On 20 May, the Bulgarian Safer Internet and two Sofia schools – 97 and 137 School, organised an interactive lesson for 48 second graders to discuss safer Internet use during the summer vacations. The 8-year olds succeeded in defining three main functions of the Internet – entertainment, information and socialization, as well as most of the risks connected to each of the functions. Almost all of the children were Skype users and 12 of them had Facebook accounts. But only a few among the pupils knew how to block an unknown user and thought that the main risk from a virus was the...

In reference to the TransBonus call for project research ideas in the surface transport thematic area (in the form of pre-proposals, opened on August 7, 2009 and closed on October 15, 2009) proposed by research organisations, NGOs, universities, and public organisations, coming from Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, FYR of Macedonia, Serbia and Bulgaria, the following results were achieved: 32 Pre-proposals were piled by the respective partners: • Bulgaria- 9; • Serbia-8; • Macedonia-5; • Bosnia and Herzegovina-7; • Albania-3. Now, evaluation summary reports of the accumulated pre-proposals...

On 7 May 2009 ERAWATCH, the European Commission’s on-line information platform on research systems and policies in Europe, has published its 2008 Analytical Country Reports on research in individual EU Member States. The reports assess the performance of national research systems and enable the comparison of one country with another. This is the first time all 27 Member States have been covered. The analytical studies provide policy makers and analysts working in the field of science and research concise and up-to-date information and insight into research systems and policy development...

On 25 February and 18 March ARC Fund organised Information days on Framework Programme 7 of the European Commission in Sofia and Plovdiv which attracted more than 80 representatives of around 70 companies, research and academic centres. The event was entitled ‘How to participate in Framework Programme 7 of the European Commission’ and was held under the Mediatrans project of ARC Fund. Mrs. Emilia Domuschieva, project co-ordinator in ARC Fund, informed the participants about the ICT Proposers’ Day in Budapest organised on 22 January by the European Commission’s Information Society and...

Applied Research and Communications Fund, Enterprise Europe Network – Bulgaria jointly with the Ministry of Economy and Energy, the World Bank office in Bulgaria and the kind support of the Bulgarian Small and Medium Enterprises Promotion Agency organize for the fifth time a National Contest for Innovative Enterprise of the Year 2008. The European Commission adopted a proposal to declare 2009 the European Year of Creativity and Innovation. How the Bulgarian industry will meet this challenge? > The Innovation Index of the Bulgarian enterprises – Innovation.bg 2008 (developed by ARC Fund)...

The TOUREG project (Research Driven Cluster for Tourist SectorCompetitiveness and Knowledge) commenced in January 2008 involving partners from Bulgaria, Spain, Portugal, Greece and Sweden. The project is funded by the 7-th Framework Programme for Research and Technological Development (FP7), under its “Regions of knowledge’ initiative. The TOUREG imitative will be implemented in the following regions: South West region, Bulgaria ; Balearic Islands, Spain; Madeira, Portugal; Crete, Greece; Mehedinti, Rumania and Norrbottens Iän, Sweden. The main objective of TOUREG project is to improve the...

The Fourth National Innovationn forum in Bulgaria served as a Launch Event of the largest information and consultancy network in Europe supporting small and medium–sized enterprises – the Enterprise Europe Network. The event in Bulgaria was held in parallel with the Launch event at European level in Brussels where the European Commission Vice President Günter Verheugen announced Enterprise Europe Network. Mr. Eli Anavi, Director “Enterprise Policy”, Ministry of Economy and Energy, announced the inauguration of the network in Bulgaria. The network in the country integrates the activities of...