📅 Date: 29-30 September 2025
🏁 Start: 09:30 h
📍 Location: “Boris Hristov” House of Culture, Plovdiv, ul. "Gladston" 15
🎯 Type: Hybrid
🧑🚀 Participants: researchers, policy makers, NGO representatives, librarians
🎤 Working Language: The event will be bilingual (in English and in Bulgarian) without a translation option.
🎟️ Resume: The AURA Open Access & Repository Session, part of the 17th International Conference ERIS 2025, explores how Open Science reshapes research and knowledge sharing. The programme brings together international experts, policy makers, librarians, and researchers to discuss open access, libraries, and knowledge infrastructures; digitisation and cultural heritage; open science philosophies and trust; and FAIR data, research data management, and training. Each session features keynote talks, case studies, and innovative practices from across Europe and beyond, encouraging dialogue between academia, cultural institutions, and policy makers. By highlighting diverse perspectives—from open metrics to citizen science—the session underscores the importance of equity, transparency, and collaboration in research. This hybrid event aims to strengthen global engagement with Open Science and its transformative impact on society.
The event is organised by the AURA project, which has been funded via a cascading grant of the Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment (CoARA) and focuses on Bulgaria.
Preliminary Programme
September 29, 2025 (Monday)
Please note that this event will be hybrid.
📍 Location of the in person sessions: “Boris Hristov” House of Culture, Plovdiv, ul. "Gladston" 15
09:30 – 10:00 Welcome coffee
10:00 – 10:10 Opening
- Prof. Ivan Koytchev, Chair of ERIS Conference
10:10 – 11:15 Session 1: Open Science and Open Reviews
Chair: Ivan Koytchev
- Opening Keynote: Elena Giglia (University of Turin, Italy)
What if we had not Open Science? The value and potential of openness
Abstract: Everyone is talking about Open Science, but sometimes we miss its real value, or we see it as the umptenth administrative burden. In this talk, we shall compare research (and life) in a closed world versus an open one, focusing on the potential to create a more collaborative, inclusive and efficient research environment for the benefit of science and society, avoiding "openwashing" and really trying to make Open Science "the new normal". - Mikhail Bukhtoyarov & Anna Bukhtoyarova (Faculty of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Montenegro) — How Many AI Reviewers is Enough?
- Welcome address from Prof. Kostadin Kostadinov – Advisor of the Minister of Education and Science in Bulgaria
11:15 – 12:30 Session 2: Digitisation of Cultural Heritage and Open Access and Specialised Repositories
(this session will be in Bulgarian)
Chair: Irina Temnikova (in Bulgarian)
- Guest speaker: Dr Desislava Sevova (Bulgarian Telegraph Agency) — Digitisation in the Bulgarian Telegraph Agency Archive
- Teodora L. Kostadinova (National Library 'Ivan Vazov') —Open Source, Open Science and libraries
- Georgi Vassilev (IICT-BAS) —Design and Validation of a Self-Hosted Multi-User VR Collaboration Platform
- Svetlana Kostova (SU 'St. Kliment Ohridski') — Ornamental Art in Open Access Publications (1830–1930) for Open Science
- Todor Nenov (Academy of Music, Dance and Fine Arts "Prof. Asen Diamandiev" - Plovdiv) —Virtual video tour of a cultural heritage site in Plovdiv
Daniela Mihaylova, IICT-BAS —Reimagining Museum Experiences: 360° Photography as a Tool for Accessibility and Engagement in Cherni Osam
12:30 – 13:00 Lunch
13:00 – 14:00 Session 3: Access and Use as Open Access Enablers
Chair: Ruslana Margova
- Alice MacKenzie (University of Strathclyde, UK) —Open Science at National Libraries to Serve Remote Research
- Alpaslan Hamdi Kuzucuoğlu (Istanbul Medeniyet University, Turkey) — Open Access and Digital Memory in UNESCO Cultural Heritage Sites: The Case of Istanbul Historical Sites
- Priscila Maria de Jesus (Federal University of Pernambuco, Brazil) — Open Access in Brazilian Museums: Perspectives and Challenges
- Hamizah Hamzah (University of Strathclyde, UK) — How FAIR are UK Memory Institutions? Invisible heritage of Muslim migrants
