Press Release s59

PRESS RELEASE 6 February 2015

At its today’s session, the BNB Governing Council made a decision to award a scholarship for 2015 to Atanas Angelov Pekanov, a full-time master’s degree student in Economic Policy at the University College London, competing with an essay on Long-term and Short-term Economic Effects for Bulgaria from the EU Sanctions against Russia. The certificate of the winner in the 2015 BNB Scholarships Competition was awarded today in the presence of the members of the BNB Governing Council. These scholarships are primarily intended to support students and PhD students in specialising and doing research into areas important for the BNB’s operations, with the prospect and opportunity to recruit them to work for the central bank. The requirements to the applicants and the conditions of the BNB Scholarship Competition are publicly available on the website of the central bank. Documents for participation in the 11th annual competition for the BNB scholarships were submitted by 21 candidates altogether, of whom 8 PhD students and 13 Master’s degree students. The BNB Committee for selection and work with scholarship students (the Committee) did not admit to participation in the 2015 Scholarship Competition one of the applicants due to semestral grades and average grade from the bachelor’s degree state exams below the required minimum. The first stage of the competition included writing an essay on a subject set earlier. Candidates’ essays were scored anonymously by a panel of reviewers determined by the Committee, including experts from the BNB and outside the bank. Each thesis was scored independently by two reviewers. According the Committee’s decision essays of the PhD students were assigned to reviewers - PhD holders. Having considered the scores given to the applicants’ essays and their documents, the Committee decided to invite to the next stage – an interview - one Master’s degree student and one PhD student. Candidates had the opportunity to submit and defend their theses, to determine the sphere of their interests and to discuss topical issues with the Committee members. Based on the interviews and the comprehensive rating of candidates’ performance, and after careful consideration in compliance with the Internal Rules for selection and work with BNB scholarship students, the Committee proposed to the BNB Governing Council to award one scholarship to a Master’s degree student and not to award any PhD student scholarship for 2015. A total of 291 students and PhD students have applied for participation in the BNB scholarship competitions (in the period 2004 to January 2015) with 26 scholarships granted.