"ARC Fund was established in 1991 and today is one of the most influential Bulgarian research NGO active in the field of innovation and knowledge economy. The organization’s mission is aimed at concerted development of knowledge-based societies in the countries of Southeast Europe. Its activities encourage competitiveness and growth of economies in the region through promotion of innovation and transfer of advanced technologies and know-how; and facilitate the cross-border networking and capacity building of NGOs, and public and private agencies, based on opportunities created by information and communications technologies (ICTs);
Since 1997 ARC Fund has been member of the European Innovation Relay Centres (IRCs) network and coordinator of the national IRC-Bulgaria. ARC Fund provides technology brokering, innovation counseling, training and information services to over 5000 clients, representing both leading high-tech industries (such as, for example, ICTs or biotech) and more traditional, but equally important industrial sectors such as textiles, food, furniture production or transport.
During its 16 years of experience, ARC Fund has established numerous contacts with the most relevant research organisations in Bulgaria, and has a sound network of contacts with enterprises in key areas like:
- Information and Communication Technologies (ICT)
- Food, Agriculture and Biotechnology
- Textile and other production industries
- Transport
- Environment
Under FP6 ARC Fund implemented an array of such project in areas as diverse as ICT (EuropeanIST, ISTBonus, GET-IN), environment (EraEnvironment), agro-food (Quality-Meat), transport (TranSMEs) and in textile (ITE, Fashion to Future). In all projects ARC Fund works in close cooperation with key government agencies and local authorities in Bulgaria in defining national and regional innovation and ICT policies. Within FP6 ARC Fund has National Contact Points for the Innovation and SME programmes, under the FP7 has NCP for the Regions of Knowledge programme.
In recent years ARC Fund has initiated and coordinated a pilot Technology and Innovation Foresight for Bulgaria and Romania project in biotechnology and e-government, and currently implements a ForeIntegra – Integrating Foresight in Research Infrastructure Policy Formulation project.
In 2006 ARC Fund was contracted to develop the country report for Bulgaria: Strategic Evaluation on Innovation and the Knowledge-based economy in relation to the Structural and Cohesion Funds, for the programming period 2007-2013 – a report to DG Regional Policy. ARC Fund was also commissioned by the Bulgarian Ministry of Economy and Energy to develop the Annual report on the Bulgarian National Innovation Policy 2006.
ARC Fund has a solid track-record of successful international projects supported by the European Commission (FP4, FP5, FP6, Leonardo da Vinci, PHARE), the World Bank, UNDP, USAID, and German Agency for Technical Cooperation (GTZ). ARC Fund was twice awarded Best National Performer - in FP5 and FP6 by the Ministry of Education and Science, the national coordinator for the EU Research Framework Programmes. ARC Fund is the country correspondent for the ERA-WATCH initiative.
ARC Fund has 25 permanent staff members including 2 full-time professors and 5 PhD candidates. ARC Fund's staff has wide-range of publishing activity, including chapters of books and papers in refereed journals in the fields of innovation, knowledge economy, economics and information society.
An advisory Innovation Council, established in 2003, advises ARC Fund’s policy consultancy work on issues related to innovation and research. The Council, which is composed of leading academics and practitioners from universities, business incubators and innovative companies, adds a higher level of competence to the activities and services provided by ARC Fund."

Source: Self-entry in July 2007.