Prof. Dr. Dimitar Dimitrov for Focus Information Agency: The Participation of UNWE in ENGAGE.EU Is a Recognition of the Quality of Education

Prof. Dimitrov, first of all, I would like to greet you for the incredible opportunity opened for the UNWE. Tell us about the allocated funds of 14 million BGN.

Thank you very much for the congratulations and I will make some clarifications. It is the second stage of our ENGAGE.EU alliance of 9 leading business universities in Europe. And this second stage, 4 plus 2 years, receives funding from the European Commission as in total for the alliance this amount is 14.4 million euros, so it is not just for our university and it is not just for this month. But it is a long process, I would not even call it a victory or an achievement but part of the way we have been going over these years. Because the work on these European alliances of universities that were set up 6-7 years ago continues successfully and it is not a coincidence that the European Commission is funding all the alliances for another 4 plus 2 years.

It is a great recognition because for our alliance, for our university, and for the other Bulgarian universities, it is a recognition of our work, of the fact that we are part of the common European educational and research area.

At the time when this idea came up, our consultant who helped us with the application 5 years ago said that it was an idea of the President Emmanuel Macron who used to say: "We want to see European universities as one Airbus - a common project of many European universities." Five years ago when the first alliances were established about twenty universities were approved and not a single Bulgarian university participated in the ranking for various reasons. But at the next ranking, in 2020, 4 Bulgarian universities were included with the idea that in time these alliances will form unified European universities.

What are the criteria for participation of a Bulgarian university in this Alliance?

There are no clear criteria but the traditional requirements are taken into account - to have a high quality of education, of research, the geographical principle is also important and the similarity in the profiles of these universities. We are in ENGAGE.EU alliance which consisted of 7 European universities and 2 years ago we admitted 2 new universities. They are all leading business universities in Europe with a profile very similar to ours. At them is studied economics, administration, law, sociology, political science. They have a similar number of students - about 15-20 thousand students - some have smaller. But when we start to actively integrate, this university we call it the European University ENGAGE.EU, it will have about 100 thousand students and these students will be able to feel like real European students, i.e. not only students from the UNWE but also from the universities from Germany, Netherlands, Austria, Italy, Norway, France, Spain, etc. So the students could carry out mobility both physical and virtual, to feel like students from one European university.

There are many opportunities, many European doors are open but what solutions will be sought through the Alliance?

Firstly, harmonization of curricula and syllabuses. For us in particular but also for the other partners it showed and gave us a lot. For our university, in particular, we have realized that we are not somewhere on the periphery or included simply by geography, but on the contrary, we are an equivalent partner in all initiatives of the Alliance. There are many objectives and tasks to be achieved during the implementation of this project. Many of them are related to building a common platform for research, virtual campus, resource sharing. It happened so that a very large part of the project coincided with the COVID pandemic and there was the so-called "virtual mobility" - all students could listen to courses from Vienna, from Bergen or Rome and thus take their exams which we recognize and count as extra credit. And thus a community of these universities was created.

I want to tell you how the common situation looks like. There are about 4500 universities in Europe. In all the alliances, which are about 50, there are about 430 universities from 35 countries. That means about 10% of the universities participate in these alliances funded by the European Commission. A few days ago another Bulgarian university - Krastyo Sarafov National Academy of Theatre and Film Arts /NATFA/ also joined our Alliance. Congratulations to my colleagues and to the Rector of the NATFA Prof. Semerdjiev because cultural issues have not been included so far and it is another contribution. The other universities that are included in different alliances are the Technical University of Sofia, New Bulgarian University of Sofia, Agrarian University of Plovdiv, St. Climent Ohridsky University of Sofia, Medical University - Sofia, University of Agribusiness and Regional Development - Plovdiv and Neofit Rilsky South-West University. It is recognition for all these universities and shows that Bulgarian education, despite criticism or weaknesses, is at a good enough level.

Because we partner with leading universities in Europe. Even, due to this Alliance, we have managed to win 2 more projects related to research and knowledge transfer. And such promotion of cooperation which is a priority for the European Union and for the European Commission leads to many other effects that are not immediately visible. But it is much easier to prepare a new project when you know the partners, when they know you, they know about your capabilities, you have worked together and this stimulates such participation further. So, alliances give a qualitatively new development of cooperation between the universities.

The aim of this initiative is to develop new models to stimulate both student, lecturers and staff mobility, contributing to quality, integration as well as to the sustainability of European higher education, innovation and research. Mrs. Maria Gabriel also had an interesting post. Could you present it to us?

