Beyond Journals: Rethinking Research Evaluation in Hungarian Computer Science

2026-06-09

AI Summary

This study addresses the misalignment between Hungary’s research evaluation system and global norms in computer science, where excessive reliance on journal publications and neglect of top-tier international conferences distort scholarly incentives. For the first time, it systematically integrates multiple data sources—including iCore, DBLP, MTMT, and MTA-ATT—to quantitatively assess Hungarian researchers’ output, disciplinary distribution, and career trajectories in CORE A* and A conferences through bibliometric analysis, author disambiguation, and temporal topic modeling. Findings reveal that theoretical subfields adopted conference publishing earlier, while many high-performing researchers have emigrated. The study recommends aligning national evaluation criteria with international standards by equating CORE A* conferences with D1 journals and CORE A conferences with Q1 journals, thereby fostering a more globally integrated and incentive-compatible research assessment framework.

Abstract

This study examines the role of top-tier conference publications in Hungarian computer science research. We show that the national scientometric practice, which is currently journal-oriented, diverges from international norms, creating incentive distortions in researcher evaluation. By linking multiple databases (iCore, DBLP, MTMT, MTA-ATT), we mapped Hungarian-affiliated CORE A* and A conference papers, their temporal and thematic distribution, and author trajectories. Our results indicate that, in theoretical fields, publishing at international conferences became common earlier than in applied fields. At the same time, in applied fields, successful researchers are more likely to continue their careers in foreign institutions or in industry positions. Overall, a substantial share of the already established, internationally most successful researchers are now affiliated with institutions abroad. We recommend recognizing CORE A* papers as equivalent to D1 and CORE A papers as equivalent to Q1 journals in national evaluation systems.

Problem

• research evaluation
• conference publications
• scientometric practice
• incentive distortion
• Hungarian computer science

Innovation

• research evaluation
• CORE conference ranking
• database integration
• scientometrics
• computer science