On October 26 (Friday), Professor Jae Kyo JIN (Department of Classical Chinese Education) who had served as the Chair of the Academy of East Asian Studies, received an honorary doctorate degree from Sofia University, Bulgaria's top prestigious university.

At the university committee presided by President Anastas Gerdzhikov, Sofia University unanimously passed conferment of the honorary doctorate degree to Prof. Jae Kyo JIN in recognition of his contribution to the development of Korean Studies at the end of May 2018.

Since Bulgaria started diplomatic relations with Korea in 1990, Sofia University has only given honorary doctorate degrees to Korean politicians and diplomats, and this is the first time to confer an honorary doctorate degree to Korean scholar.

Prof. Jae Kyo JIN has been organizing academic conferences regularly since 2012 by linking professors of relevant fields including the Academy of East Asian Studies with the researchers of Korean Studies at Sofia University, in order to develop Korean Studies in Bulgaria. In addition, He had helped to build short and long term programs and supported Sofia University to get the Korean government's research fund for the development of Korean studies.

In particular, Prof. JIN helped to increase the number of students entered to the Dept. of Korean studies of Sofia University and held Korean writing contest for Bulgarian high school students in order to spread Korean culture.

As a result, Sophia 18 public school opened the Korean language major for the first time in Europe and currently, Korean language classes are also opened for the first grade of elementary school.