Broader Perspectives. Towards Excellence and Creativity (2022) by Vytautas Magnus University

EDITORIAL TEAM

Assoc. Prof. Vilma Bijeikienė

Agnė Smolienė

Rimgailė Dikšaitė

ISSUE EDITOR

Agnė Smolienė

DESIGN AND ILLUSTRATIONS

Agnė Žiūkaitė

PROOFREADER

Assoc. Prof. Jaq Greenspon

TRANSLATOR

Sandra Paškevičiūtė

LAYOUT DESIGNER

Vaida Dosinienė

PHOTOGRAPHY

Jonas Petronis

Printed in an edition of 300 in Kaunas by Vitae Litera

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Freight, Avenir

2022 was a special year for Lithuania and for the community of Vytautas Magnus University: We celebrated the Centennial of the University of Lithuania, which served as the foundation for higher education institutions in the country. We celebrated 100 years of academic thought, science, and culture.

The history of the University of Lithuania, founded in 1922 and renamed Vytautas Magnus University eight years later, was dramatic. The Soviet and German occupations severely affected the activities of the University. The invaders were quick to close some of the University’s faculties, repeatedly changed the University’s name, completely destroyed its autonomy, until ﬁnally, in 1950, the University ceased to exist. Due to the Second World War and the occupations, the fate of VMU teachers and students was diverse: some joined the Resistance, while others were killed in the Holocaust, deported to camps, or found shelter among the diaspora. Teachers who did not give up their academic activity continued at universities around the world, maintaining some of the University’s corporations and associations.

In 1989, VMU was re-established and became the ﬁrst university in Lithuania, perhaps in the entire post-soviet space, to implement the Western system of liberal studies. It is safe to say that the re-establishment of VMU had no less an impact on Lithuania than the original establishment of the university in 1922. The reestablished VMU brought together Lithuanian scholars, professors, and artists from all over the world, which no other Lithuanian higher education institution would have been able to do.

Having started with 177 ﬁrst-year students, the university has grown into one of the most comprehensive universities in the Baltic region. It is a university that carries out research and studies in the ﬁelds of humanities, social sciences, education, sports, natural sciences, technology, engineering, and agriculture, among other areas, in both Kaunas and Vilnius. Students can study as many as 30 foreign languages.

The principles of Artes Liberales fostered at the University open up various paths of study and self-discovery, mobilise the community to create the future of Lithuania and Europe, and combine the deep traditions of the classical university with innovative studies and research. The identity of Vytautas Magnus University is closely tied to that of global Lithuania as it promotes the scientiﬁc, creative, and intellectual discussions of Lithuanians world-wide.

VMU cooperates with more than 500 partner universities in various countries and runs more than 30 double degree and joint international programmes. We are particularly proud to be a member of the Transform4EU Alliance, which currently unites ten European universities. VMU is a host to approximately 20% of foreign teachers, researchers and students, and its international community is increasing every year. We have come a long, winding, and difﬁcult way to what we have achieved today. These challenges commit us to continue our work and become the starting point for our future aspirations.

Therefore, on the occasion of this beautiful anniversary, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to the entire university community, all our friends, partners, and sponsors, and wish them success, perseverance, and vigour in continuing the scientiﬁc, educational, cultural, and other work that started in 1922 and continues to make Kaunas, and Lithuania, famous around the world.

Vivat Universitas!

The Rector of Vytautas Magnus University Prof. Juozas Augutis

One hundred years ago, on 16 February 1922, the University of Lithuania was solemnly opened in Kaunas. Four years earlier, on the same day, the State of Lithuania was restored. Historian Antanas Kulakauskas calls this a fortuitous coincidence and argues that the signiﬁcance of the University of Lithuania for modern Lithuania and the Lithuanian nation is equal to that of the state.

The fate of folkloric nations

According to Kulakauskas, the University of Lithuania laid the foundations for Lithuanian high culture and allowed Lithuanians to become a fully-ﬂedged, civilised European nation.

“Why was the state of Lithuania of February 16th necessary and important?” the historian asks. “It now seems to many that this was the only alternative, but there was another vision for Lithuania – Lithuania in a joint state with Poland. Unfortunately, for many reasons, in such a state, the Lithuanian Lithuania could not expect to enjoy a status equal to that of Poland. Thus, Lithuania would have remained a province of Poland, where the dominant language and culture would have been Polish, a language and culture that had already reached the level of European high culture in the 18th century and maintained it, despite the loss of the state, throughout the 19th century. If this option had prevailed, there is a good chance that Lithuanians would have remained a folkloric nation like the Bretons in France, the Frisians in the Netherlands, or the Welsh or Old Scots (Gaels) in the United Kingdom. In the era of nationalism, without its own state or at least broad

Prof. Antanas Kulakauskas

national autonomy, it was practically impossible for a small nation to create a high culture functioning in its own language and capable of meeting nearly all of the most important cultural needs of a civilized person.”

