Since the mid-1990s Ivan Tchalakov has extensively studied the transformation
of research and innovation systems in post-socialist countries. In collaboration
with colleagues in France (Michel Callon and Philippe Laredo at Center of
Sociology of Innovation, Paris), Romania (Ion Glodeanu, Institute of Sociology
in Bucharest) and Macedonia (Mileva Gyurovska, University of Skopje) he studied
reconfigurations of regional techno-economic networks in the field of advanced
computer communications. These studies revealed the profound changes in industrial
research in the countries of South-Eastern Europe, which is now dominated
by innovative SME, replacing the previous system of state-funded research.
Also, interesting actors of transformation were found - neo-Schumpeterian
entrepreneurs, who build their strategies on focused R&D efforts, and
who were largely ignored in the existing studies of transition.
In 1999 he received The Award of Bulgarian National Fund for Scientific
Research for the book "Making a Hologram: A book about Light, about Scientists
and their
world”, Marin Drinov Academic Publishers, Sofia, Bulgaria. Between 1999 and
2003 he was elected as president of Bulgarian Sociological Association.
Since 2006 as Associate Professor at Department of Sociology, University
of Plovdiv together with Dobrinka Parusheva from BAS Institute of Balkan
Studies, Johan Schot and Ruth Odenziel from Technical University in Eindhoven,
The Netherlands, he established joint PhD Programme in the field of History
of Technology. The program is managed by the Dutch Foundation of History
of Technology. Currently there are two PhD students affiliated to the program.
Since March 2003 he is International Policy Fellow at International Policy
Program, Center for Policy Studies - Open Society Intstitute and Central
European University, Budapest, Hungary. (see Project
Description ) The study was supported also by CPS 2005 Continuous
Fellowship.
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