---
title: "Director for Strategy and Innovation"
summary: |-
  Ruslan Stefanov is the director for strategy and innovation at the Applied Research and Communications Fund.
canonical_url: "https://itif.org/person/ruslan-stefanov/"
---

# Ruslan Stefanov
**Director for Strategy and Innovation**

Ruslan Stefanov is the director for strategy and innovation at the Applied Research and Communications Fund ([ARC Fund](https://arcfund.net/en/)). He leads ARC Fund’s analytics and benchmarking work on smart specialization, regional innovation strategies, technology and innovation assessments and innovation-driven enterprise support and scale up in Southeast Europe and the Black Sea region. Ruslan is chair and editor of *[Innovation.bg](https://innovation.bg/)*, the most reputable annual assessment of the innovation performance of the Bulgarian economy over the past 20 years, and a member of the jury of the National Innovation Award. He is a member of the [EU’s Expert Group on Smart Specialization](https://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/policy/communities-and-networks/s3-community-of-practice/expert_group_en), the [MIT REAP Bulgaria](https://reap.mit.edu/cohort/bulgaria/) team, and manages the IMD Competitiveness Yearbook annual contribution.

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*Source: Information Technology & Innovation Foundation (ITIF)*
*URL: https://itif.org/person/ruslan-stefanov/*