Balázs obtained his legal degree in 2015 at the Pázmány Péter Catholic University Faculty of Law and Political Sciences, Budapest. In the 2012/13 academic year, he studied European and international law as an Erasmus student at the Radboud University Faculty of Law in Nijmegen, the Netherlands. Balázs is also a Translator Specialized in Law, he gained his LL.M. degree at the Pázmány Péter Catholic University Deák Ferenc School of Postgraduate Studies in 2018. Balázs defended his doctoral thesis in November 2020.

Balázs worked in several organizations gaining experience in the field of the protection of the rights and the promotion of the interests of national minorities in the European Union. In 2014/15, he worked as an intern at the Minority Rights Protection Institute, Budapest (Kisebbségi Jogvédő Intézet). Since 2016, Balázs has been a legal advisor at the Dr. Sobor Law Firm, where he assisted in the court proceedings of the ECI on National Minority Regions at the Court of Justice of the European Union. Since 2017, Balázs has been a legal expert of the Rákóczi Association (Rákóczi Szövetség), coordinating the Hungarian signature collection campaign of the Minority SafePack ECI. Since 2018, he has been working at the State Secretariat for the European Union Relations of the Prime Minister’s Office.

Balázs is a member of the Hungarian community in South Slovakia. This fact has influenced not only his professional career but his commitment to actively participate in public life as well. Since 2018, he is the Vice-President of the Rákóczi Association (Rákóczi Szövetség), one of the biggest culture-oriented Hungarian civil society organizations, an umbrella organization boasting over 28 000 members and more than 500 local branches from the Carpathian Basin and all around the world. Moreover, as an external expert, he was also nominated as a candidate for the 2019 European Parliament elections by the Party of the Hungarian Community in Slovakia.

Since July 2019, Balázs is an associate researcher at EUstrat – European Strategy Research Institute of Ludovika-University of Public Service, led by Hungary’s former EU Commissioner, Tibor Navracsics. Balázs’s research at EUstrat focuses on the law of the EU, participatory democracy, the protection and promotion of the rights and interests of national minorities in the EU, and citizen interest representation. Until the end of 2020, he also worked as an international advisor at the International Directorate of the Ludovika-University of Public Service.

University of Notre Dame, Kellogg Institute for International Studies

The Kellogg Institute for International Studies promotes research excellence on critical global challenges, with a particular focus on democracy and human development. Building on a core interest in Latin America and Africa, the Kellogg Institute fosters research on the developing world and beyond.

Supporting the research and educational mission of the University of Notre Dame by engaging faculty, students, and visiting scholars in a supportive intellectual community, the Institute works to project the University onto the global stage.

The Kellogg Institute forms an integral part of Notre Dame’s Catholic mission by addressing normative and scholarly concerns that embody the values reflected in Catholic social thought.

Georgetown University is a private research university in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Founded by Bishop John Carroll in 1789 as Georgetown College, the university has grown to comprise ten undergraduate and graduate schools, among which are the School of Foreign Service, School of Business, Medical School, Law School, and a campus in Qatar. On a hill above the Potomac River, the school’s main campus is identifiable by its flagship Healy Hall, a National Historic Landmark.

Georgetown is the oldest Catholic and Jesuit institution of higher education in the United States. The Jesuits have participated in the university’s academic life, both as scholars and as administrators, since 1805. However, the university has always been governed independently of the church, and the majority of Georgetown students are not Catholic.

Undergraduate admissions is highly selective. The university offers degree programs in forty-eight disciplines, enrolling an average of 7,500 undergraduate and 10,000 post-graduate students from more than 135 countries. Georgetown’s notable alumni include 27 Rhodes Scholars, 21 Marshall Scholars, 33 Truman Scholars, 429 Fulbright Students, two U.S. Presidents, and two U.S. Supreme Court Justices, as well as international royalty and 14 foreign heads of state. Among the world’s leading institutions in government and international relations, the school’s alumni include more U.S. diplomats than any other university and many members of the United States Congress.

Nicole Nemeth is an attorney from San Diego, California, practicing primarily in civil litigation spanning a multitude of legal disputes. She is a graduate of the University of San Diego and the prestigious Pepperdine University Straus Institute for Dispute Resolution, Mediating the Litigated Case, as well as the Women’s Negotiations Academy. While Ms. Nemeth’s concentration has been in civil and criminal litigation, she actively applies this experience to mediation.

