germany, austria, belgium, italy, the netherlands, switzerland and almost all member countries of the european union and european educational area. outside the eu, the university maintains academic cooperation with educational institutions in russia (moscow, st. petersburg, pensa, kursk) and ukraine (bogomolets state medical university in kyiv and the university of pharmacy in kharkov). an active practical exchange is carried out with universities and university hospitals in turkey (edirne) and israel (haifa, jerusalem and tel aviv). since 2010, an exchange has been carried out on the clinical facilities of mu-varna for students’ summer practices with first moscow state medical university “i. m. sechenov” and northwestern state medical university “i. i. mechnikov” in st. petersburg. the department of international relations is also responsible for the organization of academic staff mobility. the guest professors come from the universities of seged, kharkov, vienna, zagreb, silesia, etc. the international exchange includes clinical internships, phd programmes (“ovidius” university in constanta, romania) and specializations. from 2001 to 2007 mu-varna organised an exchange of students and academic staff within “socrates-erasmus” programme. in 2007 mu-varna obtained an extended erasmus university charter and carried out students’ and academic staff exchange within the lifelong learning programme for the period 2007–2013. since december 2013 the university has been awarded “erasmus+” university charter for the new programme period 2014–2020. mu-varna has signed bilateral agreements within “erasmus+” programme with 32 universities from 15 european countries. some of the significant international projects are in the field of cardiology and cardiosurgery (augsburg, germany; pensa, russia), surgery (hannover, germany; pittsburgh, usa), paediatric oncohaematology (bonn, germany), cancer research (heidelberg, germany), dermatology (moscow) and transplantation (germany, israel). academics programmes at the faculties of medicine, dental medicine, pharmacy, public health of the medical university of varna and the medical college the following programmes are offered: medicine, dental medicine, pharmacy, nurse, midwife, health management, healthcare management, public health, medical laboratory assistant, radiographer, assistant pharmacist, dental technician, public health inspector, physiotherapist, medical beautician, medical optician, pharmaceutical management, rehabilitation, thalassotherapy, wellness and spa, public health prevention and control (in bulgarian), public health and health management (in russian). at the affiliates in sliven, shumen and veliko tarnovo: nursing, midwifery. english language programmes are offered in: medicine, dental medicine, public health. admission the admission process of the medical university of varna consists of preliminary and routine exams - in varna as well as in sliven, veliko tarnovo, shumen, germany, austria, great britain, spain. as a part of its admission campaign the medical university of varna offers preparatory courses and admission consultations: comprehensive and short intensive preparatory courses in biology, chemistry, modelling; some of them also available in different cities in bulgaria and several eu countries. there is a new online question form, as well as online submission of application papers and the placement of all applicants from all programmes. there are specialised websites dedicated to the admission campaign – in bulgarian, english and german. “open door days” are organised for bulgarian and foreign applicants. the university participates in educational fairs and international exhibitions in order to increase the enrollment of foreign students, after a preliminary analysis of the scope and the perspectives for the medical university of varna. vocational training and postgraduate studies centre for vocational training department of postgraduate education centre for online education centre for career development phd programmes medical university of varna offers training in 54 accredited phd programmes in the following eight professional directions: 1) medicine; 2) dental medicine; 3) chemical sciences; 4) life sciences; 5) psychology; 6) administration and management; 7) pharmacy; 8) public health. state-of-the-art method of teaching in 2014 the medical university of varna incorporated a platform complementing the online education of the students from all programmes. in their personal profile the students receive interactive handbooks, exercises, video lectures, 3d atlases, tests, etc. they can also check their grades. in 2014 a new technology came into use, which allows the current evaluation of the level of mastering of the material and facilitates the interactive method of education. the students have the opportunity to study human anatomy by means of interactive methods and 3d technology training facilities the university has training facilities for training of students, phd students and interns at umhat “st. marina” - varna, mhat “st. anna”, the specialized hospital of obstetrics and gynecology for active treatment “prof. dr. d. stamatov” - varna, the specialized eye hospital for active treatment - varna, the faculty of dental medicine, the faculty of pharmacy, rhi (regional health inspection) and the medical