When asked about the National Science Fund protests Vodenicharov says:
"If I annul the whole session, I would hurt the scientists who have honestly won money for their projects. This is not right, we cannot have punishment, without evidence, but just by assumption.
"At the moment I have sent a letter to the heads of all science institutions, asking for suggestions for a new director of the fund. I hope that any moment now all the personnel of the fund will take the advice of their colleagues and resign so that I can appoint new leadership. After this happens, I will be able to select new referees from all science institutions. They will have two main tasks - first to review all contracts from the previous session. After that the executive committee will announce a new session for which will be provided 13-14 million lev. The referees will review all projects which had been disqualified for administrative reasons, ~624 of them, as well as those which did not receive funding. In this way we will have a new session so that the projects are graded fairly and no one is disadvantaged."
Asked again if he has any ideas who will be the next head of the fund:
"I am waiting for [ideas from] the Bulgarian science institutions. I am the minister and I don't think it is right for me to influence the choice.
"Misheva: What do you think about the suggestion Prof. Emil Horozov to head the fund again?
"If the suggestion comes from the science institutions, then we'll think about it."
Regarding the program for education and science for the new EU framework convention:
"There will be a meeting to discuss the size of the program, I as a minister insist that the size is optimized for the goals of the program. As I've said, one of the reasons for all the violations at the fund, is its small budget of 14 million lev. If the sum for the program is highly restrictive, it's just not going to work. Otherwise we have a lot of work to do. At the Ministry we need to gather a team to prepare the documentation so that we get certified by the European Commission and this needs to happen very soon. Sometimes this work takes a year, we need to act much faster. We will have the help of the colleagues at BAS and the university provosts."
[Wow, seriously. The logic here escapes me. You guys mishandled 14 million lev (which is, in all honesty, peanuts, but this has more to say about the sorry state of Bulgarian science) and your argument is "we can't be trusted with small amounts of money, but with large amounts of money we all totally trustworthy"?]
Finally, regarding the Law for Academic Development:
"... I am troubled by the number of professors which is constantly increasing. I am worried that for each job opening there is always only one candidate. I can't find a case where there were two candidates. The second thing I am worried about is that every person who has applied to become a professor has passed. ..."
I found interesting the short CV of Prof. Vodenicharov at the end of the article. This gives interesting insights of his academic career and experience.
Born September 1, 1944 in Sofia.
Graduated from the Technical University in 1968 with a major in mechanical engineering. In 1974 he defended a doctorate, in 1989 he became a docent (a title below associate professor, but functionally very similar) and in 1991 - a full professor.
He received the title "doctor of the technical sciences" in 1998. Since 2004 he is a corresponding member and in 2012 he was elected to the Academy (received the title Academician).
Before his election as a chairman of the Bulgarian Academy of Science (BAS), prof. Vodenicharov was a director of the Institute for Metallurgy, Equipment and Technologies "Acad. Angel Balevski" with an adjoining Center for hydro- and aerodynamics at BAS.
He is a recipient of the medal of honor "Marin Drinov" for major contributions to BAS.
And then there is his publication record from the publication tracker Scopus:
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