Reaction to a decision of Sofia University (Newsletter of EMS 2015)
Letter, published in « Newsletter of EMS », n°98 (2015) page 71.
На сайта на Европейското математическо дружество, в 98 брой на « Newsletter
of EMS », стр. 71, се появи подписаното от наши колеги
писмо до редакцията, засягащо известния на всички случай с проф. Хорозов:
http://www.ems-ph.org/journals/newsletter/pdf/2015-12-98.pdf
Това писмо е почти копие на отвореното писмо до бившия вече ректор.
Letters to the Editor
Reaction to a decision of Sofia University Ivan Ilchev, Rector, Members of the Academic Council, Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski’’ Sofia, Bulgaria
Dear Professor Ilchev,
Several months ago, Sofia University decided to prematurely retire Professor Emil Horozov, contrary to Bulgarian laws and the practice of the university. The Bulgarian court has decided that the act of Sofia University violates the law and that Professor Horozov must be returned to his job [1]. This, however, has not happened yet. Sofia University has not explained its decision. Moreover, in the discussions, a professor in law has claimed that the Academic Council is not obliged to give an explanation. Unfortunately, the real incitement is very well known to the scientific community, not only in Bulgaria but also to many prominent scientists abroad. The reason is that Horozov uncovered large-scale corruption in the Bulgarian Science Foundation. He formed a group of scientists who investigated the situation in the Bulgarian Science Foundation and produced a detailed report with the violations. The report was submitted to the Minister of Education and Science (at that time). After several months without any action, Professor Horozov made the report public in 2011. This was the starting point of the repression from institutions and newspapers. Some of them wrote articles in such a manner that the reader would get the impression that Horozov himself was the offender. As a consequence, Horozov decided to write a book The project business and the robbing of science (Manual for the managing scoundrel). The book describes to the general public the mechanisms of the corruption in Bulgarian scientific financing. Some of the most prestigious scientific journals in the world like Nature and Science [2, 3] have discussed the situation in the Bulgarian Science Foundation, unlike the Bulgarian newspapers. In fact, he has been invited by some TV channels to speak on this but, essentially, either the host did not allow him to speak or, in the cases of recorded interviews, they were ‘well processed’ to skip some of his criticisms. Another step that Professor Horozov undertook was to inform the Chief Prosecutor of Bulgaria on the violations. After waiting more than a year, he got a decision on several pages that did not answer any of his allegations, instead ‘answering’ topics that were not discussed in his signal. His appeal pointed out these facts and, once again, he received the same comments on matters not discussed by Horozov. At the same time, Professor Horozov informed The European Commission (EC) about the above facts, including his letter to the prosecutor. And again, as with the scientific journals, the EC reacted quickly in defence of Bulgarian science, contrary to Bulgarian institutions. After some protests of scientists and eventually the pressure from Europe, the Minister of Education and Science at that time was sacked. It is no wonder that some of the antiheroes of his book and, in particular, the Sofia University rector and others from its governing body, were looking for revenge. They found it in the fact that Professor Horozov has reached 65 and they decided to retire him, contrary to the rules and the traditions of the university. Essentially, all professors at Sofia University keep their jobs until 68. In particular, last year over 90% kept their positions, but not one of the best scientists of the university and the country. Maybe they did not notice (or intentionally) that they had also violated the law, which explicitly states that the members and corresponding members of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences have the right to keep their positions until 70, which is the case with Professor Horozov. There were mass protests against the decision of the rector, signed by more than 1,000 people [4]. A group of leading scientists from the USA, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Russia, Israel, Bulgaria, etc., who several years ago participated in a conference (sponsored by the American NSF) in honour of Professor Horozov, wrote a protest letter [5] to the Rector of the University, to the Chairwoman of the National Assembly, to the Minister of Education and Science, etc. Most of the newspapers and TV channels were informed too. No reaction came from any institution nor from any mass media. We hope that the international scientific community will not stay silent when facing the picture described above.
Bibliography
[1] Decision No. II-56 from 16.02.2015 of the Sofia Regional Court (Bulgarian) http://tinyurl.com/p8gopye.
[2] Bulgarian funding agency accused of poor practice, Nature, 6 April 2011, http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110406/full/472019a.html.
[3] Top Bulgarian Science Officials Sacked, Science, 29 January 2013, http://news.sciencemag.org/europe/2013/01/top-bulgarian-science-officials-sacked
[4] http://www.peticiq.com/emil_horozov.
[5] http://tinyurl.com/p4gd4wj.
Bojko Bakalov, North Carolina State University, USA
Lubomir Gavrilov, University of Toulouse, France
Iliya Iliev, Institute of Mathematics, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences
Plamen Iliev, Georgia Institute of Technology, USA
Kamen Ivanov, Institute of Mathematics, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences
Milen Yakimov, Louisiana State University, USA