This document summarizes three cases of industry involvement in higher education in Bulgaria. [1] The first case discusses a new Masters program at Sofia University that focuses on technology entrepreneurship and management skills for software engineers, developed in collaboration with Intel Europe. [2] The second case examines an interdisciplinary program at New Bulgarian University that aims to provide telecommunications specialists with cross-disciplinary skills, developed alongside the ICT cluster. [3] The third case outlines compulsory industrial practice for engineering students at the Technical University of Sofia across various industries. The document concludes by discussing further challenges and opportunities for collaboration between academia and industry in Bulgaria.

1. Industry-academia collaboration –
cases of three Bulgarian universities
Assoc. Prof.
Elissaveta Gourova
Sofia University
Moldova, 16-17.05.2012

2. Main topics
 Introduction
 Bulgarian environment for industry-academia
collaboration
 Cases for industry involvement in HE
– Management skills for software engineers
– Interdisciplinary skills of telecom specialists
– Industrial practice for industrial engineers
 Further Challenges

3. 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 18 000 students
and 3000 lecturers and
administrative staff

4. Macroeconomic framework
 GDP structure
– Agriculture – 6%
– Industry – 17%
– Public sector
– Services – 61%
 Export – main part of raw or unprocessed products
– Typical for less developed countries
 Import – technology, machines, equipment, vehicles
 Rather good investment climate – law corporate taxation, law income
taxation (10%), stability, access to financing
 Foreign investments – telecommunications (18%), real estate (15%),
trade and vehicles (15,66%), electricity production (6,78%),
construction (6%), services (5%), textile (4, 36%), food production
(3,72%), production of rubber, plastics (3,99%), metal production
(3,27%), chemistry (2,65%)

6. Structure
 53 higher education institutes – 43 universities, 10
colleges (16 private)
 Bulgarian Academy of sciences – 73 independent legal
bodies (institutes, labs, centres, etc. ) – 66% of all
publications
– Institute for parallel information processing
– Institute of electronics
– Institute for nuclear research and atom energy
– Institute for microbiology
– Institute for organic chemistry
 Agriculture Academy – 27 research institutes, 19
experimental facilities

7. Research environment changes
 Law on Academic staff development (2010)
– Allocation of scientific degrees and titles
– Recruitment of researchers (long-term)
– Selection of PhD students
 Law on Higher education (under revision)
– Academic freedom
– Rights and responsibilities of universities
– Regular assessment of researchers
– Career development (sabbatical leave)
– 10% of state subsidy for research
 Law on Research Promotion – National Science Fund

8. Main weaknesses in Bulgaria
(European Innovation Scoreboard)
 Weak links between science and businesses
 Not sufficient measures to develop innovation
infrastructure, support services, technological brokerage,
intermediary services, etc.
 Not involvement of university students in scientific and
technological activities
 Low innovative culture of researchers and weak
innovative culture of businesses
 Low level of investment in new products and processes
 Slow implementation of measures and not systematic
and transparent evaluation, etc.

9. Innovation firms by number of
employees

10. Knowledge creation in Bulgaria
among 145 countries:
 39 place in Physics
 45 in Mathematics and Chemistry, growing publications
and their citation by other researchers
 47 in Computer Science and Engineering, with
decreasing from 1995 to 2003 publications and their
citations
 very low commercialization of research results

11. Type of academia-industry
collaboration in Bulgaria
Consultations 17%
Training, seminars, conferences 13%
Organization of student, doctoral, etc. practices 11%
Assisting the management of business processes 8%
Studies of the effectiveness of technologies/ 7%
products/services
Creation of new technologies 6%

12. Main topics
 Introduction
 Bulgarian environment for industry-academia
collaboration
 Cases for industry involvement in HE
– Management skills for software engineers
– Interdisciplinary skills of telecom specialists
– Industrial practice for industrial engineers
 Further Challenges

