PhD and Banking Innovation at the Same Table: KIBERLAB at ELTE's Doctoral Open Day
On 8 April, the Faculty of Informatics at ELTE held its doctoral open day, where attendees were able to gain a comprehensive overview of how the doctoral programme works, the conditions for applying, and the possibilities for scientific and industrial collaboration. The full recording of the event has since been made available on the Faculty of Informatics’ YouTube channel.
Representing KIBERLAB and OTP Bank, Kiss Marcell and Gergely Zsolt Kovács took part in the roundtable discussion. One of the strongest messages of the conversation was that doctoral study today is no longer an isolated academic path, but a professional career in which research and industrial application reinforce one another.
The KIBERLAB perspective emerged in a particularly tangible way during the discussion. Gergely Zsolt Kovács summed up his research question as follows: “Is it possible to reconcile the training of artificial intelligence with data protection?” This illustrates well that doctoral research here is not an abstract theoretical question, but a highly topical problem that is directly relevant to the financial sector.
The same business-oriented approach was evident from OTP’s side as well. Marcell Kiss spoke about how OTP’s approach is “strategically minded”, with the aim of staying ahead of rapidly evolving attack methods and technological challenges. It also became clear from the conversation that the bank is open to research ideas coming from students, provided they address real problems in cybersecurity and AI security. This is an important message, as it conveys that a two-way relationship now exists between doctoral study and corporate research and development.
KIBERLAB puts this model into practice. BSc, MSc, and PhD students alike can participate in the programme, and the lab offers an environment where students not only conduct research but work on real industrial problems. In the previous semester three doctoral students carried out research at KIBERLAB; in the current semester that number has risen to four, reflecting the lab’s increasingly strong connection to doctoral education.
This is precisely why KIBERLAB’s presence at ELTE’s doctoral open day was especially significant: it made clearly visible that research, talent development, and banking innovation are not separate domains, but parts of a shared professional ecosystem.
The full recording is available here: ELTE Faculty of Informatics Doctoral Open Day: Pathways to Academic and Industrial Excellence