A vision for a future universityВизия за бъдещ университетΌραμα για ένα μελλοντικό πανεπιστήμιο
Popova University Burgas is a vision for a new university in Burgas on the Black Sea coast: marine science, music, business, technology and philosophy — beginning online, with live teaching for learners everywhere, and summers by the sea for field schools, festivals and community work.
Popova University Burgas is a concept-stage vision for a future university. No higher-education institution currently exists under this name, no establishment or accreditation application has been filed or is pending, and no admissions, tuition or donations are accepted.
Concept-stage visionAboutЗа насΣχετικά
Popova University Burgas is shaped by two identities. Burgas gives it its place: the Black Sea, the coastal light, the culture of a young international city with room to grow. Lady Lidia Popova gives it its spirit — youthful energy, quiet nobility and a bright, curious mind. Her world moves naturally through music, art, creativity and education, with a deep care for human health and life, and a profound affection for animals and nature — for the living world in all its forms. From the Lady Lidia Popova Universe, Popova University takes shape.
The first step is online: seminars live and small, professors close, learners everywhere. Each summer the whole community gathers on the Black Sea coast for field schools, music and art festivals, projects and community work.
Burgas gives the university its home; the university brings the city young people, ideas, music, art and new energy. Our purpose is larger than our programmes: to make Burgas a place where young people want to come — and want to stay.
From the founderОт основателяΑπό τον ιδρυτή
Every city that keeps its young people has given them a reason to stay. This vision is my reason for Burgas — a university that begins online, belongs to its coast, and gives the Black Sea a place where young people come to learn and choose to stay.
AcademicsАкадемична частΣπουδές
One field for the sea, one for culture, one for the economy, one for technology, one for meaning — the whole idea of a university for life. What follows is the model, drawn in full.
Study the Black Sea from wherever you are: marine ecology, coastal systems, environmental data and sustainability — live online seminars over real datasets, and a field school that moves to the water every summer.
Composition, music theory, production and performance practice, taught online by working artists — with performance weeks in Burgas and a stage at the Popova Youth Music Festival, where the university meets its city.
Economics, management, entrepreneurship and leadership, designed for people who want to start something. The courses connect directly to the Black Sea region's economy — and to the businesses its graduates will one day build in it.
Software, artificial intelligence and data science — the most online-native field there is, taught by people who build. Students ship real systems from the first semester, including the university's own digital campus: this field builds the medium the whole university lives in.
What a good life is, how we think, how we learn — and how the education systems of the future can be designed, with Popova University itself as the first laboratory. This field unites philosophy and ethics with the learning sciences, and every student passes through its shared core.
How you learnКак учишΠώς μαθαίνετε
Every year of every degree carries one real project, each more demanding than the last — the spine of a Popova education.
Investigate one real system in depth and document it — an ecosystem, an artist's practice, a business, a classroom, a codebase.
A cross-faculty team takes on a real problem set by a Burgas partner — and every member answers for the whole.
Deliver work a real community uses: a taught module, a public performance, a consulting result, a deployed tool.
Independent work of professional seriousness — thesis, venture, shipped system, public performance or taught course — defended at graduation.
The promise: seminars of fifteen. A mentor for four years. A portfolio of real work instead of an examination hall.
Alongside their programme, every student takes the Popova Core: two foundations — Thinking Clearly and Learning for Life — then five courses that turn the university's commitments into curriculum: The Good Life (people), The Creative Practice (creativity), The Citizen and the Economy (the city), The Sea and the Planet (the environment), Intelligence and Technology (the future) — closing with The Examined Life.
The first stepПървата стъпкаΤο πρώτο βήμα
The first step is online: studies without walls, the university firmly rooted on the Black Sea coast.
Seminars happen live, in small groups, with professors who know every name; recordings, readings and projects fit your time zone and your life.
Every year the whole community gathers on the coast: the marine field school, festival and performance weeks, outreach projects in city schools. The city is the campus.
Mentoring, student projects, volunteering at the sanctuary and in outreach programmes — being a learner here means belonging somewhere.
Institutes & initiativesИнститутиΙνστιτούτα
Active from the first year: visible work for the children of Burgas, for young musicians, for the sea and for the animals.
Rescue, rehabilitation, adoption and public education — run with students, volunteers and local partners from day one.
An annual celebration of young musical talent, bringing students, artists and audiences to the stages of Burgas.
Black Sea conservation, sustainable tourism and coastal development — research serving the water we live beside.
Mentoring, extracurricular programmes and open university resources for schools across the city and region.
Physical and mental wellbeing for every learner from the first day — growing into a centre that serves the whole community.
Discover BurgasОткрий БургасΑνακαλύψτε το Μπουργκάς
Because Burgas combines the Black Sea, the Sea Garden, a strong summer festival culture and a human scale — a coast worth returning to.
Field school mornings start on the water, with the sun rising over the Black Sea.
Burgas's great seaside park — the green mile where the city walks, runs, reads and meets.
Music on open stages, warm nights, and a festival calendar that fills the whole summer.
Future studyБъдещо обучениеΜελλοντικές σπουδές
The first learners of a university are remembered by it forever. Registering interest is not an application, an offer or a reservation — it means we write to you first when there is real news.
See how the five fields, online study and the Burgas residencies fit together.
Leave your name and the field you care about. Those who register hear from us before anyone else — with no application and no obligation on either side.
The first learners meet their professors and their cohort live online — and plan their first summer on the coast.
News & eventsНовиниΝέα
The full concept for Popova University Burgas is public: a university for life, rooted on the Black Sea coast.
Marine & Environmental Sciences, Music & Performing Arts, Economics & Business Administration, Computer Science & AI, and Philosophy & Education.
A first festival edition is part of the vision — young musicians on open stages across Burgas.
Academic contributorsАкадемични съмишленициΑκαδημαϊκοί συνεργάτες
The vision needs academics and practitioners who would rather build than administer: future chairs and lecturers across five fields, working artists, engineers, field scientists and school practitioners. There are no positions yet — what we gather are non-binding expressions of interest from people who want to shape the model and be first to hear when the vision becomes real.
Join the visionПрисъедини се към визиятаΓίνετε μέρος του οράματος
The vision grows in the open, carried by its future community. It doesn't need money — no donations are accepted; it needs people: future learners, academic contributors, partners and neighbours of the idea. Write to us, challenge the model, tell us what you'd study, teach or build — every voice helps shape the vision.
Follow the vision from the start, tell us what you'd study — and hear first when there is real news.
Help shape the programmes, challenge the model, lend your field its voice — informally, at the stage where ideas count the most.
Institutions, venues, schools and businesses of the Black Sea coast — tell us what a university for life could do with you.