The discussion started by an important issue about the gypsies in Bulgaria. Prof. Ilchev stated that today improvements can be seen in comparison with the situation in the 90s of the 20th century, however there are still few gypsy students at Sofia University due to the admission procedure.

H.E. James Warlick declared the Embassy desire to support the University as the most respectful higher educational institution in Bulgaria.

Prof. Ilchev introduced H.E. James Warlick to the problems the University faces in its cooperation with US universities. He informed that of the many international contracts, relations have been established with only 13 US universities, and mostly at personal level. The Ambassador envisions the future development in these relations in the field of technologies. He also mentioned that his talks with business people had showed that they believed the University had not provided adequate preparation. Prof. Ilchev explained that there had been made steps towards cooperation between the business and the University, as a result a series of modular programmes had been run to meet the concrete needs of the municipalities, for example. He also shared the problem that the business did not realise the need for investment in research and shared his proposal to the EU educators to support Sofia University. He also noted the challenge the University faces to cope with bureaucracy and conservatism of the academia. His opinion about the financial support for the universities on the basis of results and quality rather than number of students was also presented. He told about the Sofia University lecturers who had classes in many universities in the country and concluded that the University donates for these universities.