Bistra Ivanova is a migrant integration expert, cultural manager and social entrepreneur. She is co-founder and chairperson of Multi Kulti Collective (MKC). Bistra has solid experience in working on migrant/refugee integration, both on grassroot and policy level as a project manager, researcher and communication expert. She has been the country coordinator of the official EU portal on migrant integration EWSI since 2015. Since 2016, she has been the leading Bulgarian researcher in the biggest refugee integration EU project National Integration Evaluation Mechanism (NIEM). In addition, she is a project evaluator in the Ministry of Culture of Bulgaria (Socially Engaged and Community Arts Programme) and Robert Bosch Foundation (European and Cultural Clusters) since 2018.
Bistra holds a BA in Communications (Sofia University), and has specialized in Migration Policy (Central European University), Research methods (Amsterdam University), European Union Law and Policy on Immigration and Asylum (ULB - Université libre de Bruxelles) and Cultural Management (Sofia University). At the moment, she is completing two Master degrees – Management of Migration Process (University of National and World Economy) and Financial Management and Marketing (University of Finance, Business and Entrepreneurship).
Bistra was awarded Volunteer of the Year (2011), Darik’s 40 under 40 (2014), WEF’s Global Shaper (2014), she was also a finalist in Grazia’s Woman of the Year (2016) and was featured in the book “30 People who Change Bulgaria” (2019).
