Top Bulgarian Science Officials Sacked

Top Bulgarian Science Officials Sacked - by Gretchen Vogel, With reporting by Kai Kupferschmidt on 29 January 2013 - Science

The Bulgarian science and education minister, Sergei Ignatov, was fired yesterday in response to a government report on corruption in hiring and grant-making procedures. The head of the Bulgarian National Science Fund (BNSF), Hristo Petrov, stepped down as well on Monday in response to the scandal. The departures are "a very good sign," says Emil Horozov, a mathematician at Sofia University and former head of BNSF, who led hundreds of scientists in protests against corruption in December.