college of varna. the university hospital “st. marina” - varna has several lecture halls for practical and theoretical activities. the students use the digital library - part of the digitized and centralized library system of the university. the hospital is in possession of highly specialised equipment as well as the most current apparatuses such as gamma camera, magnetic resonance imaging, pet ct with a cyclotron, ct dual-source. students' life profile in november 2015, 4500 students were studying at the medical university of varna, of whom 3400 bulgarian citizens and 1100 foreign students from around 40 countries, 900 of which are studying in the english language programmes in “medicine” and “dental medicine”. the students are studying in 26 programmes - 987 disciplines; 80 courses (incl. 12 english language courses and 1 russian language course). most of the students are from germany (the largest group, over 40% of all foreign students),the kingdom of bahrain , the united kingdom, greece, cyprus, sweden, spain, turkey, usa, norway, portugal, ireland, austria, albania, north macedonia, ukraine, finland, denmark, serbia, italy, france, poland, belgium, switzerland, the netherlands, israel, iran, yemen, egypt, kuwait, brazil, japan, tunisia, the dominican republic, india, russia, kazakhstan, luxembourg, bhutan, azerbaijan, syria, nigeria. students' council the council is a body dedicated to the defense of the students' general interests a representing the students and the phd students of the medical university of varna in the general assembly. the term of the students and the phd students in the general assembly is with a duration of two years with the right to be re-elected for another term. the student council elects a chairman among its members, who organises and manages its activity as well as represents it in front of the managing authorities of the university. sport every year the students of the medical university of varna take part in the traditional sport tournaments “varna universiade”, “the cup of the rector”, “summer university” and “winter universiade”. they compete in different disciplines among themselves and with students from other universities from the city and the country. physical education is a mandatory form of education for all the students from the initial years of all programmes. the university athletes and the teams conduct their training sessions under the guidance of professional trainers. notable alumni aneliya klisarova, medical scientist and professor. george chaldakov, vascular biologist and neurobiologist. krasimir ivanov, surgeon, oncologist, professor and rector. milen vrabevski, businessman and philanthropist. olawale sulaiman, neurosurgeon and academic. iliyan ivanov, psychiatrist, professor. library, publishing and tv library the library of the medical university of varna was founded in 1961. the library possesses around 160 000 volumes of books and periodicals. in the library fund there are also around 500 old books on medicine, pharmacology and dental medicine, printed in the period 1830–1950. a digital catalogue was created and has been maintained since 1995. publishing department the main functions of the publishing department are the processing and publishing of scientific print production of the university (textbooks, handbooks and monographs, reference books and manuals, dissertations, proceedings, editions and printed materials for the needs of the scientific activities). the online bookstore processes orders in bulgaria as well as at an international level. scientific periodicals of the medical university of varna scientific journals of the university in english: scripta scientifica medica (published since 1962). the first official scientific periodical of the medical university of varna. dedicated to scientific articles in the field of medicine. scripta scientifica pharmaceutica (since 2014). for scientific articles in the field of pharmacy. scripta scientifica medicinae dentalis (since 2015). dedicated to scientific articles in the field of dental medicine. scripta scientifica salutis publicae (since 2015). for scientific articles in the field of public health. all journals are with an open access to authors from all over the world. from 2014 national and international authors can submit articles via the online publishing platform. the articles receive a doi number. television mu-vi.tv mu-vi.tv is the educational television of the medical university of varna with a specialized programme profile in medicine and healthcare in two main directions - an educational programme for specialists in the fields of medicine, dental medicine, pharmacy and public health and an educational health programme for the general public. the programme strategy includes lectures by bulgarian and foreign specialists, filmed surgeries, manipulations and rehabilitation activities, etc. the television has a national coverage and is broadcast via cable as well as via a satellite network. mu-vi.tv is registered by the digital media council with an initial broadcast date of march 1, 2015. university centres and museums academic clinical research organization (acro) university medico-dental centre centre for translational medicine and cell therapy school for phd students vivarium university centre for eastern medicine museum of history of medicine