13. Centre of Information Society Technology
BSc and MSc Programs on Industry
•Software engineering
•Computer Sciences Faculty of Mathematics and Informatic
•Technology
Entrepreneurship
•E-Business …
Sofia University
“St. Kl. Ohridski”
Centre of IST
Scientific Research Departmen
Research and
education
EU / MES
projects

14. Role of FMI
 Strategy for ICT education in secondary
schools
 Curricula development for schools
 Teachers higher education and training
 E-Learning technology and methodology
 Building ICT professional skills
 ICT research and innovation

15. Implementing ACM / IEEE curricula at
Sofia University
 Computer Science
 Software Engineering
 Information Systems
– BSc, MSc & PhD
 Technology entrepreneurship
 e-Business
 e-Learning

16. BSc students of FMI
 very good level
of skills in
information
technology,
computer
networks and
data bases
 more efforts in
business
intelligence

17. Innovation skills of FMI students
 product commercialization and business process
reengineering

18. Management skills for software
engineers
 New MSc programme on Technology Entrepreneurship
and Innovation in IT
– Sofia University, Faculty of Mathematics and Informatics
– Intel Europe
– Training of professors at University of California, Berkley
 Launched in 2008, most demanded by students
– Course on Technology Entrepreneurship (Intel Europe)
– Course on Establishing students company (Junior
achievement - Bulgaria)
– Involvement of students in world competitions (HP, Intel)

19. ENTREPRENEURSHIP CURRICULUM,
UC BERKELEY

20. MSc on Technology Entrepreneurship
and Innovation in IT
Basic courses Core course on Elective courses
entrepreneurship
Innovation Management Technology Business Process Management
Financial management and entrepreneurship CRM
venture capital Organizational Behavior
Marketing management Knowledge management
Strategic management Business Intelligence
Project management
e-Business
Bases of e-governance
Internet and law
Graduate Student Company

21. Graduate Student Company
Learning processes

22. Main topics
 Introduction
 Bulgarian environment for industry-academia
collaboration
 Cases for industry involvement in HE
– Management skills for software engineers
– Interdisciplinary skills of telecom specialists
– Industrial practice for industrial engineers
 Further Challenges

23. New Bulgarian University
Department of Telecommunications
 New Bulgarian University
– First Bulgarian private university
– Flexible and efficient management structure
– Readiness to respond to knowledge and skills needs
 Department Telecommunications
– Unique programme on Telecom management
– High-qualified professors with experience in Telecom and postal
reforms, BTC, BNT, etc.
– Close collaboration with Telecom Industry and Regulatory
Bodies
– Close collaboration with Broadcasting stakeholders
– Close collaboration with ICT Cluster

24. Telecommunications programmes
Bachelor Programs specialization:
 Telecommunication technologies and services
 Regulation and management in electronic communications
 Postal and currier technologies and services
Master Programs specialization:
 Telecommunication systems and technologies
 Radio communications and electronic media
 Regulation and management in Telecommunications
 Implementation of telecommunications projects
PhD Program scientific area:
 Communication and computer technologies

25. Collaboration with stakeholders
Collaboration:
 Bulgarian Ministry of Transport, Information Technology and
Communications
 Commission on regulation of telecommunications
 International Telecommunications Union
Students Practice:
 On the basis of frame contracts: in Bulgarian Posts, Siemens,
Ericsson, Electron-Radiocom, Vivacom, M-Tel, Germanos, etc.
 Telecommunications Laboratory at NBU

26. Interdisciplinary skills of telecom
specialists
 new interdisciplinary programme ‘Innovation and
entrepreneurship in high tech’ elaborated in 2012 in
collaboration with the ICT cluster
 Programme topics:
– Economic and legal environment
– Management, finance and market specificity
– Strategic management
– Innovation and technology transfer
– Competitiveness and IPR management
– Web-based marketing
– Engineering design
– Software architectures
– Project funding for innovations
– Cultural and ethical issues of entrepreneurship

27. Main topics
 Introduction
 Bulgarian environment for industry-academia
collaboration
 Cases for industry involvement in HE
– Management skills for software engineers
– Interdisciplinary skills of telecom specialists
– Industrial practice for industrial engineers
 Further Challenges

