Marek Rybar (Comenius University) visited the University of Birmingham in early December. He is currently writing a book on the 2014 Presidential elections in Slovakia as well as working on a number of papers exploring various aspects of party politics in Central and Eastern Europe. Marek, who was also a visiting scholar in 2005 and has co-authored articles with Dr Tim Haughton, used his time in Birmingham consulting books and articles in the library and discussing his research with staff. 'It was a great pleasure for me to be able to make use of the excellent facilities at the University of Birmingham. The warm welcome I received helped make my short stay very conducive to getting a lot of work done.'