VUM is a private business school granted institutional accreditation in 1999. It became the first Bulgarian HEI with educational programs entirely taught in English. In 2009, it concluded a strategic partnership with Cardiff MET University by which BA and MA programs for double degree diplomas were introduced.
VUM specialises in Social Sciences and offers study programs in Business, Management, Administration and Tourism. It also provides innovative education in Culinary Arts and Hospitality as well as in Software Engineering. Most VUM study programmes are delivered exclusively in English and lead to the award of two degrees, namely one from VUM, and a second one from a strategic partner university of VUM located in another EU country.
A significant number of the VUM’s lecturers publish in international scientific journals – according to Scopus, VUM’s lecturers have been authoring 12 of the 50 most cited publications (24%) published between 2010-2016 in the field of social sciences, business, economics, finances and accounting, humanitarian sciences.
According to the rating of the Bulgarian HEIs in 2017, published by MES, VUM occupies the first place in the country for the number of citations in the scientific fields ‘Administration and Management’ and ‘Economics’ as to Scopus and the second place for scientific research in the area of ‘Tourism.
VUM hosts a Regional Centre of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences and publishes European Journal of Tourism Research (EJTR, http://ejtr.vumk.eu) – the only scientific journal in the field of tourism in Bulgaria published in English with the editorial board of 52 leading researchers in the tourism field from 26 countries. The journal was indexed in Scopus and Web of Science in 2016.
In 2016, VUM initiated the establishment of a national research consortium, including 4 HEIs and 4 scientific-research institutes at Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (BAS) which unite their technical and scientific capital for the realisation of the innovative complex applied research initiatives for the generation of new technologies and solutions in the field of creative and recreational industries. This initiative led to the establishment of the first and only Competence Centre in the field of creative and recreational industries in Bulgaria.