Government plans sweeping reform of science, HE

The government of Bulgaria is planning widespread reform in national science and higher education to improve competitiveness in the global arena, with help from the European Commission’s Horizon 2020 Policy Support Facility.

The Bulgarian government is responding to the dire situation of national science in innovation, with the country at present ranking last in the Innovation Union Scoreboard – an instrument of the European Commission, developed after the adoption of the Europe 2020 strategy to provide a comparative assessment of the innovation performance of European Union member states in term of new patents, doctoral degrees and research costs.

Bulgaria’s Finance Minister Vladislav Goranov said: "There is an acute need for the reform of the Bulgarian system of higher education.

“Since the beginning of the 2000s the industrial basis of the Bulgarian economy has dramatically changed, both structurally and geographically, so the current system of the Bulgarian higher education is no longer satisfiying its needs," he said.

The reforms, signalled in 2012 and launched in August, will be made under the state programme known as Science and Education for Smart Growth, which was approved by the Bulgarian government at the end of last year and is designed for the period of 2014-20.

Total investments in the implementation of the reform are estimated at €700 million (US$795 million), of which about €600 million will be provided by the EU via the European Investment Bank, while the remaining sum will be allocated from the Bulgarian state budget.

Assistance from the Policy Support Facility

The government has become the first member state to make voluntary use of the Horizon 2020 Policy Support Facility, which offers practical help to identify, implement and evaluate reforms needed to enhance the quality of public research and innovation structures, such as opening up public funding to competition and introducing performance assessments of universities, or stimulating cooperation between academia and business.

It also supports government officials from other countries to peer review the effectiveness of research and innovation policies and provides access to independent high-level expertise and analysis.
On 8 October the European Commission presented its key policy recommendations that will help modernise Bulgaria’s research and innovation sectors.

Carlos Moedas, European Commissioner for research, science and innovation, said: “Committing to investments and reforms will lead to more efficient, higher quality and more impactful science and innovation. And it will help Bulgaria on its transition to a modern, sustainable and much more knowledge-intensive economy."

It is planned that the majority of funds – some €400 million – will be provided to leading universities and scientific institutions for the completion of modernisation of their scientific infrastructure and labs. Under the state plans, leading scientists will receive about €150 million, mostly in the form of grants for conducting research and development activities.

Todor Tanev, Bulgaria’s minister of education and science, said the lack of connection between science and business currently remains one of the major problems of Bulgarian science, but implementation of the reform should help to solve this problem. The Bulgarian government is highly motivated and will make the necessary reforms related to science and education, he said.

Goranov, meanwhile, said the reforms will also tackle the problem of universities failing to keep pace with constant changes in the labour market.

Preventing brain drain

According to Tanev, an additional aim of the new reform is to prevent further brain drain out of the country, which in recent years has become one of the most pressing problems of Bulgarian science and local leading universities.

In addition, the Bulgarian government plans to create better conditions for attracting foreign professors to the national universities and scientific institutions. These are expected to include the provision of special grants.

The plans also include a significant increase in the salaries of local university teachers and the design of a new law to regulate higher education in Bulgaria, the details of which have yet to be disclosed.

It is hoped that the reform should help to solve the problem of unemployment in Bulgaria, which in recent years has become a pressing issue.

As part of the plans, state spending on scientific and research activities should reach 1.5% of the Bulgarian gross domestic product, or GDP, by 2020. This, however, will be significantly less that the EU member states’ average of 3%.

According to Nikolay Denkov, Bulgaria’s deputy minister of education and science, although the majority of the Bulgarian universities and research institutions are concentrated in the country’s capital Sofia, the state plans include the establishment of a network of research institutions in the regions throughout the country.

The plans will support the acceleration of scientific research in the field of natural sciences, and in particular chemistry and physics.

The Bulgarian Peer Review Panel set up by the Horizon 2020 Policy Support Facility comprised senior officials from Austria, Poland, Portugal, Slovenia and Spain and high-level independent experts from Germany, Ireland, Norway, the Netherlands and the UK.

It recommended that Bulgaria increase science and innovation funding to at least 1% of GDP by 2020, make structural reforms of the research and innovation system to improve efficiency and quality, and make use of European Structural Funds.

It also recommended the establishment of a professional, independent and robust national research agency, improvement of the evaluation and funding of project proposals, concentration of more funding in ways that reward high performance by research institutions, encouragement of the participation of Bulgarian scientists and innovation entrepreneurs in European programmes, and rapid action to improve incentives for research careers.

It also suggested the opening up of Bulgaria’s science base to business and increased support for public-private cooperation; and the creation of conditions for regional and local innovation ecosystems to develop, using the Sofia Tech Park as a strategic innovation test bed.