The Faculty of Economics and Business Administration (FEBA) at Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski” successfully contributed to the completion of the Summer School on Modeling, AI and Complex Systems 2026, held over 10 days in Gyulechica, Rila Mountain. The event gathered 25 participants from 5 organizations, with a strong FEBA presence: 13 representatives from FEBA, including 5 master’s students and 7 PhD students.

The school was designed as an intensive research-training environment, combining lectures, applied workshops and team case work. The published programme included 15 lecturers, 20 thematic lectures and 14 workshop and teamwork blocks, for over 90 study hours.

The participants worked on five real-life cases, presented during the final conference session: longevity and the labour market; forecasting electricity demand, supply and price in Bulgaria; EEG data analysis; computer vision event detection; and a multi-agent system for automated data science. These cases required participants to combine methodological reasoning, data processing, modeling, AI tools and presentation skills.

The programme developed progressively from foundations to advanced applications. It included lectures and practical sessions on the scientific method, General Systems Theory, data mining, Bayesian thinking, agentic AI, self-organization and research writing. Participant feedback highlighted the value of the sessions that connected abstract theory with practical examples.

For FEBA, the Summer School created an important bridge between master’s education, doctoral training and applied research. The mixed format encouraged participants to test methods directly, discuss research design choices and develop case-based solutions in interdisciplinary teams.

The participation of FEBA was supported by the Science and Research Fund at Sofia University under contract 80-10-229/16.04.2026. The successful completion of the 2026 edition strengthens FEBA’s role as an active academic center for training young researchers in data-driven modeling, artificial intelligence and complex systems.