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Advanced Academia Fellowship Platform

Duration: 2009 – 2024

This platform, which brings together CAS individual-fellowship programmes, grants possibilities for conducting independent social-science and humanities research in an international, multidisciplinary environment, without restrictions in the selected areas of study – an approach intended to stimulate excellent scholarship at the highest international level. It chimes with CAS institutional philosophy which upholds that the freedom of research and the responsibility of the researcher are crucial for creating important new knowledge. It encourages research that aims not only to cross, but to question disciplinary boundaries, national scholarly traditions and intellectual fashions, thus stimulating creativity. Fellows have the opportunity to focus on their individual projects for the duration of the fellowship in the multidisciplinary international milieu of the Centre and partake in exchange of ideas across national, disciplinary and cultural borders. The Fellows participate in the intellectual life and the scholarly community of CAS and profit from the Centre’s wide international networks, seminar- and guest-lecturer programmes.

The platform includes the following fellowship programmes:

1) Independent Fellowship programme for Bulgarian Junior Scholars and Bulgarian Academic Diaspora (since 2019) is financed by the Bulgarian Ministry of Education and Science and provides support for young Bulgarian scientists and researchers from the Bulgarian diaspora. It envisages: a) 5 nine-month scholarships per year for young Bulgarian scholars (including one month in a foreign institution); b) 2 three-month scholarships per year for representatives of the Bulgarian academic diaspora working in foreign academic institutions.

2) Pforzheimer Fellowship Programme (2019–2025), supported by a donation of the American philanthropist and bibliophile Carl H. Pforzheimer III, provides for three 5-month scholarships per year to outstanding Bulgarian researchers and university professors.

3) Independent Fellowships for International Scholars (2011-2024) are granted to outstanding non-Bulgarian scholars (senior and junior) to pursue their individual research projects in residence in Sofia. The programme is supported by the Porticus Foundation.

4) Gerda-Henkel Fellowships (2016-2025) are aimed at scholars in the fields of the historical humanities and social sciences from the countries of the former Soviet Union and Turkey. The programme is funded by the Gerda Henkel Foundation.

5) Social Relevance of the Humanities (2020-2024) are guided by the belief that there is a considerable added value for humanities scholars across the academe, whatever their field, to be encouraged to rethink their topics in terms of their broader contemporary relevance (be it political, ethical, religious or academic), yet necessarily of significance for the world we are living in. The program addresses international scholars and is funded by the Porticus Foundation.

6) Landis and Gyr Artistic Fellowships (2017-2028): this programme is aimed at stimulating and promoting the creative work of artists from various fields – writers, musicians, painters, sculptors, actors, film directors, architects, etc. by integrating them in a community of human and social scholars and spurring interaction between theoretical research and the arts. The fellowship programme has been comported of the Landis & Gyr Foundation (Switzerland).

Calls for applications under the above programmes are announced each year in November on the CAS web-page.

Selection is carried out by the CAS Academic Advisory Council – a jury comprising internationally renowned scholars from different academic fields.