Kulakauskas points out that in the 19th century, it was already understood that in order to create a modern, fully-ﬂedged Lithuanian nation, a system of education functioning in the Lithuanian language was necessary, encompassing all levels from the lowest – elementary school – to higher education – university.

Higher education from scratch

“The idea of an educational system functioning in Lithuanian, with a higher education institution at the top, predates the idea of Lithuania as a national state. It was ﬁrst put forward by Simonas Daukantas, who was concerned not only with the education of Lithuanians (and Samogitians) in their native language, but also with the creation of high culture in Lithuanian. Writing thick books on the history of Lithuania in Lithuanian was an expression of this concern. It is no coincidence that all but one of these books remained unpublished. Daukantas himself did not have the money to publish them, and the potential publishers saw that there would be very few buyers for such books. In general, the majority of the educated public of that time, even those who sympathised with ethnic Lithuanian identity, did not believe that it would be possible to create a separate, fully-ﬂedged high culture on its basis,” the historian explains.

According to Kulakauskas, from the beginning of the 20th century it became clear that a successful creation of high culture functioning in the Lithuanian language, and more or less equivalent to other civilised European cultures, was only possible with a national state or broad national autonomy (territorial or cultural). Such an opportunity arose towards the end of the First World War and continued to grow after the war ended.

“Even after the creation of Lithuania on February 16th, it was not an easy task to create a national education system functioning in the Lithuanian language and with a Lithuanian university at its top; at least signiﬁcantly more difﬁcult than for Latvians or Estonians,” Kulakauskas notes. “It turns out that among Latvians and Estonians, the literacy rate was around 80%, while among Lithuanians it was around 50%. This was due to different circumstances of historical, political development, especially in the 19th century. The potential of Latvian and Estonian high cultures was much greater, as was the level of civic organisation

– especially in Estonia. Before the First World War, there were higher education institutions in Tartu and Riga, which only needed to be “Estonianised” and “Latvianised”, respectively. Lithuanians had to start creating a Lithuanian university in Kaunas from scratch in every sense. The cultural heritage and material base of the old Vilnius University remained outside the borders of Lithuania at the time, although Lithuania did not renounce its claim and considered Vilnius its constitutional capital.”

Higher Courses mark the very beginning

According to Kulakauskas, when the creation of the Lithuanian university began, there were many doubts as to whether the education it provided would be up to the European standard of the time, and whether non-Lithuanian residents, especially Jews, who were far ahead of Lithuanians in terms of literacy, would want to study there. Therefore, some thought it might be more rational to train the specialists needed by the Lithuanian state by ﬁnancing their studies in foreign universities. But this would have then raised the question of the meaning in the existence of the national state of Lithuania.

“However, the Higher Courses – which started operating in Kaunas in 1920 and nowadays would be called a ‘private higher education institution’ and which were organised by Zigmas Žemaitis, a mathematician from the town of Tverečius, on the eastern outskirts of Lithuania under Polish control, – showed that it was possible to successfully create a Lithuanian university: there would be qualiﬁed teachers, and there would be no shortage of students,” says Kulakauskas, adding that the establishment of the Lithuanian State University was delayed due to disagreements in the Constituent Seimas between supporters of Catholic and liberal secular university models.

“Then, at the beginning of February 1922, a new coalition government, led by the centrist politician Ernestas Galvanauskas, came up with a way to establish a state university of Lithuania without having to wait for the end of the political disputes among the parties in the Constituent Seimas. It was decided to make temporary use of the Statute of Vilnius University, which was approved by the State Council of Lithuania at the end of 1918 and had the status of law. This way, they could ‘unveil’ the University of Lithuania on the fourth symbolic birthday of the ‘restored’ state of Lithuania, thus emphasising the identity of its historical mission with the mission of the national state. This move by

the Government, with the approval of the Speaker of the Constituent Seimas and acting President of the Republic Aleksandars Stulginskis, was supposed to speed up the process of adopting the Statute of the University of Lithuania in the Constituent Seimas. And that is exactly what happened. Less than a couple of months later, the Statute of the University of Lithuania was adopted”, the historian explains.

European-level education

According to Kulakauskas, we can only marvel at how, in a relatively short period of time, the Lithuanian university, which was started from scratch and renamed Vytautas Magnus University in 1930 on the initiative of the Government, became a standard university at the average European level, the education and scientiﬁc work of which was not questioned by anybody abroad.

