To: Acad. Nikola SABOTINOV, D.Sc.,
President of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences

To: Assoc. Prof. d-r Sergei Ignatov,
Minister of Education, Youth and Science of the Republic of Bulgaria

To: Executive Council of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences

Position in defence of sociology and its academic institute

From: Scientists from the Institute of Sociology at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences

1. A proposal of the Executive Council of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences for restructuring the institutes in the area of the social sciences, announced on 15 January 2010, envisages the creation of three new institutes – Institute for economic and social research, Institute for demographic and psychological research, Institute for research of societies, values and knowledge and preserving the present Institute for legal studies.

2. The proposed restructuring of the institutes in the area of the social sciences:

• has not got a clear vision, is based on confusion of different approaches (disciplinary and subject-oriented) and shows a lack of logical coherence in determining the names and areas of research of the different institutes;


• creates a feeling of mimicry rather than of real reform and innovation;


• goes against the recommendations of the international assessment, which specifically call for an authentic fundamental sociology, integrated in international science and organised in a research unit with a clear scientific profile.

The point of the reform is not to merge institutes, but to strengthen the functioning research units and establish them with a clear profile of fundamental sciences, which serve Bulgarian society through the high quality of their scientific production.
The proposed restructuring would provoke a sharp critical reaction from the scientific community and the professional circles in the country and abroad.

3. In defining the mission and priorities of the proposed Institute of economic and social research at BAS, which would combine the present Institute of Economics and Institute of Sociology, the sociological problematics are practically missing. Having in mind the existence of disciplinary specifications in the names of most of the proposed institutes (demographic, psychological, economic), there is no ground to use the term “social” instead of “sociological”. All this shows complete disregard of the Statement of the Scientific council of the Institute of Sociology from 14 January 2010 in defence of preserving the organisational integrity and identity of the Institute – a statement that was unsupported by only four members of the Scientific council, among whom was Prof. Dimitar Dimitrov D.Sc. and Prof. Atanas Atanassov, D.Sc., Corr. Mem. – Vice-president of BAS in Social sciences.

Dear colleagues, the following questions inevitably arrise:

• Who runs the reform in the Institute of Sociology at BAS?


• Who protects what interests?


• Who will take the responsibility for destroying the Institute of Sociology and sociology as an academic science?

We emphatically express our position for preserving the scientific and institutional identity of sociology in the new structure of the social sciences in the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. Sociology is a science with more than 50 officially recognised sociological disciplines and the elimination of the Institute of Sociology would marginalise many of them, as they are not developed in other departments.

In this fateful moment for Bulgarian sociology, let everyone take their responsibility and express their position by supporting the petition in bgpetition.com!

Prof. Pepka Boyadjieva, D.Sc.

Prof. Galin Gornev, D.Sc.

Prof. Kolyo Koev, Dsc.

Assoc. Prof. Svetla Koleva, Ph.D

Prof. Tanya Nedelcheva, D.Sc.

Assoc. Prof. Rumyana Stoilova, PhD

Assoc. Prof. Ivan Tchalakov, PhD

Sofia, 17 January 2010v

The Statement of the Scientific Council of the Institute of Sociology from 14 January 2010 was supported by 12 out of a total of 16 members.

To sign the Pettion:

1. Scroll down to the bottom of the page where you would see a gray band, with "Подпиши писмото" (sign the letter) blue link in the left-hand side of it. Click on that link.

2. You are now redirected to a window with a number of fields to fill in. This is what they mean:

• Трите имена: Your names (Given and surname)


• Град: Town


• Държава: Country


• Коментар: Your comment (not obligatory)


• Email - your email where you will receive a link for confirmation.

3. In your email you will receive a letter from bgpetition.com with a link to click on, confirming your vote.

To see original petition link (in Bulgarian language only), follow the link http://bgpetition.com/is-bas-restructuring/index.html

To see names of the people, who signed the Petition in Bulgarian language, follow the link http://bgpetition.com/is-bas-restructuring/view.html