Dear Prof. Miseta, dear Prof. Fábián, distinguished faculty members, colleagues and friends, ladies and gentlemen.
We have gathered to celebrate the jubilee of one hundred years of the Pécs Faculty of Law to which I'd like to convey my congratulations.
With its brilliant slogan "tradition and progress," the framework or - to put it in more traditional words - an important conditio sine qua non for academic excellence has been formulated in a perfect way. International scientific exchange is one of the key components in this respect.
In my role as a senior researcher at the Freiburg Max Planck Institute and an honorary doctor at your esteemed Faculty I am in the pleasant position to provide you with some impressions of the fruitful mutual scientific exchange between scholars of our two academic institutions. Notwithstanding the fact that the Freiburg institute is just a bit more than half as old as your faculty, our connections have a long tradition. Substantial research cooperation started in the 1970ies already - in an era in which the so-called cold war between the two political blocks of East and Western Europe was predominant. One may even say that we anticipated the political integration that started in the late 1980ies.
It was as early as 1980, when a pioneer project was launched. Under the direction of emeritus professors Korinek, Albrecht and Teske - at that time three excellent young researchers - an empirical victimological research project exploring victim experiences and fear of crime was planned and conduced simultaneously in three different regions in Europe and the US: Baranya, Baden-Württemberg and Texas.
The study was a trendsetter in a variety of aspects:
- From a substantial point of view: It was one of the very first empirical European studies on fear of crime - at a time when victimological research was far away from its current status of an established discipline in criminology.
- Methodologically: Mayor tools tested and applied have become state of the art.
- And third, it was an early example of the impact and added val-
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ue of international comparative research: At that time reflecting not only the transatlantic perspective but also the former East-West divide in Europe.
The study raised considerable attention within the scientific community. The findings presented entailed impactful policy implications: For the first time, empirical evidence had proven that victimization in Hungary was approximately twice as high as the official - "politically polished" - crime rate. In concrete figures, the 12-months prevalence rate in the South of Hungary and in the South of Germany were pretty the same (i.e., about 20 percent), while the rate for Texas was significantly higher (at more than 36 percent). Accordingly, fear of crime was at a similarly low level among citizens in Baranya and Baden-Württemberg and notably high in Texas. On the other hand, however, trust in the police in the three regions surveyed was highest in the US and lowest in Hungary. This might be one of the reasons why the overall reporting rate in the Baranya region was extremely low at that time: only one out of four incidents were reported to the police. In this particular regard, the research was a kind of starting point for a variety of research activities studying citizens' trust into police, its elements and explaining factors - many of such studies have been conducted in Hungary in the last two decades. According to more recent data from the International Crime Victims Survey, both, satisfaction with police and the reporting rate, have seen a parallel increase in Hungary since then.
In other respects, our early piece of joint research was extremely fruitful, too. By exploring concrete social phenomena such as hidden crime and fear of crime a greater scientific goal was pursued and realized: The break-up of overcome systemic constraints on scientific research of that era - both, theoretical and empirical.
Without doubt, this research project was an early exercise in internationalization, realized long before the fall of the iron curtain.
Besides active research, education is another important cornerstone of academic excellence. Through the lens of my disciplines, criminal law and criminology, today's curriculum for the law students here in Pécs - and I guess, in Hungary in general - appears more advanced than that of most law faculties in my country. To mention just one example: Criminology which provides the necessary sociological and empirical background for studying and understanding criminal law, its concepts and its impact, is an integral part of the mandatory courses for all law students - a situation we can only dream of in Germany.
Dissemination of academic contents should of course not be limited to the regular curricula for the enrolled lo-
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cal student body. Advanced researchers, policy-makers and practitioners should be addressed as well. An excellent example of a wider forum for the dissemination and discussion of up-to-date research knowledge was the so-called Kriminologischer Sommerkurs (Criminological Summer Course) which was initiated by the emeritus Professors Korinek and Albrecht. It is another successful achievement realized in close bi-lateral cooperation between the Pécs Faculty of Law and the Freiburg Max Planck Institute. The course which I had the pleasure to coordinate together with Professor Kőhalmi since 2006 developed to become a forum for mutual exchange. Every second year Pécs was a favorite destination for young researchers and practitioners from Pécs, Hungary and the entire South-East of Europe.
An impressive range of topics of relevance in international criminological research were covered:
It started in 2006 with: New developments in criminological theory und empirical research, followed by:
- Measures of surveillance in criminal procedure (2008),
- Imprisonment and treatment of dangerous offenders (2010 -when Pécs was the Culture Capital of Europe),
- Minorities (2012),
- Security research, in particular objective vs. subjective securities (2014,)
- Terrorism (2016), and
- Economic crimes and penal control of the economic sector (2018).
It was always a great pleasure to prepare the program of the courses, to come to Pécs and deliver lectures, and to meet the colleagues from the Pécs Faculty of Law, and not to forget the considerable number of participants from all over Hungary and beyond. Many of them attended regularly. Meanwhile some of them are holding important positions in academia, prosecution, and the judiciary.
A bit later, a similar summer program was started together with Max Planck's criminal law department which was organized in the years in between the criminology courses. Professor Tóth and Professor Gal were the driving forces for these events.
Mainly in the summer period, but also at other times of the year, the Freiburg institute hosted many past and present faculty members. Some of them resulted in joint research activities and joint publications. Assistant Professor Kulcsar's and emeritus Professor Kury's papers on punitiveness and attitudes on punishment are just one notable example.
While my focus was limited on just a small selection of good practices from the field of the criminal sciences, the
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other departments for certain gained lots of merits, too.
Without doubt the Faculty of Law has contributed significantly to PTE's good scores in world university rankings. However, this academic excellence was prevalent already at the times before the contemporary ranking systems became so fashionable and powerful.
At the end of the day, tradition and progress are two sides of the same coin. Tradition can also be a catalyst for progress. This insight may hopefully not get lost - just so in the next 100 years.
Once again: Congratulations!
Und vielen Dank - Nagyon köszönöm! ■
Lábjegyzetek:
[1] Max Planck Institute for the Study of Crime, Security and Law Freiburg, i.Br., Germany
Visszaugrás
