BHFieldSchool

Terms and Conditions

Application and Enrollment in the Balkan Heritage Field School (BHFS)

To apply for a BHFS project, complete the on-line application form at https://www.bhfieldschool.org/apply  

After submitting your application form, you will receive (within 2 working days) an e-mail from our Admissions Officer confirming receipt. If you don’t receive this, then your application either didn't  arrive or the e-mail you specified is either wrong or inaccessible so please contact us for clarification. Balkan Heritage will consider your application and provide a decision within two weeks. If you are admitted to one or several BHFS projects/project sessions, you will receive by e-mail:    

  • the BHFS admission notification    
  • the Balkan Heritage Attendance Agreement as a PDF file.

You should confirm or cancel your participation by e-mail within three weeks of delivery of the admission notification e-mail.

To confirm/register, you shall:

  1. Complete the required participant’s data in the Balkan Heritage Attendance Agreement   
  2. Print and sign the completed document. (E-signatures are not accepted.) Then scan it.   
  3. Transfer an advance payment for reimbursement of costs related to your participation via on-line credit/debit card, bank or Wise transfer as follows: 500 Euros for a two week project or 800 Euros for a three or more week project. 
  4. Send by e-mail scanned copies of: the completed and signed attendance agreement and a receipt/tracking number of the bank transaction related to the advance payment. The e-mail with the attachments should be sent within the 3-week period following the admission acceptance date.

Payments/ Transfers

  • Payments may be made by bank transfer or debit / credit card via the Balkan Heritage on-line POS terminal at: https://www.bhfieldschool.org/support. These payments are are made according to the BH online POS terminal Terms and Conditions.   
  • Bank transfers must be made according to the bank details provided in the BHFS Attendance Agreement and must cover all bank transfer charges (including intermediary bank charges). A bank transfer might be rejected or might not push through, in case of incorrect bank details such as wrong bank account number (IBAN), etc. Your funds will be returned to your account, but you might incur additional charges from your bank for initiating the transfer again.   
  • Transfers via Wise.

Visas

Citizens of EU, EEA, USA, Canada, Japan, Republic of Korea, Australia and New Zealand do not need a visa to visit Bulgaria, Greece, Israel, Montenegro and North Macedonia for up to 90 days. Citizens of all other countries may need a visa.The Balkan Heritage Foundation and its local partners can send an official invitation letter that can be used at the relevant embassy to secure a visa to the BHFS project/course. The Balkan Heritage Field School supports the procedure for issuing visa/s only to students who are registered in any of the field school projects/courses. Please check in advance, if you need visa for the country of your field school project and start the procedure for obtaining the visa at least 50 days before its start. For further details please visit our Visa information page.

Academic Credits

Balkan Heritage Field School (BHFS) provides to all students the opportunity to obtain by request and additional fee, credit hours awarded by New Bulgarian University, Bulgaria, Institute for Field Research and Connecticut College (USA) or Queen's University, Canada, for their participation in the BHFS projects/courses.

For more details please, refer to the Academic Credits Section of this web-site.

Attendance & Certificate

The required minimum of attendance for the successful completion of any BHFS project/course is 85% of the course hours. An acceptable number of absences for which a medical or reasonable excuse is provided will not be taken into account if the student catches up on the field school study plan through additional readings or personal consultations and tutorials with the activity supervisors and instructors. Participants who attend less than 85% of the BHFS project/course program can not obtain academic credits.   

All BHFS participants will receive Certificate of Attendance specifying the project/course’s name, location and duration, all activities, lectures, training and workshops attended by the participant and their duration (in astronomical hours).

Expulsion

The following shall be considered by the FOUNDATION as legitimate reasons to exclude the PARTICIPANT from the project/course without any compensation, refund, remuneration or other considerations:

  • Frequent absence of the PARTICIPANT from the project/course activities without reasonable explanation;    
  • inadequate, bad, offensive or disturbing behavior to either the BHFS participants, team members, hotel staff or local citizens/communities;    
  • neglecting health, safety and working instructions; and/or   
  • violation of the local laws 

Repatriation is at participant’s own expense.   

Liability

BHF will not be held liable for loss, damage or injury to persons or property.

The participant will be held liable for injury to persons caused by a neglection of health, safety and working instructions provided by the project/course coordinators and the professional team members.

Damage to Property

Any participant in BHFS project/course must pay the full cost of:

  • any damage caused by him/her to the accommodation/museum/site facilities and any artifact/monument that is not subject of conservation within the BHFS Program
  • any loss/damage of BHFS technical equipment (total station, dumpy level, multimedia projector, PC, laptop, tablet, photo or video camera etc.) and vehicles.

Property of Cultural Values. Traffic of Antiquities

The BHFS participant is not allowed to take with him/her either any artifact/ecofact (including but not restricted to pottery vessels and shards, coins, figurines, bones, tools etc.) or any sample of anything out of the project/course site/s, workshop/s, storage/s and laboratories. It will be considered larceny and reported to the Police.

Trade and export of antiquities are considered illegal in all the countries where BHFS operates. 