At the end of 1939, when Vilnius, and part of the Vilnius region, were handed over to Lithuania the Lithuanian government decided to have two Lithuanian universities. The three faculties of Vytautas Magnus University, which moved to Vilnius in 1940 and were located in the closed Polish Stephen Báthory University, marked the beginning of the institutional development of the modern Lithuanian Vilnius University.

“Although,” Kulakauskas maintains, “in the summer of 1940, Lithuania lost its independence and international personality for almost half a century, thanks to the national system of education and culture that had been established by that time, and which functioned in the Lithuanian language with the university at the forefront, Lithuanians had already become a small, but civilised European nation, not doubting the value and signiﬁcance of its own high culture.”

“Seeing Kharkiv University ablaze, we must talk about university solidarity,” says Gintautas Mažeikis, a philosopher and professor at Vytautas Magnus University. According to him, it is necessary to think about how to preserve the Ukrainian elite culture now, because without preserving the culture, it will be very difﬁcult to restore Ukraine as a state.

Support for the academic community

Showing solidarity with the Ukrainian people ﬁghting for their country and speaking out against the unequivocally unjust aggression of Russia, Lithuanian universities not only decorated their insignia with the colours of the Ukrainian ﬂag, but also offered direct support.

“We discussed with the Rector of VMU how the university could help the refugees who have fled the war and Russian aggression, how it could help accommodate these women and children in university dormitories, which is, of course, the first thing that needs to be done. But also how to save Ukrainian university researchers, how to help them continue their research, and employ them in Lithuania,” says Mažeikis, adding that it is not easy to persuade academics to flee: “We are in touch with Kharkiv, Dnipro, and Kyiv universities. We invite them to come, but many are determined to stay: to fight and defend until the end. Among my acquaintances, it is only when there is no way out, when their house is blown up, that they are ready to leave. Many of them, for example at Dnipro and Ivano-Frankivsk universities, are now teaching remotely, but they are trying to find out which ones have already ‘fled’. Refugees are not yet allowed to teach because work and support are now primarily needed by the teachers who remain in Ukraine. We tend to forget that in Ukraine, even today, nobody gives money for free, you have to earn it, and you don’t get bread for free in shops, except maybe in the hotspots of the war.”

Prof. Gintautas Mažeikis

Focal point of self-organisation –students and professors

In 2013, Mažeikis went to the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy to teach, but when he arrived there, he found there were no students. “They had all gone to defend Maidan, so the only opportunity for me to teach was in Maidan. I gave them lectures in the square, on the barricades,” Mažeikis maintains. He adds that Ukrainians have a need not only for freedom but also for self-organisation, in which universities play a major role.

Students form self-help groups and initiate activities themselves. “My friends tell me that, just like during the Maidan Revolution, today you have to undertake activities in the territorial defence units yourself: digging trenches, building fortiﬁcations, cooking, keeping watch, and helping the sick and wounded,” Mažeikis says. “Civic self-organisation and equality in such units is the basic principle of freedom: there are no superiors, and nobody is forced to do anything, so we see a great deal of creativity and ingenuity. Everyone started joining these units: 80-year-olds, 17-year-olds, and all my friends took up arms – professors, teachers, and academics went off to defend their homeland. Today, territorial defence units are as important as the Ukrainian army. There are no more police – everything is taken care of by territorial defence units. And one of the focal points of this self-organisation is university professors and students.”

University is the foundation of a country

According to the professor, since the end of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, universities have become a source of European identity and innovation: “We have talked a lot about science and innovation, but it is less often mentioned that it was the universities that created European unity, a common mental or cognitive space for considerations, and, therefore, an identity. Universities kept trying to ﬁnd a common language, the so-called lingua franca. Back then, just like now, there were student exchanges, with students travelling from one university to another. This ensured the exchange of teachers, professors, and students, and thus, little by little, a European unity began to develop, which, from time to time, turned into war.”

The University of Lithuania, founded in 1922 and celebrating its centenary this year, was established to present Lithuania as an equal partner in Europe. “It is worth noting that a country’s elite culture

would not exist without universities. As historian Antanas Kulaukauskas points out, in general, it was impossible to imagine Lithuania in Europe without a university, because it was necessary to prove and show that we have educated elites who can prepare laws, write books, and take part in the common European conversation. If you do not have a university, then you are not entitled to a modern state. In this regard, a university is one of the sources of sovereignty. Without a university, it is hard to imagine the creation of a state that would be sovereign and able to participate in the common conversation,” Mažeikis explains.

According to Mažeikis, since the end of the Renaissance, Ukraine has had more than one university and therefore an internal identity. Thus, it cannot be said, as Putin claims, there was no such nation as Ukraine. Especially since a university in Lviv was founded at a time when the Russians did not yet have a single university.

