Faculty of Plant Protection and Agroecology

The Faculty of Plant Protection and Agroecology was founded in 1983. Thanks to the rich traditions and long-term experience of eminent scientists, the Faculty has being developing as a prestigious national educational and research center in the area of plant protection and environmental protection and a reliable partner of many European universities.

The following Departments are included in the Faculty structure: Entomology, Phytopathology, Agroecology & Environmental Protection, Microbiology and Ecological Biotechnologies, Chemistry and Phytopharmacy.

Training is conducted by renowned and erudite academic staff members, out of them 8 full-time professors, 17 associate professors and 14 chief assistant professors. Two of the university teachers are holding Doctors of Science degree and 37 are PhD holders. The work of the academic staff is assisted by 7 experts and specialists.

Student training at the Faculty of Plant Protection and Agroecology is offered in two professional fields: 6.2. Plant Protection and 4.4. Earth Sciences, accredited by the National Evaluation and Accreditation Agency with very high grades.

The students major for the Bachelor’s degree in: 

• Plant Protection
• Ecology and Environmental Protection.

Since its foundation the Faculty has trained 3900 students in Plant Protection, 1200 students in Ecology and Environmental Protection. Until 2016 at the Faculty have been trained 141 students in Agroforestry Systems and Mountainous Agriculture and 105 students in Organic Farming. 

A large number of foreign students were trained and graduated from the Faculty. They come from different countries, mainly Greece, Turkey, Vietnam, Kenia, Korea, Cuba, North Macedonia, Benin, Burundi, Nicaragua, Germany, Mexico, Ethiopia, Dominican Republic, Congo, Nigeria, Chile, Iraq, Portugal, Syria, Costa Rika, Moldova, Tanzania, Hungary, Poland and Czech Republic. 

The Faculty offers training in the following Master’s degree programs: 

• Plant protection
• Plant medicine (available also in English)
• Management in Plant Protection 
• Plant protection in organic farming 
• Agroecology and Plant Protection 
• Information Systems and Technologies in Plant Protection 
• Ecology of Settlement Systems 
• Sustainable Use of Natural Resources and Ecological Tourism
• Biodiversity Conservation
• Organic Farming.

The Master’s program in Plant Medicine has been developed within an international project with a joint curriculum and the diploma is recognized in 11 universities in Europe, including the universities of Bari, Zagreb, Athens, Belgrade and others.

Over 90 Bulgarian and foreign doctoral students defended their PhD thesis.