CIST is established in 1999 as a result of research project funded by PHARE, with a scope to create Centre of Excellence in the field of Information Society Technologies as part of the Faculty of Mathematics and Information (FMI) at SU. Initially it was established as focused on information and educational technologies, but during the years CIST activity expanded to become interdisciplinary research center.
The background of CIST includes more than 70 implemented projects, as follows:
- 4 project in Horizon 2020
- 14 projects in 7th FP
- 11 projects in 6th FP
- 15 projects in 5th FP
- 7 projects in 4th FP
- 7 projects funded by PHARE and PHARE Tempus Programme
- 18 projects funded by Erasmus+ and Lifelong Learning Program
CIST serves as a junction between the university, the academic community, local community, industry and SMEs, NGOs and policy makers co-ordinating their efforts at spreading the overall use of and excellence in IST.
The four associated groups of partners – NGOs, science and education institutions, policy makers and SMEs are acting both as contributors of inputs and as final users, the outputs also serving a wider range of researchers, business and professional users as well as various final service users.
As a high proof for the team efforts and accomplished results there are provided the following recognitions:
- Nomination by the World Bank for Best Bulgarian case in Knowledge Economy (2003)
- Best case in the Annual Report of Bulgaria about National Policy in Innovations 2007
- Identified as the most successful research team in Bulgaria regarding project participation in 6th FP and 7th FP