Saving not only science but also culture

“Cultural policy is essential for ensuring identity and, as I have mentioned previously, it is impossible to build a state without a cultural policy. The university has to create high culture; the elite theatre emerges from the university, as do writers and researchers, thanks to whom folk culture becomes elite, and which, in turn, can form a state and be the basis of sovereignty. Of course, culture always anticipates certain conflicts and disagreements. It not only unites but also divides. Culture is always full of oppositions, and this is normal within a country. Oppositions are constantly forming, thus fostering cultural dynamics and policy-making,” says Mažeikis, adding that such conflicts can sometimes escalate into much more serious conflicts that turn into armed conflicts or even civilisational wars: “Russia’s aggression today is undoubtedly both a cultural war and perhaps even a civilisational war. Russian authorities cannot accept that Ukraine has its own independent elite and is, therefore, a great nation.”

Mažeikis believes Ukraine will win this war, but even after that, it will need a lot of help: “Not just massive ﬁnancial aid, but also intellectual aid. We will need to help professors and students get involved in the European study process, making sure they participate and do not drop out, and we’ll have to show that they are part of European culture. This saving of high culture and the elite is about helping universities. It includes saving not only science, but also culture: Ukrainian literature, folklore, history, music, art, ﬁne arts, and architecture. We will need to help them train their own creators, knowing that a large number of them will be needed.”

In 2020, VMU established a support fund dedicated to students who suffered from repression by the Belarusian government. Now, this fund is supporting students who suffered from military operations in Ukraine. The university is also prepared to welcome students and lecturers who are ﬂeeing from the war in Ukraine. Like other higher education schools in Lithuania, VMU has terminated relations with higher education institutions of Russia and Belarus.

The Centre of Ukraine was established in 2022 by Vytautas Magnus University in cooperation with the Embassy of Ukraine and the Ofﬁce of the President of the Republic of Lithuania. The opening of the centre was initiated by the First Lady of Lithuania, Diana Nausėdienė, together with the First Lady of Ukraine, Olena Zelenska. Here, Ukrainians not only ﬁnd the information they need, but also receive advice and consultations with psychologists, lawyers and educators; moreover, open conversations, discussions, and cultural events are taking place here.

Vytautas Magnus University actively cooperates with partner universities in Ukraine. Recently, at the urging of VMU, Mariupol State University joined the Transform4EU Alliance, which unites ten European universities, while last year, the Centre for Baltic Studies was opened at the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv. Vytautas Magnus University supports the Ukrainian academic community in various ways: it provides accommodation, scholarships, organises free Lithuanian language courses, offers free visits the VMU Botanical Garden, and provides psychological assistance.

“At the very beginning of the war in Ukraine, we saw a lukewarm reaction from the whole of Western Europe, which left many of us, myself included, truly disappointed. The heads of universities in different countries, even after expressing their position to their country’s authorities, avoided and did not dare to formulate clear institutional provisions. I must admit that I was very disappointed by this, and I could not accept it. A bolder and clearer stance on this aggression and war would have been more welcome than the polished and politically correct phrases that were expressed. I understand that a lot depends on the political, historical, and geographical context, but it is the academic environment that needs to be the most sensitive and responsive to humanistic values,” says Prof. Ineta Dabašinskienė, professor at Vytautas Magnus University (VMU) and VMU Transform4EU Institutional Coordinator.

Prof. Ineta Dabašinskienė

According to Dabašinskienė, recently there has been a lot of talk about “successful” higher education only within the context of technology, innovation, and entrepreneurship, i.e., everything is viewed from a very pragmatic point of view, while humanistic and value-based issues seem to have been cast adrift. “Universities are the space where students should

be educated ﬁrst and foremost through the value vector – helping them to understand what is truly important in life, what moral principles are, and only then guiding them towards a more speciﬁc discipline. Only a mature, empathetic, and civically responsible society will be able to build a safer future,” says the VMU professor.

How do you view and evaluate universities in the modern world?

Up until now, we’ve taken the simpler, easier route – how to make more money and how to do everything faster and more efﬁciently. All of this has only encouraged competition, leaving the true meaning behind.

We have learnt to use the European institutional jargon very well, adapting to the administrative language, constantly manipulating certain keywords recognised by bureaucrats. Inclusion, integration, equal rights, opportunities, smart society, intercultural competence, and the like have become an integral part of university discourse but are not necessarily genuinely understood and implemented in practice. The meanings of the words are blurred, and we don’t see tangible action and content. In this respect, it pains me very much that we have gone to pragmatism, starting with politics and all the way to the higher education system. We seemed to have hoped that economic and global ties would stop the world from wars and that Europe would live on and foster peace. However, this did not happen; the war made us realise that globalisation, i.e., cooperation with all regions of the world, has not guaranteed us the ability to communicate, understand, as well as cherish and defend universal human values. In other words, not all regions understand what the rule of law, or even partnership and keeping one’s word, means.

