Clean&Circle Centre of Competence was established in March 2018 as both a partnership association and a scientific-technological and infrastructural project, with a focus on environmental and clean biotechnologies. These ideas have their roots as far back as 1996 when the first in Environmental Biotechnology was created at the University of Sofia, Faculty of Biology.

Clean&Circle was created with funding secured from project BG05M2OP001-1.002-0019, which aims to build new effective infrastructure and research capacity for the development of high and deep technologies in the circular economy, with a focus on water, energy, and waste management. The total budget for the project is EUR 12,122,073,57, of which EUR 10,303,762,53 comes from European funding. The ecosystem of Clean&Circle consists of a distributed infrastructure of 8 institutional scientific and university partners and the largest clean technology companies in Bulgaria - Enterprise for Waste Treatment and Veolia. Technologies ready for transfer to business have already been created.

The new building for the Clean&Circle is currently under construction and will be completed by the second half of 2023. The building will feature specially designed ecological features.

Modern research complexes for water, waste, molecular biological studies, as well as ecological, chemical, and biological technologies will be housed within the building to support STEM and entrepreneurial skills. Plasma sources and equipment for creating plasma technologies for innovative processing of toxic pollutants, pathogens, and hybrid technologies will be in the underground facility. Once operational, the laboratories will be equipped with cutting-edge devices worth over 5,5 million EUR.

Prof. Yana Topalova, DSc
Project coordinator
Sofia University „St. Kliment Ohridski“, Faculty of Biology



Assoc. Prof. Evgeniya Benova, PhD
Science manager
Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski”, Faculty of Physics



Assoc. Prof. Irina Schneider, PhD
Operations manager
Sofia University „St. Kliment Ohridski“, Faculty of Biology



Asst. Prof. Yordan Karapenchev, PhD
Public relations manager
Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski”, Faculty of Journalism and Mass Communication

We would like to extend our gratitude to all partners participating in the Clean&Circle project. Apart from the leading organization - Sofia University "St. Kliment Ohridski" these include: the University of Architecture, Civil Engineering and Geodesy; the University of Forestry (UF) The "Prof. Dr. Assen Zlatarov" University - Bourgas (BU); the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences; and last but not least - "Cleantech Bulgaria" Foundation.

Furthermore, Clean&Circle has several associated partners who are not direct beneficiaries from the EU funding but have nonetheless contributed greatly to our success. These include: the Sofia Municipality, Municipal Enterprise for Waste Treatment, Veolia S.A., Interplast BG Ltd.; Energy Agency – Plovdiv and the University of Modena in Italy.

Project BG05M2OP001-1.002-0019:„Clean technologies for sustainable environment – water, waste, energy for circular economy“ is financed by the Operational programme “Science and Education for Smart Growth” 2014-2020 and co-financed by the European Union through the European Structural and Investment Funds.