First Public Lecture on the Project “Economic Education in Bulgaria 2030”
Prof. Nikolay Denchev, leading scientist and researcher at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, delivered a lecture "How to Write an Indexed Article?". Prof. Denchev is Coordinator of the joint activities of UNWE and the Vrije Universiteit Brussel - the associate partner on the project "Economic Education in Bulgaria 2030". It is the first public lecture on the project with the participation of 3 other Bulgarian universities: the "D. A. Tsenov” Academy of Economics - Svishtov, Burgas Free University, National Sports Academy and the employers' organization KRIB.
"It is a pleasure and an honour for me to be among you. First as a Bulgarian working by coincidence in Belgium, then as a researcher interested in scientific publications", these were the words Prof. Nikolay Denchev turned to the attendees. He clarified that his objective is to share opinions on how to write publications in good scientific journals.
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| Prof. Nikolay Denchev |
The lecture was held in a hybrid format. In the Large Conference Hall of UNWE it was attended by the Rector Prof. Dr. Dimitar Dimitrov who is also Head of the project, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Mihail Musov, Vice Rector for Research and International Affairs, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Rosen Kirilov, Vice-Rector for Digitalization and Cybersecurity, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Kostadin Kolarov, Director of the Entrepreneurship Institute and Head of the Entrepreneurship Department.
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| Assoc. Prof. Mihail Musov, the Rector Prof. Dimitar Dimitrov, Prof. Nikolay Denchev, Assoc. Prof. Kostadin Kolarov /from the right to the left/ |
The Rector Prof. Dr. Dimitar Dimitrov opened the Forum pointing out that it is very important for the university. "Our objective for the Forum is not to be formal as well as to monitor only the implementation of indicators. There must be a qualitative change and upgrade. We plan to include additional activities especially on mobility where we would also like to add publications in serious editions so this lecture will be very useful for all of us".
The Rector added that in the context of the project it is also necessary to make a change in thinking and behavior aimed at research which becomes increasingly important. Prof. Dimitrov emphasized that the publishing activity is very important and its weigh increases significantly in the process of evaluation when the university applies for new projects. "It requires articles in high-impact journals indexed in first-class databases and we must slowly make this change which has already begun and combine this process with similar educational and research projects”.
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| Prof. Dr. Dimitar Dimitrov |
Assoc. Prof. Mihail Musov expressed his thankfulness to Prof. Denchev for responding to the invitation by the university for making the public lecture available to all. "We will try to attract Prof. Denchev as a researcher at one of UNWE institutes so we rely very much on him to give his experience both in terms of publishing activity and in terms of research projects."
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| Assoc. Prof. Dr. Mihail Musov |
Prof. Denchev presented some of the journals that should be on focus for the scientists. According to him the most important journals for researchers are the ones that have an impact factor more than 5 such as Social Sciences and Web of Science.
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| The lecture began with the Shakespeare`s question “To publish or not to publish?” |
During the lecture the practical requirements of the leading journals to evaluate and accept articles for publication were presented and discussed. The steps that each researcher must take in preparing, writing and editing the article were also discussed. The lecture provoked a great interest.
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Prof. Nikolay Denchev defended his Doctoral dissertation in 2005 at the University of Ghent. Since 2012 he has been working as lecturer at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel. In 2015 he has established a research unit for social entrepreneurship funded by 3 corporations. He has 60 publications. He is mainly interested in social entrepreneurship of poor people, ecosystems, etc.
The project BGO5M2OP001-2.016-004 "Economic Education in Bulgaria 2030" is funded by the Operational Programme Science and Education for Smart Growth 2014-2020 under the procedure Modernization of Higher Education. It is worth BGN 5 million. The UNWE should modify its training, respectively the curricula in Economics and Management, in a way that allows them to be similar to programmes in European universities and applicable in modern business conditions. The updating and modernization will be done in partnership with other leading universities at regional level such as "D. A. Tsenov” Academy of Economics - Svishtov, Burgas Free University, National Sports Academy and the employers' organization KRIB. The project relies on the inclusion of a large part of the lecturers involved in its implementation in the programmes for professional development and/or short-term specialization at foreign partners as the share of young scientists should be not less than 15 percent. It is planned to be implemented 15 joint programmes with partner Bulgarian universities as well as to incorporate 7 new programmes with digital educational content including distance learning. Two curricula for foreign language teaching will be incorporated jointly with foreign universities and scientific organizations.
The project will provide support to students for the development of entrepreneurial skills and digital creativity. The project is planned to be implemented for a 30-month period and all of the abovementioned will contribute to improvement of the quality of education in Economics at the UNWE and Bulgaria as well as to improvement of the quality of research at the UNWE and other partner universities.
