An official visit of Prof. Klement Tokner to the National Museum of Natural History at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences

On 2 June 2023, the Director general of the Senckenberg Gesellschaft für Naturforschung — one of the largest scientific organisations in Germany dealing with the study of nature, Prof. Klement Tockner, visited the National Museum of Natural History, Sofia (NMNHS) and met with Prof. Pavel Stoev, Director of the Museum and Prof. Lyubomir Penev, CEO of the Academic Publishing House Pensoft.

SGN brings together 11 research institutions in several cities, including three natural history museums and several field stations. The purpose of the visit was to discuss future joint activities and projects between the three organisations.

Prof. Stoev presented the scientific achievements of the museum and the research projects that NMNHS scientists are currently working on. Among them, the guest’s attention was drawn to the possibilities for joint research of organismal diversity in poorly studied regions in Europe, as well as the digitisation of scientific collections. In fact, NMNHS scientists have long been cooperating with colleagues in the respective fields of research at the SGN institutes. They are especially developed in the field of human evolution research and palaeornithology, where the museum has its traditions.

Prof. Penev introduced the guest to the results of the four scientific journals of SGN, which the publishing house currently publishes on its innovative publication platform ARPHA, namely Arthropod Systematics & Phylogeny, Contributions to Entomology, Geologica Saxonica and Vertebrate Zoology.