Lecturer from The UNWE Has Participated in Fulbright Specialist Programme

Thursday, 21 January 2016 13:25

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Paskal Zhelev from the International Economic Relations and Business Department took part in four months Fulbright Specialist Programme (FSP) at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, USA. His FSP was related to the study of new tendencies in the industrial policies of USA and EU, lessons of Bulgaria as well as the approbation of scientifically applied results achieved during the previous studies, improvement of lecturing skills and competencies and establishment of new academic contacts.

Our lecturer works as a guest-researcher at two scientific units of the American University – the European Union Center and the Russian, East European and Eurasian Center. The scientific adviser of Assoc. Prof. Zhelev is Prof. Werner Baer, lecturer at the University of Illinois, before that – lecturer at the Harvard University-Yale, Vanderbilt as well as former consultant at the World Bank, U.S. Department of State, founder of the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies at University of Illinois, etc. Assoc. Prof. Zhelev and Prof. Baer work out a publication presenting a comparative analysis of deindustrialization in the context of globalization in a small country and a large one - respectively Bulgaria and Brazil. The American Professor has planned to visit our country in May as well as to deliver a public lecture at the UNWE.

Assoc. Prof. Zhelev (on the left) and his scientific adviser Prof. Baer

Assoc. Prof. Zhelev participated also in the Interdisciplinary Conference on the EU Issues entitled Researching and Teaching the EU: Best Practices and Current Trends in EU Scholarship where he has delivered a report on the European Union in the Vision of the Most Poorest Member State. During the Forum he has also presented the content and methods of lecturing the facultative discipline EU Internal Market which he teaches to students in their fourth year of speciality International Economic Relations at the UNWE. Michael McGowan, journalist, former member of the European Parliament has been impressed by the report of Prof. Zhelev so he has expressed his desire to visit Bulgaria and deliver a public lecture at the UNWE related to the EU future concerning also the upcoming referendum on the United Kingdom European Union membership.

During the lecture at the American University

At the EU Center our lecturer has delivered a public lecture on the New Tendencies in the EU Industrial Policy – Consequences for Bulgaria. The lecture has provoked a great interest among the academic community and students. In discussions on the issues took part also Prof. Claudio Paiva from the California State University Channel Islands (CSU-CI), Head of the Economics Department who invited Assoc. Prof. Zhelev to visit the CSU-CI. At the CSU-CI our lecturer has delivered lectures presenting the Bulgarian experience. As a result it was born the idea of implementing the next international visit organized by the CSU-CI for its students in our country.

Assoc. Prof. Zhelev is delivering a public lecture on the New Tendencies in the EU Industrial Policy – Consequences for Bulgaria.

During his FSP in the USA Assoc. Prof. Zhelev has delivered also public lectures organized by the Russian, East European and Eurasian Center on the Bulgarian-Russian Trade Relations during the Post-Socialist Period as well as on the Competitiveness of Central and East European Countries. After conversations with the Director of the Center Dr. David Cooper a procedure on signing a bilateral agreement of cooperation for lecturers and students mobility on the Erasmus+ Programme between the University of Illinois and the UNWE has been started.

Our lecturer in front of the building of University of Illinois

At the University of Illinois established in 1867 study more than 43 000 students (14% of them are international ones) in more than 150 programmes at 16 Colleges where work 2 729 lecturers. In 2016 the U.S. News & World Report has ranked the University at the 11th place among the American state universities and at the 41st position among the best 1 800 American higher schools. In the Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) it occupies the 29th place among the best universities in the world. Among its alumni and lecturers are the inventors of light-emitting diode (LEDs), integrated circuits, transistors, pH meter, plasma screen as well as founders of companies as Netscape Communications, AMD, PayPal, YouTube, Playboy, Oracle, Beckman Instruments, Tesla Motors, etc. The University of Illinois is proud of its Nobel Prizes won by 11 of its alumni and 13 of its lecturers. It has the largest scientific university library in the world containing 24 million volumes. It is the second highly equipped university library in the world after the Harvard University library.

University of Illinois

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