"The final event marking the fifth anniversary of the Center for Excellence "Heritage BG" took place in the conference hall of Sofia University "St. Kliment Ohridski," reported a reporter from BGNES. The project is being implemented by twelve leading organizations that are at the forefront of the national scientific infrastructure in the fields of "cultural and creative sectors (architecture, film, TV, video games, and multimedia), cultural heritage, design, including fashion design, festivals, music, performing and visual arts, publishing, and radio." The leading partner in the consortium is Sofia University, and the project manager is Prof. Ivan Ilchev. Other participants include the Technical University, the National Sports Academy, six institutes of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, the National Library of Bulgaria, and the Regional Museum of History in Sofia.
The event was attended by the rector of Sofia University "St. Kliment Ohridski," Prof. Georgi Valchev; the rector of the National Sports Academy "Vasil Levski," Prof. Nikolay Izov; the director general of Bulgarian National Radio; members and directors of institutes of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences; the director of the Regional History Museum - Sofia, Assoc. Prof. Veneta Handzhiska-Yankulova; the mayor of Lovech, and many others.
The Center for Excellence "Heritage BG" established awards that will be presented annually.
The scientific research activities of the Center for Excellence were also reported. In his presentation on the scientific achievements of Heritage BG, the coordinator of scientific research and development activities, Prof. Emanuel Mutafov, PhD, pointed out: "The Center for Excellence "Heritage BG" is the only one with a predominantly humanities profile among the consortium participants, and meeting the criteria for publishing research results in high-quartile publications is almost impossible. Nevertheless, in recent years, targeted efforts have been made to publish in the Web of Science. The very name of the Center reflects the clear intention to affirm national identity and adherence to traditions, which also implies writing mainly in Bulgarian. In this regard, we should also note the emphatically patriotic role of representatives of the project management team, who recently achieved resounding success with the poster exhibition of 19th-century European ethnographic maps in Skopje, from which the ethnonym Macedonian is absent...
There is no other center of excellence that holds a regular annual conference. The first annual conference of the Center for Excellence "Heritage BG" was held in the summer of 2021, while the next editions were on April 18, 2022, and 2023, linked to the International Day for the Preservation of Cultural Heritage.
Our Center of Excellence is the only one with its own periodical, also available online. Scientific News. The Heritage BG Bulletin started as a collection of the annual scientific conference, immediately found its place in the NACID reference list, appeared in 2021 It already has five issues and is on track to become a periodical publication indexed in global databases, as it complies with all the highest standards for peer-reviewed publications, publishes mainly texts in English, and is already being cited.
Two days ago, I was invited by the Ministry of Culture to participate in the First International Workshop for Strategic Planning of the National Unified Platform for Cultural Heritage – there are funds available under the Recovery and Sustainability Plan for the digitization of cultural heritage. Representatives of ministries, state agencies, BNR, BNT, libraries, and others were present, as well as representatives of competing structures – indifference and confusion in a field that we at Heritage BG have long since explored and developed. In fact, Heritage BG has already surpassed the state. We have had many imitators lately. Heritage BG is not only the most colorful center for excellence, but also the most meaningful at this moment in history, as it uses modern science to preserve the memory of our nation and align it with European civilization. You know that according to a recent sociological study, nearly 60% of Bulgarians are proud of their history, rather than mechatronics, nanotechnology, verba, or yogurt. We have also made history over the past five years, and we hope to continue writing it in the next programming period," Prof. Mutafov concluded." /BGNES/
SOURCE: http://www.bgnes.bg/nasledstvo-bg-veche-izprevari-drzhavata-v-digitalizatsiiata-na-kulturnoto-nasledstvo
