The Hungarian Research Student Association organised in the autumn of 2000 in Budapest the First National Conference of the Students’ Science Clubs (TUDOK 2000) also attended by Transylvanian students. The next year there were so many applicants for the conference that we decided it is better to organise regional conferences in several towns and in the neighbouring countries and that only the prize-winning students from these conferences should compete at TUDOK. The First Transylvanian Students’ Science Clubs Conference was organised at Marosvásárhely in the spring of 2002 and the first regional conference from Serbia-Montenegro was held in 2003.

We organised the TUDOK’s second Transylvanian regional conference, the TUDEK 2003, at the ‘Bethlen Gábor’ College in Nagyenyed between the 21^st and 23^rd of November. We started the organizational work in May 2003. The call for papers was made on the official site of the college (www.bethlengabor.ro), of the TUDEK (www.tudek.home.ro) and also in the central Hungarian newspapers from Romania as well as in some Hungarian county newspapers.

Any Hungarian high-school student could compete at the conference (including previous-year graduates). The submitted papers had to meet the following general criteria:

The original budget of the conference was 57.288.000 lei (around 1.400 euro). We obtained part of the sum from the Communitas Foundation from Kolozsvár, another part from local sources and the remaining part from the Research Student Foundation from Budapest. The board of the college provided lodging for the guest.

The organizing team members from Nagyenyed were Ildikó Stáb, Jenő Krizbai and Ágoston Dvorácsek high-school teachers of the college. They were supported by the board of the college and helped by enthusiastic students.

The Hungarian Research Student Association represented at the Nagyenyed conference by the deputy chairperson Zita Rovó and by the head of the Transylvanian section Lóránd Fülöp from Marosvásárhely coordinated the conference.

96 students from 21 schools from 17 Transylvanian localities submitted 76 papers for the conference. They presented the papers in 6 sections: Biology, Geography-Geology-Environmental protection, other Natural Sciences (like physics-chemistry-mathematics-informatics), Human Sciences (like psychology and social studies), Hungarian Language, Literature and Ethnography. Besides those submitting papers there were seven students who were just curious about such conferences. We could not refuse their request because they are the FUTURE!

As we did not define the fields of research very strictly leaving this up to the students and their coordinators, the papers covered a large area of subjects. It is worth mentioning a few:

It is worth noticing that there were more papers, 42 targeting human studies whereas there were only 34 for the science sections. Another interesting fact is that 62 girls submitted papers whereas boys were only 35. Most of the papers, 48 were written in schools from small towns, 24 were written in cities, and only 4 were written in village schools.

The papers were assessed by professors from the “Babes-Bolyai” University and the Reformed Theology from Kolozsvár and then they were the chairmen of the three-member section juries which assessed the presentation of the papers.

The assessing of the papers happened in two stages. The papers were first assessed by the chairmen of the juries from 0 to 20 points taking into account their scientific value, originality and form. During the conference the authors had a ten minute presentation assessed by each member of the section juries from 0 to 10 points. The final grade was the sum of the two separate grades.

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There were six first, eight second, six third prizes and thirteen special mentions at the conference. The prize giving festivity was attended by the chief editors of the Természet Vilaga and Élet és Tudomány, Staar Gyula and Herczeg János who presented their magazines and professor Vekerdi László delivered an interesting lecture about Galilei. Thanks to the chief editors the winners received a lot of magazines besides their otherwise small prizes. The winners could also compete in the Fourth National Conference of the Students’ Science Clubs (TUDEK 2004) organised at Szeged between 16^th and 17^th of April where some of them were successful.

We handed out some questionnaires to receive feedback regarding the conference. We learned that there were some problems with the heating, amplification systems, computers, the fact that the jury asked few questions after the presentation and the students needed some overhead projectors! These remarks may be used by the organisers of the next TUDEK which will be held at Barót, Kovászna County in September 2004. It felt good to receive the following remark:

“In my opinion the event was very well organized and the problems we encountered were due to the poor funding and of the poor technical background but the organisers have done everything that was in their power to make this event a successful one.”

The TUDOK conferences and its regional conferences offer a good opportunity for the good students to present their achievements and to learn about the work of their mates. The students and their teachers can share their experience and speak about their future plans. It would be useful organizing this scientific movement in Romania, too. So far we were not successful because we did not find the proper supporters. Probably, we should start by inviting Romanian students to such conferences. Therefore it would be useful to make a few sections at the next TUDEK where the Romanian and Hungarian students can present their papers for example in English. We hope that we will soon have the financial and the technical support which will ease the work of the organizers because such conferences will be needed in the future, too.