should apply to no more than 15% of the participants.

The bank details required for the transfer should not be published on the conference website, for the reason explained below.

It is important to note that the Finance Department is required to issue an invoice within eight days of every payment received. It must therefore have the necessary billing information.

For this reason, we recommend the following procedure for registration and payment of the registration fee:

The applicant first indicates their intention to register by email. The organizing committee then accepts or rejects the registration and informs the applicant of its decision by email. If the registration is accepted, the applicant is asked to pay the registration fee and to provide the information required for invoicing. Only after the billing information has been received should the applicant be sent the bank details required for the transfer.

This ensures that, once payment has been received, the Finance Department can issue an invoice to the participant using the information already provided.

If necessary, the Scientific Organizer and the Financial Organizer should coordinate the details of this procedure. Again, this may appear to be a rather basic solution, but experience shows that alternative arrangements tend to create substantially more complications.

c. Conferences with a registration fee and an online payment option, with a maximum of 100 participants:

We again emphasize that providing an online payment option typically creates administrative complications. We therefore recommend considering the procedure described in Point b above instead.

If the organizers nevertheless insist on providing an online registration-fee payment option, they should request assistance from the IT Department and inform the Finance Department.

The payment platforms available for this purpose tend to change from year to year, and setting them up inevitably creates additional work for the IT Department. The organizing committee should therefore begin arranging this well in advance, as complications should be expected.

A typical problem is that someone pays the registration fee online but cannot subsequently be identified, while the Finance Department is required to issue an invoice within eight days of receiving the payment and does not know to whom the invoice should be issued. Another recurring difficulty is that a person whose participation is clearly inappropriate from a scientific point of view (for example, someone with an unclear or questionable background) pays the registration fee before their application has been properly evaluated, making it considerably more difficult to reject the registration afterwards.

d. Conferences not covered by the categories above:

This category includes conferences with more than 100 participants that charge a registration fee. These are large conferences held at external venues.

In such cases, it is generally necessary to provide an online payment option for the registration fee. The Scientific Organizer should request assistance from the IT Department and should also coordinate with the Finance Department.

Online payment tends to create a considerable number of complications; examples are given under Point c above. The organizing committee should therefore begin arranging the payment system well in advance, as difficulties should be expected.

  1. Accommodation for invited speakers should be arranged jointly by the Administrative Organizer and the Scientific Organizer. The Administrative Organizer will liaise with the hotels, the Scientific Organizer, and the invited participants.

    If invited speakers also incur travel expenses, the arrangements should likewise be coordinated between the Scientific Organizer and the Administrative Organizer. Payment and invoicing of all such expenses must be coordinated with the Financial Organizer.

  2. The preparation of name badges and, where requested, conference packages is the responsibility of the Administrative Organizer. If printed abstract booklets are required, the Scientific Organizer should coordinate their preparation with the Administrative Organizer.

    The Scientific Organizer may also ask the Administrative Organizer for assistance in arranging cultural or social activities, such as guided city tours, boat trips, conference dinners, etc.

    Any matter involving invoicing or financial administration must be coordinated with the Financial Organizer.