- Katja Zahra Camilleri (University of Malta Library, Malta) — Kollezzjoni Programmi tal-Festa: Bridging Academic Libraries and Local Communities
14:00 – 14:15 Coffee Break
14:15 – 15:30 Session 4: Education and Skills
Chair: Elena Giglia
- Guest speaker: Professor Gregory Makrides, University of the National Education Commission, Krakow, Poland, President of the European Federation of STEAME Teacher Facilitators Academies, Coordinator, STEAME-Academy project — STEAME-ACADEMY: STEAME Teacher Facilitators Certification through the European STEAME Regional Academies
Izabel Popova, IICT-BAS —Application of 3D Printing in School Education
Aristotelis Sourlis (University of Strathclyde) — Citizen Science within Open Science: Community Outreach and Societal Change
- Joseph Mathew Mwalubanda (Tanzania Institute of Accountancy) — AI in Higher Education: Readiness of Tanzanian libraries
15:30 – 15:45 Coffee Break
15:45 – 16:45 Session 5: Open Science Philosophies, Trust, and Equity
(in Bulgarian)
Chair: Desislava Sevova
- Galina Momcheva (Institute of Mathematics and Informatics, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences) — Evaluating the quality of researchers
- Maria Alexandrova (Analyse This Ltd) — Restoring the Trust in Social Science – Providing feedback during data collection
- Rumyana Toleva (SU 'St. Kliment Ohridski') — Modern Open Science through the Lens of Ancient Philosophy of Yoga
16:45 – 17:00 Break
17:00 – 18:00 Session 6: Unlocking Insights with FAIR Data and Open Repositories
Chair: Milena Dobreva
- Elitsa Foteva & Michaela Stancheva (Sofia University) — Genom under lock 2.0
Ruslana Margova & Irina Temnikova (GATE Institute, Sofia University St Kliment Ohridski)—Problems with Multilingualism as a Tool in Open Science for Equity and Inclusion
Closing keynote
- Thomas Rhys Evans, Professor in Occupational Psychology and Open Scholarship at the University of Greenwich — The Role of Feedback in Open and Responsible Research: Reflections from a Global Transdisciplinary Survey
18:00 – 18:15 Closing Remarks
September 30, 2025 (Tuesday)
📍Location of the in person sessions: House of Science and Technique, Plovdiv, ul. "Gladston" 1
Session 1:
Chair:
09:30 Eugenia Smyrnova-Trybulska, Małgorzata Przybyła-Kasperek, Tomasz Kopczyński (University of Silesia in Katowice, Poland) —
Contemporary trends and comparative research on AI apps
09:45 Mariia Varlamova, Polina Okolo-Kulak (Graduate School of Management at St. Petersburg University, St. Petersburg, Russia) —
Dynamic user segmentation via machine learning for personalized mobile app engagement
10:00 S.M. Tawhid (American International University-Bangladesh Department of Computer Science) — Video-based Flight Pattern Mining of Birds in Controlled Tunnel Environments Using YOLOv8 and Data Analytics
10:15 Vladimir Norkin, Anton Kozyriev (National Technical University of Ukraine "Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute") — K-means Seeding Using Mixed-Integer Optimization
10:30–10:45 Coffee break
10:45-12:30 Transforming Professions in the Age of AI
Moderator: Albena Antonova (Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski”)
12:30–13:30 Lunch break
Session 2:
Chair:
13:30 Ivaylo Staribratov, Todorka Glushkova (Plovdiv University “Paisii Hilendarski”) — AI-Powered Approaches to Personalized Education
13:45 Albena Antonova (Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski”) — Integrating Robots in Education within the AI context – Purposes and Opportunities
14:00 Daniela Orozova, Emil Delinov (Thracian University, Stara Zagora) — The challenges of AI and Higher education
14:15 Asya Stoyanova, Iva Orozova (Plovdiv University “Paisii Hilendarski”) — Machine Learning tools for analyzing medical data
14:30 Anita Stoyanova (Kreston BulMar, Sofia), Ivanka Marasheva-Delinova (Uwekind International School, Sofia), Emil Delinov (Thracian University, Stara Zagora) — Can Generative AI Be Used in School Project Development?
14:45 Anita Stoyanova (Kreston BulMar, Sofia) — Managing Social Media Risk: Real-World Threats, Regulatory Obligations, and Awareness Strategies
15:00–15:15 Coffee break
15:15 - 17:00 Smart Technologies & Future Security Synergizing in the Post-Information Age
Track chair: Zlatogor Minchev (Institute of Information and Communication Technologies, BAS)
17:00 Closing Remarks