Ms. Nemeth’s father was born and raised in Hungary and escaped the Soviet communist regime in the late 1960’s, but always instilled a love and pride of Hungary. Ms. Nemeth joined the ReConnect Hungary and ReConnect Transylvania Program in the inaugural 28+ year program in 2018, and fell in love with Hungary and Transylvania.

The main goal of establishing the National Policy Research Institute (NPKI) was to create an institution operating according to scientific standards, which can disseminate the results of research on Hungarian communities abroad and support for the motherland in a form that can be used for politics. The scope of activities of the NPKI can be divided into three major areas: research, analysis and preparation of background materials; publishing and organization of academic events; and education.

Kincső Kővári is currently a student of Corvinus University of Budapest. She is doing her master’s in Media- and Communication Science, although she graduated in Psychology. During her BA, she had the opportunity to attend the Psychological Institute of Catholic University of Leuven. Her interests in social sciences led her to participate in internship programs of the Office of the Commissioner for Fundamental Rights of Hungary, the relatively young think tank- Paradigma Institute, or The Hungary Foundation.

Kincső has always been interested in civil society and people with different socioeconomic backgrounds, so as a volunteer she contributed to the work of several NGOs in Hungary, Jordan, and Germany. She started working as a volunteer in high school, and as a student of Saint Ignatius Jesuit College for Advanced Studies, she experienced how to work for the benefit of society in an interdisciplinary team. In the Jesuit college, she could attend courses on several disciplines from Law to Geopolitics and had the chance to challenge and develop her skills through various projects like creating a complex developmental strategy for a village in rural Hungary or taking part in parliamentary simulation programs.

Being an MCC student led her to HIF and specifically to the Budapest Fellowship Program also, and soon she realized the great opportunity and potential that is actually in it.

The Hungary Foundation is a solely charitable 501(c)3 non-profit organization. The Foundation pursues its mission and goals by supporting Hungarian-American organizations and by supporting programs that strengthen interaction and cooperation between Hungarian and American citizens and institutions. In particular, the Foundation is focused on supporting cultural, educational and scholarly activities. The Foundation does not participate in political activities, political or election campaigns.

Mathias Corvinus Collegium is an extracurricular educational institution and knowledge center in Hungary with an outstanding reputation for its academic excellence. With more than twenty years of experience in talent promotion, MCC aims to educate well-prepared intellectuals with critical thinking who are also able to responsibly address the challenges of our time. MCC Research is the “university think tank” of the Collegium which aspires to elaborate on relevant yet socially divisive topics while communicating them for the public applying clear and plain language in a thoughtful, logical manner.

Hanga Horváth-Sántha earned her Master of Laws degree at the University of Stockholm, Sweden, including one year of master’s studies in Fribourg, Switzerland. She specialized in security policy at the Center for Asymmetric Threats and Terrorism Studies at the Swedish National Defence College and has through her professional career focused on radicalization into violent extremism and terrorism. She is currently completing her Ph.D. at the Faculty for Military Sciences and Officer Training at the National University for Public Service in Budapest, Hungary. In her research, Hanga investigates underlying causes of radicalization into Salafi Jihadism among second and third-generation immigrants in Western Europe. She has – among others – conducted interviews with former Jihadists as well as with Christian asylum-seekers fleeing from religious persecution. Her latest field research was the methodology of de-radicalizing the children of ISIS in Indonesia, including in-depth interviews with defectors.

Previously, Hanga has held positions as Special Advisor at the Swedish Ministry of Justice, the Prime Minister’s Office (Crisis Management and Coordination Secretariat) as well as the Swedish National Police Board, focusing on issues related to the prevention of violent extremism.

She moved to Hungary in 2015 and worked as Senior Research Fellow at the Migration Research Institute, researching the nexus between migration in security. During the course of her work, she has conducted field research in several countries including Turkey, Greece, Northern Macedonia, Serbia, and Germany, and curated the exhibition on persecution of Christians in the Middle East at the Hungarian National Museum.

Hudson Institute

Founded in 1961 by strategist Herman Kahn, Hudson Institute challenges conventional thinking and helps manage strategic transitions to the future through interdisciplinary studies in defense, international relations, economics, health care, technology, culture, and law.

Hudson guides public policy makers and global leaders in government and business through a vigorous program of publications, conferences, policy briefings, and recommendations.

Hudson Institute is a 501(c)(3) organization financed by tax deductible contributions from private individuals, corporations, foundations, and by government grants.