Copyright in the BHFS

The BHFS participants agree not to publicize any monument/artifact/ecofact that is found/documented/conserved/restored/visited during the project/course and any scientific results from the project/course activities. All graphic, textual, photographic and video documents related to the documentation of cultural monuments created by BHFS participants/team members during the project/course shall be considered as property of the Balkan Heritage Foundation or BHFS partnering organizations. They must be submitted to the project/course coordinator by the end of the project/course. Participants keep the right to use these documents for non-commercial purposes only excluding any kind of publication. If any participant intends to distribute or publish photos/videos of the site/parts of the site/the workshop/storage and laboratory or any monument/artfact/ecofact that is found/documented/conserved/restored during the project or to use any other part of the project documentation (context sheets, field journals, drawn, photo, audio or video records etc.) s/he must to communicate the issue with the project/course coordinator or director in advance.

 Website Copyright

All texts, pictures and videos on this website are protected by copyrights. Most of them belong to Balkan Heritage Foundation. The rest belong to authors who agreed to share them with us but still hold their own copyrights. In order to avoid any copyright issues, please contact Balkan Heritage Foundation for clarification. BHF usually does share its own texts, pictures and videos for free, unless for commercial purposes or its name is not cited/mentioned.

Language

The official and only language of teaching in the BHFS is English. All the students should have sufficient level of English in order to participate in a BHFS project/course. There is no entry-test or exam to prove English language skills but participants may be asked to leave the project if they are incapable of understanding work instructions, esp. health and safety instructions.

Age Requirements

The BHFS participants shall be 18 y/o or older unless the participant is accompanied by an adult family member authorized by the family to take the responsibility for the junior participant.

Photography, Filming, Publicity and Data storage

According to the EU General Data Protection Regulation the BHFS participants will be kindly asked to complete a form to give consent for us to take images, moving footage, audio, comments and other personal data to then be stored and used. All media products to be created and disseminated will be used to support the BHF's mission and activities.

Health & Safety & Insurance

COVID-19 Safety Measures

The well-being of our students, faculty and the communities in which we operate our field schools is our highest priority. Our 2022 plans take into consideration the fact that COVID-19 poses a risk to program participants. Our goal is to minimize this risk, but please have in mind that the BHF cannot guarantee that the field school participants will not contract COVID-19.

   

Program participants should be aware of the following potential risks:

While in transit to and from their field school, students may travel through and from locations that have different COVID-19 impacts and this may affect a student’s risk exposure.

   

There is potential for illness during field schools. BHF will develop protocols for each field school considering the current COVID-19 situation and restrictions in the host country (Bulgaria, Greece, R. of N. Macedonia). The protocols will also include detailed health and safety measures and instructions for the planned testing, on-site isolation or quarantine protocols (as necessary), and other health care arrangements that may be required if a COVID-19 outbreak occurs once a field school has started. The protocols will be distributed to the participants before arrival.

During the field school, all students will be expected to adhere to the most current regional regulations and to follow all recommendations of their field school director.

   

Students are advised to wait until 6-8 weeks prior to the start of their field school before making their travel reservations in order to minimize the risk of cancellation.

Please note that the BHF does not provide coverage for COVID-19 evacuation and related expenses.    

Students are strongly encouraged to purchase travel interruption and cancellation in order to insulate themselves additionally from costs that they may otherwise be responsible for paying.

   

All students should check the specific country’s COVID-19 policy both pre-arrival and pre-departure on the respective websites.

For Bulgaria: https://mfa.bg/en/customnews/main/24737

For Greece: https://mintour.gov.gr/en/covid19-en/

For R. of N. Macedonia: https://mk.usembassy.gov/covid-19-information/  

http://skp.airports.com.mk/en-EN/customer-relations/page/

For Israel: https://corona.health.gov.il/en/

Also check your home country travel advisories (for instance, US State Dept, etc)   

   

COVID-19 Vaccination    

Students must provide proof of completed COVID-19 vaccination or recovery no later than 2 weeks before the start of the field school. If a student cannot comply with the mandatory immunization policy, we ask them to contact the BHF admission officer immediately. If the student has not provided proof of completed COVID-19 vaccination in the period specified above, they will not be allowed to participate in the field school, with no option for a refund.BHF reserves the right to change the requirements for COVID-19 vaccination, etc. if any of the project countries change their respective measures.   

   

BHFS participants are obligated to follow health, safety and working instructions provided by the project/course coordinators and the professional team members. A refusal to adhere to these instructions shall be considered by BHF as a reason to exclude the participant from the project/course without any compensation, refund, remuneration or other considerations.    

   

All students should purchase a broad travel medical insurance policy that provides coverage for evacuation and other medical costs and that specifically covers COVID-19 as well as other normal medical issues. Check the insurance policy to determine that COVID-19 is a COVERED EVENT.   

Any participant in BHFS project/course is obligated to arrange his/her health insurance in advance either in his/her own country or in the project/course country after arrival. The insurance shall cover the entire period of the project/course.

Authenticity

Any participant in BHFS project/course will be responsible for the authenticity of the personal information specified in all documents, sent from his/her name to BHF.

Harassment

Any racial, sexual, gender-based, age-based, etc. harassment is unacceptable at any BHFS project/course and is against the BHF nondiscrimination policies. If severe enough, it may result in expulsion from the project.

Force/Vis Majeure

BHF will not be responsible for any failure to comply with any of its obligations (and therefore shall not be required to provide any compensation) if the failure is occasioned by any cause beyond BHF’s reasonable control. Nor shall BHF be responsible for any costs incurred by or on behalf of the student as a result of any such cause. Such causes shall include but shall not be limited to war, threat of war, riot, civil strife, industrial dispute, terrorist activity, natural or nuclear disaster, unusually adverse weather conditions and infectious diseases.