The mission of the three-year MILIEU project, which is funded under the European Commission's Horizon 2020 programme, is to unlock, foster and sustain research into women, their disabilities and their inclusion in active society. The project promotes international connectivity and increased contacts and fundraising capacity at the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology (IPS) and the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. A specific focus of the project is to enhance the knowledge and skills of PhD students and young scholars in IPS and BAS. So far the project has managed to implement several key events. One of them is related to the Summer School in Spain, held as part of the Complutense summer courses in El Escorial - Cursos de Verano. Many young people learned how to [...]

  On 02.06.2023 the Social Survey Research Center and the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology of BAS held a national conference on "Factor Determination of the "Shadow Economy" in the Perceptions of Bulgarian Society: Empirical Study, Results, Interpretations and Policy Recommendations". The Forum was held under a project funded by the Bulgarian National Science Fund. The study is a fundamental research project which presented the results and analytical products of the research carried out in the period 2020-2023. Participants' reports presented different aspects of the "shadow economy". A Shadow Economy Tolerance Index (SETI) was calculated for the first time in Bulgaria. This index gives an idea of the relative share of "shadow practices" in Bulgaria and was specifically designed for the purpose of the project. [...]

On May 29, a jubilee scientific session "50 YEARS OF PSYCHOLOGY AT BAS: Development of Scientific Knowledge about Man" was held, organised by the Department of Psychology of the Institute for Population and Human Studies - Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (IPHS-BAS), dedicated to the 50th anniversary of the establishment of the first academic unit of psychology at BAS. The event was attended by public figures, representatives of the academic community and business, collaborators of the Institute and others. The Forum was opened with a welcome address by the Director of IPHS-BAS, Prof. Antoaneta Hristova, PhD and the Head of the Department of Psychology Assoc. Prof. Maria Trifonova. More than 20 congratulatory addresses were delivered, including from the Vice President of the Republic of Bulgaria, [...]

  A higher inflation rate compared to the average for the EU member states and a low probability of meeting the Maastricht inflation criterion, on which our accession to the euro area by 2025 depends, predict the researchers from the Economic Research Institute at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. Mainly, the reasons for this are caused by external factors - high energy prices and the military conflict in Ukraine but we should not exclude some controversial decisions in the field of economic policy, such as the implementation of measures that do not take into account the real financial capabilities of the country, lack of political consensus on important issues for the country, etc. This is stated in the macroeconomic forecast of the economists of BAS [...]

The green transition goes through ecological civilizing and must be well planned and managed, H.E. Dong Xiaojun A public lecture on "China's Economy and the Green Transition" was delivered by His Excellency Mr. Dong Xiaojun, Ambassador of the People's Republic of China to Bulgaria at the invitation of the Economic Research Institute of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. The topic aroused great public interest – besides from BAS, the event was attended by representatives of leading universities in the country, experts from the Diplomatic Institute, ministries and NGOs, as well as some of the largest Chinese companies in the country. The forum was opened by Prof. Irena Zareva, Director of the Economic Research Institute. During his lecture, Ambassador Dong Xiaojun presented the Chinese government's [...]

In 2020-2022, the Social Survey Research Center of the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology - BAS has implemented a research project on the processes of public opinion formation and the possibilities to improve through mathematical modeling the sociological tools for predicting the development of public attitudes on important issues for Bulgarian society. One of the focuses of the project is the processes of formation of electoral attitudes and electoral behavior. For the purposes of the project, a post-electoral survey was conducted in 2022, which took the form of a methodological experiment. Two separate studies were implemented in parallel - with the same research instruments but in two methodological formats: a nationally representative survey (standardized interview) and an online survey using the method of "respondents”. Comparing [...]