The University of Plovdiv and The Center "Science, Technology, Innovation"

HoNESt staff members

The University 'of Plovdiv (UP) "is a leading cultural, educational and scientific institution in Bulgaria". It was founded in 1961 as the Higher Pedagogical Institute of Mathematics and Natural Sciences and declared a University in 1972.

The University actual institutional accreditation (2013) allows training in all levels of tertiary education - "specialist", "Bachelor", "Master" and "Doctor". Teaching and research are carried out by over 681 highly qualified full-time teachers, including 94 professors, 211 associate professors, 298 assistant professors, 78 assistant professors and other teachers. Currently around 14,000 full-time and 4,000 part-time students are pursuing their education in more than 80 undergraduate and 100 graduate degree programs in natural, human, social, engineering and economics.

The Center "Science, Technology, Innovation" with chair Prof. Dr. Ivan Tchalakov was founded in 2004 at the Faculty of Philosophy and History of PU. Its main goals are as follows:

• Basic and applied research in the field of social studies of science and technology, sociology of innovation and economics of technical change;
• Supporting researchers of natural-science and engineering at UP and other universities in the region on issues of social and economic aspects of research, science policy, protection of intellectual property and others.