CALL FOR PROPOSALS

The proposed conference theme addresses a broad and diverse community - scholars, professors, graduate and undergraduate students who are willing to share their concerns, hopes and vision about the future of the university life. Therefore, the conceptual framework of the call for proposals is as wide as possible. It aims to discuss fundamental issues which the University faces today, and to pose questions about its place in the process of globalization and the introduction of knowledge-based economics.

The topics and subtopics suggested by the organizers can be further modified and expanded. Once the paper proposals have been received, the conference program will be structured according to the participants’ interests. Some sessions will have a more specific focus, although priority will be given to problems that are relevant to a broader audience, including academicians, representatives of business and non-scientific social structures. In addition, a round table discussions will be held, in which students, alumni, and friends of the university will be invited to participate.

The four broad problem fields we suggest cover:

1. The university idea today: flexible planning of the future.
2. The university, the market and the institutional environment: knowledge and knowledge-based economics.
3. The university and society: models of social uses and interventions, educational and research strategies.
4. Knowledge management and university management in the 21st century.

The proposed topics, subtopics and points within the above mentioned problem fields:

1.The university idea today: flexible planning of the future

• Have the traditional functions of the university changed today? What kind of university philosophy is possible today? What is the content and social place of ‘higher education”? What underlies its unity, is there such a unity, is such a unity necessary today? What has survived from the legacy of the Humboldtian and Napoleonic University? Are there other models that also guarantee quality? The universities outside Europe: diversity and specifics – competitive or supplementary philosophies?
• The structure of “higher knowledge”: disciplinarity, interdisciplinarity, transdisciplinarity. What do faculties argue about? Models of relationships between education, research and training/practice. Disciplinary, interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary organization of knowledge, education, research and training/practice.
• What are the degrees of higher knowledge that the university of today is expected to provide, transmit, preserve and disseminate?
• The place of research and the researcher at the university. How do universities create the environment that stimulates innovation and creativity? Best practices. Competition among researchers. Career patterns and incentives: university and state financing of the research, quality assurance. Can public prestige of science and research work be raised? Research in the university and outside it (state or corporate research institutions): assessment of university potential for research innovations.
• The path of the individual student at the university. Models of knowledge acquisition and career patterns of university graduates, experts and junior researchers. Knowledge volumes and contents of knowledge and skill packages. Relationship between external (market and social) and internal (scientific-systematic) requirements to knowledge and skills. Philosophy and strategies of developing curricula, models, best practices; relationship between fundamental and applied knowledge; student involvement in curriculum design. Specialized, disciplinary or generalist education?
• Relationship between knowledge and information access; use of knowledge and databases; the university, the management of information systems and the medialization of knowledge. Reconsidering the compulsory volumes of knowledge. Will the university professor disappear? Is the authority of the university professor declining? Information technology and education policies of universities; relationship between the university, e-education, and self-education.
• The status of natural and mathematical sciences; relationship between fundamental and applied knowledge. The university, the knowledge-based economics, and the new technologies.
• The new and old educational policies of the university: distance learning, e-teaching, lifelong learning.
• The status of social sciences and the humanities - decline or rise? How are they legitimized in the global and in the "post-national constellations" context?

2.The university, the market and the institutional environment: knowledge and knowledge-based economics.

2.1. The University and the market

• What is knowledge-based economics and how can the university take part in it? Types of market demand and knowledge applications. The market of university cadres, information and services.
• Education for market-oriented applied research: its place at the university. Who should take care of the education of market-oriented students?
• Models of communication between the university and the market. Marketing strategies of the university and the market of university graduates – local, national, European and global features. How should the packages of knowledge and skills required by the market look like – specialized versus generalist education? Cooperation between university and business. Interference of the market in university affairs – good and bad practices.
• The big dilemma – a managerial- entrepreneurial university or a university based on autonomy and quality of knowledge? The university as a corporate-entrepreneurial structure or based on fundamental scientific fields – systematicity or flexibility? Short-term needs of the market and long-term strategies for building systematic and fundamental knowledge. Good and bad practices of the managerial university.
• Models and best practices of market successes of the university – consultancy offices, applied research projects, provision of skilled labour etc.
• University and corruption

2.2.The university and the institutional environment: peer pressure

• Partial loss of autonomy and consequent problems and forms of dependency. Uses and misuses of autonomy. Relationship between the Ministry of Education and Science, the national academies, the national research institutes, private institutes, laboratories, etc.
• The local university in a competition with local, national, and world universities. Ensuring a fair competition – forms of unfair competition. The local university in cooperation with other local, national, European, and world universities. Forms, models, and best practices of cooperation, student and faculty mobility. Consortia, university networks, joint projects.
• The university and world scientific organizations and associations.
• The university and private research initiatives: research institutes, labs, consultancies, think tanks.
• The university and the school system – work separately or cooperate?