Today’s students also want everything very quickly, here and now. However, it is important to realise that universities are different from the so-called “education businesses”, which provide quick commercial training services. They are, and must be, perceived as all-encompassing educational institutions, where research, creative search, and self-realisation play an important role.

Universities need to ﬁnd ways to educate students through humanistic values and by forming the moral backbone of young people, which is becoming particularly relevant today; everything else, however, can be regarded as secondary. We can say that 2022 marks a turning point in ideologies and we are anticipating a global revolution that will only take place after we reboot our value system. And the mission of universities in this is central.

You have mentioned that it’s time for universities to stop competing with each other, and to start searching for commonalities, cooperating and competing globally for Europe. Is this how the idea of creating the Transform4EU Alliance, in

which VMU holds an important position, was born? Tell us how it all evolved.

The initiative was political. In 2017, French President Emanuel Macron, during a speech, raised the idea of the need for European universities to unite. The European Commission reacted quickly to this and decided to bring universities together for joint initiatives, creating the so-called European University.

As usual for the European Commission’s programmes, calls for projects were launched, to which various universities began to actively respond. Vytautas Magnus University, in cooperation with other partners, became part of the Transform4EU Alliance. The University of Alicante (Spain), University of Silesia (Poland), University of Trieste (Italy), Saarland University (Germany), Soﬁa University St. Kliment Ohridski (Bulgaria), and the Estonian Academy of Arts have also joined the Alliance.

These European university alliances initially started work planned for a period of three years, but this is not what we are used to calling a ‘project’, something of limited duration, but instead a long-term cooperation initiative. The European Commission also wants as many European universities as possible to join alliances and provides additional funds for this. After the ﬁrst calls, only 5% of European universities have taken part in these alliances with 10% being the target; therefore, the number of universities joining existing alliances or building new ones will increase in the future.

Currently, VMU and its partners have invited the Catholic University of Portugal, the University of Primorska in Slovenia and Jean Monnet University in Saint-Étienne to join Transform4EU Alliance – the integration process is still underway, but we hope that the universities will soon be involved in joint activities and the Transform4EU Alliance will consist of ten members instead of seven.

As building alliances is a programme led by the European Commission, it is in the interest of all universities to be part of the European initiative. It is gratifying that, for a small country like Lithuania, integration into different alliances has been particularly successful, with ﬁve Lithuanian universities already participating in alliances.

It comes as no surprise that just as universities are different in their orientations and perhaps even in their missions, so are the alliances, of which there are now a total of 44. Nevertheless, there is also an emphasis

on ongoing cooperation between the alliances themselves, with a view to pooling existing resources, developing a vision of Europe, and uniting to compete globally with the fast-growing Asian universities, as well as with the Anglo-Saxon countries, ﬁrst and foremost with the United States, but also with the United Kingdom, with which, as we all know, inter-university cooperation is more difﬁcult following Brexit.

I believe that by joining forces, creating joint programmes and laboratories, sharing existing infrastructural resources, collaborating, and implementing new ideas, initiatives, and innovations, universities will be able to deliver more signiﬁcant results. This is the European political vision, and universities are the key implementers of this vision.

VMU was one of the few universities that formed the Transform4EU Alliance. The Germans are the coordinators of this Alliance – they are the ones with whom we have been mainly generating our ideas. And the name Transform4EU came from the realisation that we need to transform for a different future, both at an individual and an institutional level. It is unfortunate, but we can see that in the area of higher education, universities, as the old, traditional institutions of higher education, are losing out in the competition with businesses that offer quick educational services. The question is, what new things can universities offer today?

You talk about transformation and a different future – which areas does the Alliance believe will be the most important in the future?

When we tried to envision transformation, we thought about the problems the world is facing and how we can solve them. Climate change was one of the topics, especially as this issue is important in all disciplines. Another important aspect is digitalisation, which everyone emphasises. VMU is a leader in the Alliance in this respect, having assembled a group of experts that regularly consults all other members of the Alliance and helps the Alliance communicate in the virtual space.

Another important dimension, as I have already mentioned, is to turn to the socio-humanistic ﬁeld of universities. Many of the Alliance’s universities have faculties in the humanities, some have faculties in the arts, and all of them (with the exception of the Estonian Academy of Arts) carry out research and studies in various ﬁelds of science. VMU stands out as the strongest and leading university in the social sciences and humanities, striving to motivate with new activities.

I would therefore like to congratulate my colleagues, researchers, and department staff at VMU, who share their experience and knowledge with the members of the Alliance and are motivated to work together.

