Prof. Nikolay K. Vitanov is a full professor of mathematics and head of the Scientific Council of the Institute of Mechanics of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. He earned his M.Sc. and Ph.D. in physics from the “St. Kliment Ohridski” University of Sofia in 1990 and 1994, respectively. He then obtained a German Dr. rer. nat. degree in physics from the University of Bayreuth, Germany, in 1998, and a D.Sc. degree in mathematics from the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences in 2007. Prof. Vitanov’s research interests are in the area of complex systems, and especially in the area of social and economic dynamics. He was a coordinator for Bulgaria of international projects on risk analysis, competition, and conflict evaluation, and the application of ideas of Paul Krugman to regional development in Europe and Bulgaria. He is a co-author of the mathematical theory of ideological struggle and mathematical theory of news waves, and works actively on problems from the  mathematical theory of regional development. He was also a member of the  Highest Attestation Commission for Mathematics and has a book on Science dynamics and assessment of research  production published in 2016 by Springer  Verlag. Prof. Vitanov is the main developer of the Simple Equations Method (SEsM) for obtaining exact solutions of nonlinear differential equations.