3. The University and society; models of social uses and interventions, educational and research strategies.

• Social use of “higher knowledge” in the age of globalization and media. Models, best practices, issues.
• The university and contemporary society: what is the civic mission of the university? Publicity, academic freedom, civic positions.
• How can the university and its “higher knowledge” intervene in the globalized and media-ridden society? How can university intellectual potential be used for social and civic purposes? Restriction of the political involvement of the university and its members. What role does the university play in the processes of desecularization?
• Models of cooperation between the university and other public and cultural institutions; competitors: think tanks, NGOs, civic organizations and their expert groups, etc.
• The mass media and PR strategies of the university.

3.1. The University and its communities

• The present state of the idea of universitas magistrorum et scholarium.
• Models of dialogue between professors, graduate and undergraduate students.
• Models of dialogue between the university and its alumni.
• Models of dialogue between university communities and institutions.
• Does the university have "natural" enemies and friends?
• Equality of students of different gender, handicapped students, different ethnic, religious and cultural minorities. Ethical codes.

3. 2. Globalization and glocalization of universities

• The new/old inequality: large and small universities, academic clusters and provincial institutions. How can the asymmetric distribution of knowledge capital be overcome; brain drain or brain circulation? Is mobility up to fulfill the hopes?
• Mutual recognition of universities and accreditation. Legal frameworks of higher education in different countries - a comparative analysis.
• Universities and territorial borders, territorial management, management of flows of knowledge, people, capital, services. Transfer of knowledge, intercultural and transcultural dialogue.
• University and the global media: the role of the university media; the University in the virtual space and the virtual world networks.
• Student mobility and student migration; faculty mobility; the neo-liberal and cultural-conservative philosophy of mobility; existential and identity problems of mobile and sedentary people.
• Universities and territorial borders: transborder universities? Cultural and linguistics policies. The English language – the new Latin of universities?
• Democratic principles, university accessibility policies towards diverse social categories of students; equality. Multi-cultural practices, good and bad.
• Internationalization of education: definition, principal elements, importance, necessity; the internationalized university; study-abroad trends and programmes; internationalized and globalized learning; international education; good practices, challenges and problems.

3. 3. Bulgarian context: concerns, anxieties and hopes

• Bulgarian universities between globalization and provincialization: issues and prospects.
• The unsolved problems of Bulgarian higher education: absence of long-term strategy for development; decline of quality; ageing and demotivation of university faculty; divergence of education from research; provincialization; insufficient funding; commercialized proliferation of university and university branches; misuses of autonomy, corruption; inefficient systems of management and quality assurance; limited access to information technology; lack of orientation about local, European and global markets of university cadres.
• Higher education policies after Bulgaria joined the EU: a comparative survey. The role of university bodies - academic councils, boards of trustees, the Councils of Rectors, etc. Does Bulgarian higher education use European educational, research and financial resources?

3. 4. European policies towards universities

• Successes and failures of the Bologna Process: what happened with the credit system, the three-tier education, student mobility; results, reflections.
• The current state of Socrates, Erasmus, Erasmus Mundus and other European projects.
• Society and economy based on knowledge - what society, what knowledge, what economy?
• Universities and European framework research programs. The University and the European research area (ERA). Successes, failures, best practices of inter-university research cooperation.

4. Knowledge management and university management in the 21st century

• Contemporary models of university administration and management. Centralization and decentralization. Is intra-university competition possible?
• University autonomy today – between global corporate business, and the media and the old institutional environment of the state. What are the good working models of administration like? The autonomy limits and resources.
• The relationship between the traditional administrative bodies and the new corporate management: models of cooperation, common vision and conflict resolving. The role of the boards of trustees.
• Models of university reform – efficiency assessment.
• Systems of quality assurance.
• Information systems.
• Models of university financing, reporting, transparency.
• Automated management systems.
• Student involvement in university administration.