Another important goal of the Alliance is to promote entrepreneurship and cooperation with our social partners. We perceive entrepreneurship not only as entrepreneurship in the narrow sense, along with its promotion, but also as collaboration between individuals and groups in developing creativity. As we know, this year, Kaunas is the European Capital of Culture, so our closest partner this year is Kaunas 2022. Alliance members cooperate and arrive to gain experience from our other colleagues in various ﬁelds, ranging from education and teacher training to agriculture.

The Transform4EU Alliance is not indifferent to Ukraine’s higher education situation in the face of war. How do you communicate and cooperate with Ukrainian universities?

After 24 February, we all woke up in a different reality. Those who have cooperated intensively with the Ukrainian academia and who have colleagues and friends there, ﬁnd the situation of the academic community particularly worrying. All universities of the Alliance have been providing individual support to Ukrainian universities as well as their students since the ﬁrst days of the war. However, as we Lithuanians and Poles are closest to the war in Ukraine, we have taken the initiative to make sure the Alliance, as a whole, is more active and proposes joint initiatives. We have already planned a number of activities for the exchange of researchers, professional development, joint teaching and research, etc.

The most important thing we have already done is we have invited our long-term partner, Mariupol State University (MSU), to become an associate partner of our Transform4EU Alliance. This is not just a symbolic act, as although they have been shattered and have lost colleagues and students, they are determined, like the Azovstal soldiers, to defend academic and humanist values and to transform for a new European academic era. Together, we will strive to make Mariupol University not only a symbol of moral responsibility, but also a strong centre of academic leadership.

The university must become the voice of the public, a voice, which, through the use of academic language, would constantly remind of the prosperity of today’s digital world and would seek to address information disruptions and related risks and disorders by inﬂuencing public policy. – Professor Auksė Balčytienė, Department of Public Communications and one of the founders of the DIGIRES Research Centre.

What is DIGIRES, when was it founded, and for what purpose?

The Baltic Research Foundation for Digital Resilience (abbreviated as DIGIRES) was founded in the spring of 2022. The aim of DIGIRES is to bring together the expertise of different stakeholders in an effort to curb disinformation. In today’s society, digital resilience issues are relevant to absolutely all sectors of activity, as such competences require a new, quality valuebased approach to citizens’ right to information and communication, and to the responsibility and accountability of content creators and distributors.

The DIGIRES Foundation was founded by three partners: VMU, the media group Delﬁ, and the NGO National Institute for Social Integration with its media education actions focussed programme, Media4Change.

In the long run, DIGIRES will seek to explore why disinformation is so impactful and what needs to

be done to counter it through the joint efforts of academics, journalists, media educators, specialists, politicians, and representatives of private businesses, thus strengthening democratic sustainability, social accountability and civic powers.

What does the foundation do today and what role does the university play in it?

DIGIRES brings together researchers, journalists, and media education practitioners from several fields. For university researchers, the risks of disinformation and, more generally, information disruptions, and the scientific quest to address a variety of related threats, is an area of growing interest. It is mainly explored by scholars working in the fields of political science and communications. It is these researchers who are now providing the insights that disinformation seeks to polarise, divide, and erode trust, which is why it is crucial that actual and concrete public policy steps are taken to strengthen the response to disinformation

Prof. Auksė Balčytienė

through active learning, communication, and civic preparedness activities.

Disinformation attacks and manipulations outbursts are designed to sow confusion, anxiety, and other negative emotions (fear, anger), which are targeted to spread distrust of the state and the institutions of public policy (the political system, political parties, elections, and programmes). Disinformation seeks to harm, using not only lies, but also real facts, which are so shrouded in interpretations, questions, and extraneous “noise” that they can easily be used to mislead an inattentive and unprepared audience to the wrong conclusions.

In all this confusion, universities, and science in general, have a particularly important task. What is important now is to state the aims of modern academia in a clear and articulated way and to continue what researchers, scholars, and professors have been doing for years: creating a safe (open, friendly) and professionally (respectfully, attentively) moderated space for reﬂection on the most relevant issues in public life. Additionally important is the creation of new conditions – ﬁnding ways, spaces, methodologies, and metrics for the development and measurement of emotional (sensitivity and empathy-enhanced) intellect, learning leadership skills, developing critical thinking and problem-solving capacities, learning activism, and gaining a broader and more global perspective on the issues at hand – basically understanding that we are an integral part of a globally interconnected and digitally inclusive communications infrastructure, where virtually no one can be excluded, either geographically or intellectually; but, still, digital inequalities are a new commonality of everyday life.

Does the media also suffer from disinformation?

Professional media and journalism are experiencing multiple disturbances, too: not only are economic resources scarce, but also the audience’s habits of searching for news and current affairs are changing (we are witnessing a time of intergenerational transformation – the young and the elderly are following completely different information channels). The country’s public policy in the ﬁeld of the media must address a variety of topical issues: to reconcile the interests of different media groups; to search for and implement legal solutions for the transparency of media activities; and to formulate a focused media literacy policy, among others.

