University of Library Studies and Information Technologies (SULSIT) is a state university. The social mission of SULSIT is to prepare highly qualified, socially responsible personally motivated and adaptive to the labour market specialists. SULSIT has the strategic aim for sustainable development as a leading higher school with a significant scientific, technological and innovative potential. SULSIT has the ambition to continue the implementation of the so called Third Mission of the universities – to work on projects with national and regional significance, including projects linked to the National Strategy for Research Development 2020, the Innovation Strategy for Smart Specialisation of the Republic of Bulgaria (2014-2020), etc. The University has gained educational, scientific, technological and innovation capacity, able to get actively involved in the European Research and Innovation Area by implementing projects under Horizon 2020 and Erasmus+ Programmes, as well as in other international projects, programmes and initiatives e.g. those financed by UNESCO and World bank funds. SULSIT has partnerships with many European research and educational centres and high technological companies especially in the field of Internet technologies, cultural and creative industries, education technologies, etc. SULSIT is member of the Balkan Universities Network.
SULSIT provides professional education and training and has joined the Programme for Lifelong Learning. SULSIT has already implemented the European Credit Transfer System (ECTS) in all courses and is cooperated with more than 15 foreign universities. SULSIT has participated in a lot of national and international scientific, education and innovation projects. It has at a disposal well developed scientific, education, technological and innovative infrastructure. Eight functional centres and laboratories are established at SULSIT: Computer Laboratory “John Atanassov”, “Oracle” Laboratory, Research laboratory for Cyber Security, Centre for Carrier Orientation and Development, Centre for Continuing Education, Centre for Information Security and Protection. The SULSIT’s students carry out summer study practices and probations in companies, including thanks to the project financed under the Operational Programme “Human Resources Development” co-financed by the European Social Fund.
SULSIT is involved in more than 30 projects funded by EC, National Science Fund and Structural Funds, including the Erasmus networks: Future Education and Training in Computing: How to support learning at any time anywhere (FETCH) and School on the Cloud: connecting education to the Cloud for digital citizenship (SoC). SULSIT has two faculties: Faculty of Information Sciences and Faculty of Library Studies and Cultural Heritage. The University is accredited by the National Agency for Evaluation and Accreditation. It offers 7 Bachelor programmes (Computer Sciences, Information and Communication Technologies, Information Brokerage, Information Security, Library Studies and Bibliography, Public Communication, Information Resources and Cultural Heritage) and 26 Master’s programmes, as well as a number of Doctoral programmes. The main research areas of the doctoral studies fit very well to the priority areas of CEET-INNO, such as: Information Security, Automated Systems for Information Processing and Management, Information Technologies, Future Internet Technologies and Applications, Software Engineering, Electronic Business and Electronic Government, Technology Entrepreneurship and Innovation, Information Technologies and Financial Engineering, Information Technologies and Law, Digital Archives and Electronic Learning, etc. Research teams in different application areas of Future Internet have been established yet, e.g. ones in the area of Smart Security, Smart Health, Smart Mobility, Smart Energy, Smart Culture, Digital Libraries and Smart Forest. The main university units which will be involved in the area of Internet and Innovation are Department of Computer Science and Department of Information Technologies. A new program on Data Science is under development. SULSIT aims to implement the so called “Third Mission” of the universities – to work on projects with national, regional and international significance, including projects linked to the Sofia Smart Secialisation Strategy, National Strategy for Research Development 2020 and Innovation Strategy for Smart Specialisation of the Republic of Bulgaria (2014-2020). SULSIT is involved in preparation (together with Sofia Municipality) a proposal for a Centre of Competence for Strategic Digital Research (to be funded by the Structural Funds) with a focus on Smart City (Energy, Transport, Security). SULSIT has gained educational, scientific, technological and innovation capacity, able to get actively involved in the ERA by implementing projects under Horizon 2020 and Erasmus+ Programmes, as well as in other international projects, programmes and initiatives e.g. those financed by UNESCO and World bank funds. SULSIT has partnerships with many European research and educational centres and high technological companies especially in the field of Future Internet, Smart Cities, Cyber- Physical Systems, e-Government, Cybersecurity, etc.
There are three research and innovation institutes associated to SULSIT: Institute for Research and Doctoral Education, Institute for Research in the Field of Organisation, Management and Preservation of Cultural Heritage and Institute of Leadership in an Information Environment.
The UNESCO Chair on ICT in Library Studies, Education and Cultural Heritage was established as an interfaculty chair of SULSIT, member of the UNESCO Chairs/UNITWIN Networks . This Chair was established as a result of a successful application under a UNESCO Call for proposals. The main activities of the Chair are related to development of educational and training programs in the field of ICT in Library Studies, Education and Cultural Heritage (including e-learning and lifelong learning programs) for citizens. It supports innovations and technology transfer to governmental, nongovernmental and industrial bodies. The Chair contributes to a number of global initiatives, such as: development of Academic Across Borders (AAB) Initiative of UNESCO (2005); development of the virtual community for best practices exchange between UNESCO UNITWIN/CHAIRS; strengthening North-South cooperation in higher education and research. In addition, the Chair works for strengthen some existing networks of partners at regional level (South-East Europe, Danube Macro-Region) and plays the role of a Centre of Excellence and innovation zone in the specified areas.
Relevant expertise / experience:
- Information Security and Cybersecurity solutions.
- Smart sensors, Cloud Computing, Internet of Things (IoT) and Big Data services.
- Project management of large systems development with million lines of code and large databases over 100 Mio records. Experience with most used project development models.
- Experience in development of large scale databases containing billions of records – Big Data. Data Analytics.
- Smartphone and tablet applications.
- Digital repositories (text, images, video) implementation and enrichment with semantic-based innovative services like personalisation, multi-linguality, intelligent search, use of recommender services, etc.
- Ontologies, metadata formats, web services, interoperability and standards.
- Development of methodologies and tools for smart semantic based search engines, data mining and business intelligence.
- Web 2.0, Enterprise 2 .0 and social networks applications, e.g. Community of Practice .
- Web based knowledge management systems .
- Development of recommender systems .
- E-Learning and competence development methodology, tools and services.
- Experience in design of system architectures including their hardware systems, software platforms and communication protocols; complex Web-based software architectures design and development, including cloud computing ones.
- User experience, open innovation and Living Lab methodology and tools (VirtSOI Living Lab).
- Technical expertise in creating user-friendly web portals and prototypes, including personalization, adaptation and localization of online services and tools.
- Serious gaming and interactive multimedia design and development, storytelling tools;
- Development of custom solutions related to new media, audiovisual applications, digitalization of culture heritage, etc.
- Interactive and internet TV applications.
- Digital and analogue hardware design: Embedded devices; Intelligent sensors; Satellite communications; Mobile communications; Industrial telemetry; Tele medicine; Home automation (Domotics); Intelligent transport systems; etc.