The mission of the three-year MILIEU project, which is funded under the European Commission’s Horizon 2020 programme, is to unlock, foster and sustain research into women, their disabilities and their inclusion in active society. The project promotes international connectivity and increased contacts and fundraising capacity at the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology (IPS) and the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. A specific focus of the project is to enhance the knowledge and skills of PhD students and young scholars in IPS and BAS. So far the project has managed to implement several key events. One of them is related to the Summer School in Spain, held as part of the Complutense summer courses in El Escorial – Cursos de Verano. Many young people learned how to prepare proposals for scientific projects not only during the summer schools, but also in the various workshops and visits to partner institutions. “MILIEU also had panels at two major international conferences: the “International Conference of the European Association for Communication Research and Higher Education, held in Denmark” and the “International Conference of the International Association for Media and Communication Research in Beijing”. The project also organised the international conference “Gender, Disability and Violence” last October in Sofia. The two-day event was a great success with over 50 entries and 35 participants from all over the world.
MILIEU builds on its mission by also speaking out on important issues facing the educational and scientific development of people with disabilities. “There is no policy that gives equal opportunity to learners who have disabilities. This is potential that is vast and lost. For a person with a disability to get into a PhD programme, their family has to make a lot of sacrifices. This process must be institutionalized” – the project coordinator, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Lyuba Spasova, says adamantly. “We don’t have PhD students with disabilities simply because these people also find it very difficult to reach higher education.” That is why, in its final year, MILIEU will try to take the first steps towards a necessary change in the education of PhD students by initiating three long-term courses.
In September, a summer school will be held in Bulgaria dedicated to developing important practical skills for PhD students. Panels of the project this year will take place at the “International CES (Centre for European Studies) Conference”, held in Iceland in June, as well as at the AtGender International Conference to be held in Türkiye, and participation of members of the Bulgarian team is foreseen in at least five important international conferences.
An international conference on the project will take place in Sofia in December, where, in addition to the scientific programme, a session on the presentation of the project results is planned.
More information can be found on the project website: https://milieu-h2020.eu
