Bulgaria has over 3,000 academics at elite universities around the world — knowledge, networks, and experience scattered literally across the entire globe. We work together to connect this capital with higher education and science in Bulgaria.
Bulgaria has over 8,500 habilitated academics in the country — people with deep academic expertise, institutional memory, and a real commitment to education here. In parallel, over 3,000 of our academics work at elite universities around the world — INSEAD, Stanford, Wharton, UCL, Harvard, and many others.
In scale, this is capital equivalent to several large world-class universities. With one important difference: it is dispersed — and the two worlds rarely work together.
The Great Return and the Great Staying mean that there is already a critical mass of people ready to act. The goal is simple: to connect these two assets into a living network — and to direct their combined capital towards quality education and development in Bulgaria.
Not a single university in the Top 200 in Europe as of 2025. Spending per student is 60% of the EU average — every investment in quality has a measurable impact.
Innovation performance is 46% of the EU average — but the capacity of our scientists exceeds what the system allows them to achieve.
Only 2% of corporate R&D budgets go to universities. Around 70% of employers are looking for qualified people but cannot find them. Both sides need each other.
International scientific co-authorships at 28% of the EU average — enormous room for growth through connection.
Enrolment in doctoral programmes is 47.6% of the EU average, and remuneration is approximately €8/hour. An attractive doctoral programme is an achievable goal — it requires political will and partnerships.
Over 3,000 of our academics work at elite universities on 6 continents. STEM, business, and medicine lead — precisely where the need for capacity is greatest.
The challenge is not a lack of capital. The challenge is to connect it purposefully with Bulgaria's needs.
To know where we are going, we need to know where we are starting from. We compare ourselves with two reference groups: countries at a similar level of development (Romania, Croatia, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia) and more advanced regional examples (Hungary, Greece, Czech Republic, Poland, Slovenia).
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