28. Technical University – Sofia
 established in 1945, the leading Bulgarian engineering
university
 competitive in engineering research and training - more
than 1200 international projects, and many national
projects funded by industry
 dominance of projects funded by industry – only 25%
funding from international sources
 national award of the Agency for Energy efficiency
 award of Ministry of Education and Science for highest
financial contribution gained from international projects
 award ‘ICAR’ of the Bulgarian Industrial Association – for
its scientific and applied research

29. English Language Faculty of Engineering
Technical University - Sofia NIS
Faculty of … ELFE Faculty of
Automatics
Department Department Department DEM TOE Department
1 2 ? ?

30. Industrial practice for engineers
 Compulsory for students specialty Industrial Engineering BSc
program of ELFE
 Goal: to acquaint students with real production, enterprise
organization, marketing, human resourses, company policy, etc.
 Teaching methodology: Visits to real production facilities,
explanations from accompanying lecturers and enterprise staff
 Enterprises: produce machine tools, DC motors, machinery and
automatic transfer lines for packing, bottling and labeling, automatic
transfer lines and machines for recycling of industrial goods
 Bulgarian institute of metrology: visits to labs for measurement of
time and frequency, acoustics, vibrations, optics, electricity,
temperature, pressure, electrochemistry, etc.

31. Main topics
 Introduction
 Bulgarian environment for industry-academia
collaboration
 Cases for industry involvement in HE
– Management skills for software engineers
– Interdisciplinary skills of telecom specialists
– Industrial practice for industrial engineers
 Further Challenges

32. Survey goals
 Main goal:
– to collect quantitative data provided by researchers,
– to summarize the personal attitudes of the staff and their approach
to research activities
 Main issues studied:
– Faculty staff experience, skills, and research interests and needs;
– research priorities according to the staff – on European, on
national, and on personal short-term and long-term levels;
– personal assessment of the organization and work within Faculty;
– evaluation of the overall national environment and attitudes
toward researchers and research career in Bulgaria.

33. Needs for additional
training

34. FA collaboration with stakeholders
FA Weak FA Average FA Strong
21%
29% 27% 31%
33%
27%
23% 19%
19% 27%
14% 12%
10% 8%
4%
methodical well informed availability of feedback from awareness for
approach for about needs and feedback from
FMI collaboration with stakeholdersstakeholders is improving
aquiring needs expectation of
FMI Wea k stakeholders FMI Strong for raising
FMI Avera ge used communication
and expectation stakeholders performance of with stakeholders
of stakeholders
7% 7% 7%
the faculty
3% 5%
27%
23%
32% 32% 41%
23% 25%
21% 21%
16%
methodical well informed availability of feedback from awareness for
approach for about needs and feedback from stakeholders is improving
aquiring needs expectation of stakeholders used for raising communication
and expectation stakeholders performance of with stakeholders
of stakeholders the faculty

35. Summary
 TU and SU have achieved many successes
– Linking education programs to labour market needs and
students demands
– University strategies in place
– Well positioned in Bulgaria and the region
 Driven by leaders understanding global challenges for
research and industry organizations
 A lot of challenges remain:
– for the teaching staff to improve and widen competences
– Strengthening collaboration with stakeholders
– for changing of universities environment to motivate the staff
and attract young researchers

36. The way ahead
 Undertake continuous efforts to progress the quality of Faculty’s
education, training, information and research services to gain
program competitiveness, high levels of achievement and a
knowledgeable community.
 Ensure that education and research services are relevant to the
needs of Bulgarian people, workforce, industry and local and state
government.
 Release individuals of all ages with access to education, training
and information services to develop their competences in order to
be globally competitive workers, responsible citizens, and lifelong
learners.
 Ensure greatest benefit from education and research resources
through efficient operation and management of the education
and research system and investments in student learning centered
ICT.

37. Thank you for your attention!
Questions?
For contacts:
elis@fmi.uni-sofia.bg