The second annual conference of the Bulgarian section of the Marie Curie Alumni Association was held on 26 and 27 June in the conference hall of the Center for Excellence Universities for Science, Informatics and Technology in Society (UNITE), Lozenets Campus.

The event is organized by the Bulgarian section of MCAA in collaboration with EURAXESS Bulgaria and the Faculty of Chemistry and Pharmacy of Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski”.

The event was opened by Assoc. Prof. Boyan Zhekov, National Coordinator for Bulgaria for the Horizon Europe Framework Programme, and Prof. Ana Proykova, Director of Science at the UNITE Centre and Head of the High Performance Computing Laboratory at Sofia Tech Park. During the two-day conference, projects from the activities of the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Programme, ongoing projects related to the scientific fields of mathematics, chemistry and energy, artificial intelligence and information and communication technologies, and medicine were presented.

The second day of the conference focused on various research funding opportunities, information on the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions 2025 competitions, and good practices in writing projects for the postdoctoral fellowship scheme. In this final panel of the event, Prof. Ana Proykova presented the HPC, HPDA, and AI services provided by the National Competence Centre Bulgaria for Marie Curie fellows working in various fields. The benefits of HPC+ technologies for natural and social sciences were discussed, with a focus on the quality of research.