Mrs. Gabriel published a Facebook post congratulating the Bulgarian universities participating in the European alliances including NATFA. And she says this as a commissioner who was responsible for these alliances and for these associations of universities. I want to outline that the job is not just to be nominated and win because you are the UNWE or the Technical University. The work on the second stage lasted almost a year, the previous four-year period lasted almost a year and a half, with the submission of projects coordination, conciliation between the different partners.

I would like to point out something else that is very important. It is not just a closed university project aimed at integrating those universities which, in some softer form, will create European universities in the future. Some alliances, for example, do not want to form such common universities but they have common projects. One of our main objectives of the ENGAGE.EU project is in addition to curricula and research to have an effect, an impact on the society in which these universities exist. And it is a very important indicator for our work - how a university contributes to the whole society, not just how many students it has and how many it has accepted, but how it affects unemployment, how it affects employment, how it affects the up-skilling of people who have left university or secondary school long ago, how it affects marginalized communities, how it affects the economy in general, the country it is in, or Europe if you like. Because it is not only important to have two or three publications in the citation tracking database Scopus or somewhere else but sometimes one interview of your colleague from the university about migration or about the adoption of the euro can turn the whole public opinion on this issue. And that is why it is an important indicator. Our university is focused on participation in this project with our strengths, we are leading in communication and impact, the impact on these communities and the measurement of these things in general.

And what is the data at this point? How does the UNWE impact all those areas you listed?

We have associated partnerships with several ministries – the Ministry of Economy, the Ministry of Education and Science as well as with Sofia Municipality. We have made very interesting campaigns for pupil competitions and student competitions as it was the competition on entrepreneurship. All the competitions provoked great interest in Sofia, Burgas, Sliven, Yambol and Stara Zagora because they orient young people towards better vocational training.

Prof. Dimitrov, now I would like to talk about the prospective student campaign. We know that you have extended the deadline for reception of documents. What do you think this increased interest is due to?

Some colleagues were anxious why we extend the admission as if there were no applicants. On the contrary, we have had a record number of prospective students for the last few years - over 6000 applicants. But since there is a break between 30 June and 11 July when we will announce the first ranking, then the people who are busy collecting the documents have to verify them with the Ministry of Education. We have extended only the online admission a little bit to not overburden those colleagues who receipt documents but also to give those who have missed out the opportunity to do so. Those more than 6000 prospective students apply for about 3000 state contract vacancies. But there are also quite a few who want to study in paid form of education because that way they choose the speciality they want to enter if they are not ranked. We have a lot of interest in the new degree courses specialities in cybersecurity and big data analytics where there is only paid tuition. There are hundreds of applicants who want to study these specialities, the training for them is on a joint programme at the University of Thrace.

And the ranking will be announced soon. Let's say when will it happen?

On 11 July should be announced on schedule the first ranking, maybe a little earlier, but students keep an eye on our website enough. This year we've set up a lot of digital conditions, our software robot makes calls, makes automated messages, we have a new Call Center with 10 phone lines that service all of those things, we send emails, text messages, students can view their profiles themselves online so there are all the channels of communication and applicants can find out when they get admitted. And let the students expect, those who, of course, are admitted at the first ranking, let them expect an automatic message saying: "Congratulations! You have been admitted as a student of the UNWE!".

Including, as you said, there is also a Call Centre for Prospective Student Requests so that everyone can ask the questions interested in. Prof. Dimitrov, what other innovative ideas do you have for the future?

The general directions in which we want to develop are standard - to improve research, in this direction we create a new information system for projects, to apply for different projects, because it is a huge effort that is not visible. When you say: "Congratulations! You have won the project" it sounds easy, but behind that stands a year of work of 10-15 people. Then we want to increase the internationalization - more international students, more partnerships with other universities, including in research. And the other major issue, which is no longer just an issue of our university, but of all Bulgarian universities, is the digitalization. Digitalization and cyber security.

We have already digitalized enough both as universities and as requirements from the state and it is necessary to do this also through the operational programmes, the Ministry of Education should also allocate such funds because a university on its own would hardly cope with electronic books, electronic ledgers, computerization, digitalization of all working processes which is a very difficult process. These are our directions and we work hard on all these things - a new network, infrastructure for the connection in the university, the library is being renovated, a solar park is being built so that we become quite energy independent. And there's probably more to come in the future.