Researchers mobility in Bulgaria Workshop ‘Researchers mobility in the region of Western Balkans’ Kopaonik, 12 March 2007 Elissaveta Gourova Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski”

Main topics Sofia university – CIST Mobility strategy – focus Tools for overcoming mobility problems Bulgarian Network of mobility centers

Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski” The first school of higher education in Bulgaria The largest and most prestigious university in Bulgaria, a big academic and scientific centre 16 Faculties on humanities and scientific disciplines More than students and 3000 lecturers and administrative staff

Centre for Information Society Technology Government Industry Research Education Research, Innovation and Technology transfer Knowledge Management Multimedia Artificial Intelligence e-Government e-Business e-Commerce e-Learning CIST Software engineering Education Training

FP6 projects related to researchers BulRMCNet - “Bulgarian Network of Research Mobility Centers” REKS – “Researchers in European Knowledge Society” U*NIGHT – “Universities by Night”

European context of mobility January 2000: “Towards ERA” Need for more abundant and mobile researchers in Europe Mobility as an important tool for transfer of scientific and social knowledge Mobility as a tool for solving demographic problems in Europe and for overcoming the labor shortages However, large flows into US and a number a barriers

Highly-skilled mobility impacts Source: OECD In Greece remittances – more than 30% of exports and 20% of imports In Turkey – 3 times higher than FDI

NMS in danger? Immigrants to US RO, 5% TK, 7% BG, 3% UK, 37% PL, 4% HU, 2% F, 11%D, 10% IRL, 3% GR, 2%

Internal mobility flows: barriers Legal and administrative (visa, social security, taxes, diplomas recognition, etc.) Social and cultural issues Researchers career Mobility industry-academia

European tools Mobility Strategy in ERA European Network of research mobility centers - ЕRA MORE Portal for researchers mobility Framework programs for RTD Marie Curie activities in FP6  People in FP7

Mobility academia – industry  Attracting more industrialists into research  Ensuring more opportunities for researchers for detachment into industry  Building more opportunities for meeting and working together – at conferences, targeted workshops, TTO, etc.  Creating more opportunities for young researchers to collaborate with industry – in joint projects, contractual research, sabbaticals, joint PhD supervision, etc. Objective: Fostering academia-industry collaboration EU Support Tool: FP7 ‘People’ and ‘Capacity’

BulRMCNet strategy Where we are now? Objectives of the strategy:  to build the Bulgarian Network of RMC and ensure its sustainability  to develop a National research mobility portal  to make them well known and used in Bulgaria Target audience: researchers, entrepreneurs, research, governmental and business institutions How to achieve our objectives?  face-to-face communications with all stakeholders  presentations to a larger audience  dissemination of printed and information materials  on-line presence – Portal and RMC own sites

Bulgarian Network of Research Mobility Centers Mission: to provide researchers and their families with up-to-date information and personalized assistance on issues related to their everyday work and life in a new country Scope: 4 regional mobility centers and Bridgehead organization: Sofia University - CIST

Thank you!