The Center for Excellence in the Humanities “Alma Mater” at Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski” has been founded in December 2009 to continue the activity of the Center for Doctoral and Post-doctoral Research “Dialogue Europe” set up earlier the same year within the framework of a project funded by the Bulgarian Science Fund of the Ministry of Science, Education and Youth.
The main goal of the Center for Excellence in the Humanities “Alma Mater” is to set up and establish a strong and competitive unit for teaching and research which by using all the academic, infrastructural and financial potential of the University aims at ranking it among the best European and world-wide academic institutions.
The Center for Excellence in the Humanities “Alma Mater” is led by Professor Ivan Ilchev, Head of its Executive Council. The other executive bodies of the Center include a Program Council, an Administrative Council, a Publishing Council and a Competition Procedures Committee.
The Center for Excellence in the Humanities “Alma Mater” consists of six separate academic programs conducting independent and/or joined scientific research in partnership with various academic, public and non-governmental organizations. Those programs include:
- Historical Memory
- Regional Research
- European and International Law, International Relations, Security Policies and Human Rights
- Culture, Languages, Media and Sustainable Development
- Technological Ecosystems in the Humanities
- Academic Innovations
Among the key academic events initiated so far by the Sofia University Center for Excellence in the Humanities “Alma Mater” are the following:
- Days of Humanities, spring and summer
- A seminar for post-doctoral academic exchange
- Various senior interdisciplinary topical seminars to include topics such as ‘Regional History of 16th-19th century”, “Transatlantic Studies’, ‘Research of the Presidential Institution’, ‘The Balkan City’, ‘New Reading of the Humanities (Re-discovering Humanities), ‘Iberian, American, Mediterranean and Transatlantic Languages and Cultures’, ‘Sustainability of the Mountainous Regions’ etc.
- Sofia University Center for Excellence in the Humanities “Alma Mater” works in partnership with the Bulgarian Academy of Science, the National Defense Academy “G.S. Rakovski”, the Bulgarian Agency for the Archives, Sofia Municipality, the Bulgarian-American Commission for Educational Exchange “Fulbright”, the Organization of the Jews in Bulgaria ‘Shalom”, the Agency for the Bulgarians Abroad, the Association of the Bulgarian Schools Abroad, the Center for Cold War Studies at Harvard University, the Strochlitz Institute for Holocaust Research, the Center for Bulgarian Studies at the Slavic University, Baku, etc.
Sofia University Center for Excellence in the Humanities “Alma Mater” conducts competitions for individual grants and scholarships related to:
-Post-graduate research
-Monographic research
-Internships opportunities for Bulgarian and foreign scholars
More information about those projects as well as on the current competitions run by the Center is also available at https://www.uni-sofia.bg/index.php/bul/nauka/stipendii_i_konkursi