Here, it is important to have a digital futures focussed strategy, and in that, VMU plays an

important role. For some time now, students in the Public Communications Bachelor’s programme, as well as in both Master’s programmes (Future Media and Journalism and Integrated Communication) have been studying subjects relevant to the topic of information risks – a deeper understanding of the process of digital transformations, the role of media in democracy, media policy, the process of platformisation and governance, fact-checking, and digital media literacy. VMU will also include media literacy modules in the master’s degree programmes of future teachers from autumn semester of the next academic year.

The amount of disinformation is enormous, and it is not decreasing. It is indeed unrealistic to think that fact-checking and efforts to strengthen and increase media literacy alone will achieve a desired state of digitally resilient society. The modern paradox is that with the growth of fact-checking, disinformation does not decrease, and the emphasis just on “critical thinking” in media literacy methodologies finds a distorted application in manipulative content: there, too, elements of imitated argumentation are present, and the question of the supposedly “correct information” communicated by “serious” sources is addressed. Briefly, driven by disinformation, we understand it is not only important to explore what and how many lies and fake narratives reach us, but even more so to find out why disinformation is so impactful and how and what we need to do to strengthen our communication so that we do not lose faith and stay resilient.

What is the extent of disinformation currently observed in Lithuania?

We constantly hear reports in the public domain that the outbursts of disinformation are not decreasing, that manipulation is prevalent and is steadily increasing. It is crucial to provide journalists with good and technologically sound tools to manage these flows, which would allow them to at least predict sources with potentially manipulative content. Those who apply artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies can develop appropriate computer programmes to learn how to identify sources of potentially false information. However, the final decision on whether the statement found in the text is false or not must be made by a person (ideally a trained journalist).

Lithuanian language has its peculiarities: it is not used globally and technological language research is also relatively recent. We do not have

a disinformation corpus, which is essential for more effective technological management of new information flows and making relevant predictions. This does not allow us to find quick, technological solutions or find out the specificity of disinformation discourses in Lithuania. DIGIRES sets itself the ambitious goal of moving a little closer to solving this issue: to build a small-scale corpus of false information as a starting point for further research. Some insights can be observed, even now, from a quick review of large texts: false/clickbait headlines tend to contain more words.

What is the role of a university in shaping a critically-thinking person who is resilient to disinformation?

Critical thinking is essential to effectively resist manipulation, but we need to be aware that today’s digital communications arena is multi-layered and requires a deeper technological understanding, including, for instance, how the global platform infrastructure works, what data-driven business models can be applied to it, how this economic logic is deeply, even manipulatively, engaging because it relies on the “management” and strategic organisation of the user’s attention. Finally, these global platforms have their own governance models and organizational values, which are faithful to the free (American) business model; whereas the European tradition seeks to guarantee public good ideals and ensure freedom of information to encourage everyone (private and legal persons) to seek accountable performance.

Universities in Lithuania and around the world are also going through multiple transformations –the question to answer now is: what is most important when shaping the direction of higher education in the new era of an all-encompassing digital transformation? This era is characterised by distinctive features, with constant talk about the impact of evidence informed, scientific knowledge and insights generated by growing data on business and social environments. However, it is extremely difficult to find answers that are both precise and give immediate results.

The university must address the challenges of the digital society through science, and also widely disseminate scientiﬁc results and seek their application in policy decisions.

The university must also become the voice of the public, a voice, which, through the use of academic

language, would constantly be a reminder of the prosperity of today’s digital world and seek to address real and potential threats by influencing public policy. At the same time, scientific research cannot be carried out solely for the sake of science and scientific publications, the dissemination of which is often limited; hence, the essence of science communication needs to change – scientific work and the prestige of science need strong advocacy. The voice of Lithuanian universities needs to be strong, but knowledge co-producing partnerships such as DIGIRES will help strengthen it and make it even more relevant.

There is still visible, horizontal segregation in speciﬁc ﬁelds of science (technical sciences, social sciences, and humanities). Such phenomenon, called feminization of labour, keeps inequalities intact when professions such as social work, pedagogy, or nursing, which are predominantly occupied by women, are less valued and less paid. – Laura Lapinskė, VMU Equal Opportunities Coordinator.

The Equal Opportunities Coordinator and the Community Coordinator are new positions at VMU, introduced alongside the Disability Coordinator position, to meet not only the changing attitudes of staff towards work and values, but also the University’s ambition to build a cohesive and united community.

