NACIONALNA KATOLICHESKA FEDERACIA CARITAS BULGARIA

Their core work

Caritas Bulgaria is the national Catholic charitable federation providing social services to vulnerable populations across Bulgaria — including the elderly, migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers. In EU-funded research, they participate as a civil society implementation partner, grounding academic work in real communities and providing direct access to service users that purely academic partners cannot replicate. Their H2020 involvement reflects their operational mandate: project SAAM placed them in active ageing support, while MATILDE engaged them as a field partner for migration impact assessment in rural and mountain regions. They translate policy research into community-level realities and give consortia credibility with beneficiary populations in Southeast Europe.

What they specialise in

How they've shifted over time

With only two projects, the trajectory is readable but narrow: their first H2020 engagement (SAAM, 2017) focused on digital and coaching tools for elderly care — a natural fit with Caritas's core social services. By 2020, with MATILDE, their focus shifted decisively toward migration governance, third country national integration, and place-based policy in rural settings. This reflects a broader organizational response to the European migration flows of 2015–2019, which drew NGOs like Caritas into EU-funded migration research as indispensable civil society voices. The shift is not a pivot away from social care — it is an expansion into a second vulnerable population.

They are moving toward migration governance and rural social inclusion research, which aligns with EU policy priorities likely to attract further Horizon Europe funding under the social innovation and migration clusters.

How they like to work

Caritas Bulgaria has participated exclusively as a consortium partner — never as coordinator — across both projects, consistent with an NGO that brings field access rather than research leadership. Despite only two projects, they have accumulated 35 unique partners across 11 countries, indicating they join large, multi-national consortia rather than small bilateral partnerships. Working with them means gaining a direct channel to vulnerable population groups in Bulgaria and access to their established service delivery network, but project management and technical lead roles will rest with other partners.

35 unique consortium partners across 11 countries from just two projects, suggesting large European consortia averaging around 17 partners each. No geographic concentration is evident — their network spans EU and non-EU countries, typical for society-pillar RIA projects.

What sets them apart

As the national Caritas federation in Bulgaria, they offer something most research partners cannot: direct operational access to elderly care recipients, migrants, and asylum seekers in Bulgarian communities, including underserved rural and mountain regions. Bulgaria's position as a Southeast European border country makes Caritas Bulgaria a strategically valuable partner for any consortium studying migration routes, integration in low-density regions, or social services in post-communist welfare systems. No other Bulgarian partner type combines Catholic social network reach, beneficiary access, and experience across both ageing and migration research themes.

Highlights from their portfolio

• SAAM
  Largest project by budget (EUR 98,750) and their entry into EU research, applying multimodal coaching technology to active ageing within a social care NGO context — an unusual pairing of digital health research with Catholic social services.
• MATILDE
  Positioned Caritas Bulgaria at the intersection of migration policy research and rural development, with a direct civil society role in assessing integration outcomes for third country nationals in European mountain regions.