SIIF 2025 – Sofia Information Integrity Forum

Sofia Information Integrity Forum 2025

NOVEMBER 5 - 7

Check SIIF 2024 agenda with presentations and video recordings

From November 7 to 9, at the Central Military Club in Sofia, the Sofia Information Integrity Forum 2024 will take place – an event that unites experts from various fields to discuss the most current technologies and strategies for combating disinformation. The forum is co-funded by the Open Society Institute – Sofia and the European Union as part of the initiative “Europe Against Antidemocratic Propaganda,” supported by the “Rights and Values” project (ProEUvaluesBG). The event is organized by the Human and Social Studies Foundation – Sofia (HSSF), the Centre for the study of Democracy, GATE Institute, Identrics, Ontotext, Sensika, and Code, and will be conducted in English.

Leading names in the field who will participate in the event include:

Mark Galeotti: A British historian, lecturer, and writer on topics related to transnational crime and Russian politics, and director of the consulting agency Mayak Intelligence.
Susanne Spahn: A political scientist, historian, and journalist, expert on Russian disinformation in Germany.
Andy Carvin: Senior Fellow and Editor-in-Chief at the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab (DFRLab), based in Washington, D.C., USA.
Marius Dragomir: Director of the Research Center for Media and Journalism and one of the founders of the concept of “media capture.”
Dr. Neville Bolt: Founder and director of the Sympodium Institute for Strategic Communications and editor-in-chief of NATO’s academic journal “Defence Strategic Communications.”
Miroslav Sazdovski: European Centre for Countering Hybrid Threats (Hybrid CoE).

Agenda

Day 1

Hall 1

09:00

Opening

Atanas Zapryanov, Minister of Defence of the Republic of Bulgaria
Dana Spinant, Director-General, Directorate-General for Communication, European Commission
Todor Galev, Director of Research, Center for the Study of Democracy
Dimitar Vatsov, President, HSS Foundation - Sofia
Keith Peter Kiely, GATE Institute, Sofia University “St. Kiment Ohridski”
Watch session's video

09:30

When disinformation meets disruption: the evolution of Russia's strategy of paralysis

Mark Galeotti, Mayak Intelligence
Moderator: Dimitar Vatsov, HSSF

10:30

Coffee break

11:00

Russia's Global Information War: Networks, Strategies, Social Vulnerability

How to Win the Information War. Russia and its Network in Germany
Susanne Spahn, Political Scientist, Historian and Journalist

"The Global South against the Collective West" - Do We Have a New Discursive Front
Dimitar Vatsov, HSSF

The Propaganda Crescendo and the Spiral of Silence!
Milena Yakimova, HSSF

Moderator: Veronika Dimitrova, HSSF

12:30

Lunch

13:30

Building Europe's Media Democracy Shield: Countering Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference

Media capture in CEE: models of emerging news ecologies and safeguarding epistemic rights
Marius Dragomir, Director, Media and Journalism Research Center

Central Europe between the imperial Scylla of "Russkiy mir" and the Charybdis of "post-national European identity"
Przemmyslaw Zurawski vel Grajewski, Security, Defence and Foreign Policy Section Coordinator, Chancellery of the President, Poland

Building resilience to Russian information manipulation and electoral interference in Moldova
Andrei Curăraru, Co-founder & Policy and security expert, Watchdog.md

Transforming Europe’s Media Landscape: Building Resilience and Safeguarding Independence
Maria Stoyanova, Analyst, Center for the Study of Democracy

Anti-EU disinformation in Romania in the context of good governance: narratives, impact and solutions
Bianca Toma, Project Manager, Romanian Center for European Policies

Building Europe's Media Democracy Shield: Countering Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference
Amaury Lesplingart, CTO, Checkfirst Network

Moderator: Goran Georgiev, Analyst, Center for the Study of Democracy

15:00

Coffee break

15:30

Narratives as Warfare

China's efforts to construct its narrative infrastructure in Southeast Europe
Vladimir Shopov, European Council on Foreign Relations

Resilience Against Disinformation in Wartime: Lessons from Ukraine
Halyna Tanai, LMF, NGO Lviv Media Forum

Why is Serbia embracing Russia - and is it actually doing it at all?
Milorad Ivanovic, Balkan Investigative Reporting Network

Moderator: Ralitsa Stoycheva, Media Programme South East Europe, Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung

17:00

Coffee break

17:30

Targeting trust: the weaponization of fact-checking tropes

Andy Carvin, DFRLab (online)

Moderator: Ruslan Trad, DFRLab