Burgas State University "Prof. Dr. Assen Zlatarov" hosted European Researchers' Night once again. This year's theme was "Science and innovation build the future", and pupils from schools in Burgas went into the university labs to run experiments themselves.
After the official opening, participants got hands-on, working with lab equipment, running experiments and studies alongside university teachers and researchers, and finding out more about their work.
Rector professor Sotir Sotirov welcomed the group and spoke mainly to the young people there. He urged them to hold on to their curiosity, look for new solutions and think creatively. He also touched on artificial intelligence, which is showing up more and more in everyday life. Technology is just a tool, he said — knowledge, critical thinking and independent decisions are still down to the person.
"That's really what we do at the university — we shape people who think," Sotirov said.
Ekaterina Zaharieva, the EU commissioner for startups, research and innovation, sent a video message to participants. Young researchers need to stay curious and keep asking questions, and never stop looking for what's new, she said.
Talks were given by Dr. Milen Nikolov, director of the Regional History Museum in Burgas; Ilya Pepelanov, director of the "Adriana Budevska" Drama Theatre; and associate professor Detelin Luchev from the Institute of Mathematics and Informatics at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. Their different fields showed how research often sits on the border between subjects, and how science links up with technology, culture and society. Science reached the audience not just as theory, but as something to experience and explore.
Students from the university's Department of Computer Systems and Technologies put together an exhibition on Bulgaria's part in the history of computing. Among the exhibits are the IMKO2, Pravetz 82, Pravetz M8 and Pravetz 16 computers, built in Bulgaria in the 1980s, along with magnetic tape, punch cards and various floppy disks. The display also included some little-known facts about how these computers were once used at the university.
Burgas University is part of a consortium of education and research bodies working on the K-TRIO project, number 101305404, under HORIZON-MSCA-2025-CITIZENS-01. The project is led by Sofia University "St. Kliment Ohridski".