The Maison des Sciences de l’Homme et de la Société (MSHS) is a non-profit foundation whose mission is to innovate, promote and support social and human sciences in Bulgaria, as well as to improve their regulatory framework. Based on interdisciplinarity, the MSHS offers a space for academic cooperation at the national and international level.

Its activities are closely related to academic life at the St. Kliment Ohridski University of Sofia and more particularly to the Department of Cultural Studies, with which it shares premises and is building a joint library.

Organisation

The supreme governing body of the Maison des Sciences de l’Homme et de la Société is the Board of Trustees, composed of twenty-five persons: nineteen Bulgarians and six citizens of the French Republic who are well known in the international academic community for their experience and competence, and who represent major fields of social and human sciences at the University of Sofia, the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, the Maison des Sciences de l’Homme (Paris), and the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS, Paris).

The Board of Trustees elects from among its members an Executive Board composed of three persons. Day-to-day and academic management is delegated to the Director.

A Scientific Commission of eight members – five Bulgarian and three foreign citizens – operates within the Board of Trustees.

History

The Maison des Sciences de l’Homme et de la Société was registered and entered in the Sofia City Court Register on 10 May 1995.

It was created with the organisational and financial support of the Maison des Sciences de l’Homme (Paris), whose Director Maurice Aymard is a member of the MSHS Board of Trustees and Scientific Commission.

The Maison des Sciences de l’Homme et de la Société (Sofia) and the Maison des Sciences de l’Homme (Paris) have established relations of permanent cooperation based on four-year cooperation agreements.

In 2005 researchers and experts associated with the Maison organized a workgroup dedicated to the study of the recent past and the communist legacy in Bulgaria. Soon this group initiated the establishment of the Institute for Studies of the Recent Past, Sofia. Both institutions work in close cooperation.