At the end of February and the beginning of March 2024, a delegation from the Faculty of Economics and Business Administration (FEBA) at Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski" visited Arizona State University in the USA, where a General Collaboration Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the two universities was negotiated and officially concluded.
The delegation was organized and led by Assoc. Prof. Dr. Atanas Georgiev, Dean of FEBA, also in his role as the leader for the TWIN4ECO.eu project, financed by the Bulgarian National Recovery and Resilience Plan. Part of the topics of the visit are related to energy modeling and innovations in the energy sector which are also among the main tasks of the TWIN4ECO.eu project.
The visit was also attended by FEBA’s vice-dean for “Sustainability, Empowerment, and Engagement" Assoc. Prof. Dr. Marina Stefanova (with funding from the ESG Academy project), by the scientific secretary of the “Industrial Economics and Management” Department at FEBA Chief Assist. Prof. Dr. Mariya Trifonova (with funding from the SUMMIT project, activity 3.3), as well as by Prof. Dr. Vladya Borisova, director of the Institute of Law, Economics and Intellectual Property at Sofia University. The discussed partnerships are in several main directions: energy transformation, net zero industry, sustainable development, innovation and entrepreneurship, intellectual property and technology transfer.
Arizona State University ranks first among US universities in the Times Higher Education International Impact Rankings (as “the most sustainable university"), and tops the most innovative university ranking, incl. by the number of patents. Currently, the university is also in 6th place by the number of students in the USA (over 60 thousand, with online students the number exceeds 140 thousand). Arizona State University has been undergoing a key transformation over the past 22 years under the leadership of its president, Prof. Dr. Michael Crowe, with much of the change related to ASU's more active role in solving societal challenges, creating an inclusive and innovative environment, connecting multiple research teams and units within the university to work on joint projects and to create new structural units. ASU's transformation along its own model, The New American University, is an inspiration for other universities in the US and around the world.
The ASU visit program on site was organized by ASU LightWorks under the leadership of William Brandt, with the participation of Ryan Klenner (ASU LightWorks) and Maria Toshkova of Strategic Partnerships (USA). LightWorks director Gary Dirks also joined the final meeting with the team.
A number of meetings were held at major units, centers and laboratories at Arizona State University, including:
- ASU LightWorks
- Thunderbird School of Global Management
- W. P. Carey School of Business
- Decision Theater
- Center for Carbon Negative Economy (CNCE)
- University Design Institute (UDI)
- Dreamscape Discovery
- Julie Ann Wrigley Global Futures Laboratory
- ASU Sustainability Operations
- Global Center for Technology Transfer
- SkySong – The ASU Scottsdale Innovation Center
- Dreamscape Discovery Initiative
- Etc.
As a result of the visit, researchers from both countries began work on the preparation of joint projects, as well as on forthcoming academic mobility.