For the 9th year in a row, the Faculty of Economics and Business Administration is in partnership with the Bulgarian CFA Association for the annual student competition "CFA Research Challenge". Like any great challenge, this annual initiative provides all participants—including students and volunteers—with incredible opportunities. The “Research Challenge” is a competition in which student teams from leading business universities prepare an equity research report on an assigned publicly traded company and present their findings to a panel of investment industry experts.

The “Research Challenge” gives students all around the world the chance to learn best practices in equity research through hands-on mentoring and intensive training in company analysis. Last year’s competition featured nearly 6,000 students from more than 1,000 universities worldwide.

Assoc. Prof. Bozhidar Nedev is the coordinator of the event from the Faculty of Economics and Business Administration. If you are interested in participating, you can contact him at e-mail bozhidar.nedev@feb.uni-sofia.bg by November 9, 11:59 p.m., providing the following information: name, specialty, year of study, and faculty number.​

Open to both graduate and undergraduate students, as a participating university your team of three to five students will compete against other universities in the area and will have the chance to Analyze a public company (listed on the Bulgarian Stock Exchange): Sopharma AD Bulgaria;

• Be mentored by investment management professionals;
• Write an equity research report;
• Present their research to a high-profile panel of experts;
• Advance to Regional and Global levels of competition if they win the local challenge.

Each “Research Challenge” season leverages the efforts of over 150 CFA member societies, 3,000 member volunteers, and more than 6,400 students from over 1,000 universities. In the 2022-2023 season, the CFA Institute “Research Challenge” in Bulgaria gained more than 20 students from 5 Bulgarian universities. The 2023 global winner was Student Team from the University of Sydney.

For this season of the CFA Institute “Research Challenge” in Bulgaria, we are currently waiting to receive confirmation for their participation of the following universities: Sofia University, American University in Bulgaria, “D. A. Tsenov” Academy of Economics, VUZF University, University of Economics-Varna, Varna Free University „Chernorizets Hrabar“, Burgas Free University, New Bulgarian University, Plovdiv University “Paisii Hilendarski” and “St. Cyril and St. Methodius” University of Veliko Turnovo.

The date of the Kickoff Meeting and Subject Company Meeting will be announced soon.