The emergence of these new positions was inﬂuenced by SPEAR, the gender equality project whose team has been working on issues of gender equality and equal opportunities at the University for several years now. The VMU Gender Equality Plan was prepared and approved in 2021, and currently the description of procedures for the prevention of sexual harassment and gender-based violence are being ﬁnalised.

VMU is also especially proud to have two United Nations Human Rights experts on our team: Prof. Jonas

Ruškus, an expert in disability matters and Prof. Dalia Leinarte, an expert in the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women.

At VMU, you are a pioneer as an Equal Opportunities Coordinator. Why do you think this position was necessary and what are your responsibilities?

Prof. Natalija Mažeikienė and I have been working on the SPEAR (Supporting and Implementing Plans for Gender Equality in Academia and Research) project together for several years. We’ve identiﬁed many issues regarding gender equality, gaps in institutional policies, and some silences and neglect of important issues, such as sexual harassment or gender imbalance in leadership and decision-making. The current situation at VMU is rather good and, in some aspects, exemplary. We have a growing

PhD candidate Laura Lapinskė

number of women in leadership positions, and many excellent female researchers and project leaders in international projects. It is the ﬁrst university in Lithuania to approve the Gender Equality Plan and start implementing various measures geared towards gender equality and equity. We have instigated the preparation of new policy documents (e.g., sexual harassment prevention policy). However, preparing and approving the documents is not enough to ensure gender equality and equal opportunities. Additional social and cultural changes must take place, and that requires time and an ongoing effort.

I am glad VMU has proven its commitment to the Artes Liberales principles and organisational values by the encouragement of personal growth and multifaceted education in a broader sense, creation of favourable conditions for career development, valuing individuality and free choice, and ensuring respect for human rights and equal opportunities for all community members. In my view, the establishment of two new positions (Equal Opportunities Coordinator and Community Coordinator) indicates that the different needs and obstacles of our community members are ready to be recognized and that everyone is respected, honoured, and will be met where they are.

It is no coincidence that the titles of both positions contain the idea of “coordination”. It is an unexplored territory, therefore a lot of initial work will have to do with networking, learning about existing initiatives (scattered across different academic and nonacademic departments), collecting and publishing relevant events and resources, building trust, and giving back to the community. There will be a lot of mediation between employees, top management, and heads of departments. The focus will be placed on inclusion, mutual respect, and anti-discrimination and the activities will be shared on the VMU website, in a special section dedicated to equal opportunities and the community’s well-being.

How will the SPEAR project contribute to the equal opportunities policy at university?

Since European and Lithuanian universities are advised by various international institutions to actively engage in gender equality work, the international SPEAR project is a good example of such engagement. Vytautas Magnus University is one of many international partners in the project, which aims at designing and implementing sustainable and effective Gender Equality Plans in higher education institutions across Europe.

The Gender Equality Plan prepared by the VMU SPEAR project team focuses on the implementation of gender equality policies and measures related to the prevention of discrimination and harassment, promotion of gender equality in careers, improvement of gender balance in leadership and decision-making, provision of assistance in terms of work-life balance, integration of the gender dimension in studies and research, enhancement of gender-balanced communication, and reduction of horizontal and vertical segregation in the areas with visible gender imbalance, etc. Generally, the overall aim is not to achieve parity in numbers, but rather to enhance the organisational culture and create more favourable conditions for work, studies, and research. Raising awareness, providing training, and collecting gender-disaggregated data are equally important areas of work for the project team.

At first glance, there doesn’t seem to be as much discrimination at university as we see in business. Or is this not true?

The main problem areas, in relation to gender equality at VMU, are similar to those in many higher education institutions within the EU. For example, there is still visible horizontal segregation in specific fields of science (technical sciences, social sciences, and humanities). Such imbalance is intertwined with gender norms and stereotypes, which are reproduced and, in turn, help to maintain larger societal inequalities in terms of salaries and appreciation of certain types of work. Such phenomenon, called feminization of labour, keeps inequalities intact when professions such as social work, pedagogy, or nursing, which are predominantly occupied by women, are less valued and less paid. In addition, more women at VMU (as well as at other HEI in Lithuania and the EU) are working under precarious working conditions (short-term, part-time, undefined, individual contracts), which also make women more vulnerable and economically insecure.

According to the UN, “Gender equality is not only a fundamental human right, but a necessary foundation for a peaceful, prosperous, and sustainable world.” Although it is a rather abstract deﬁnition, it is an important place to start.

The term that I often ﬁnd more useful than equality is equity. The term “equity”, in fact, refers to fairness, justice, and equal opportunities. Whereas equality often means parity by numbers (e.g., equal provision, representation, or balance), equity means recognising that we do not all start from the same

place, and we all have different needs and barriers (family responsibilities, gender stereotypes and cultural norms, and lack of awareness and support). Therefore, aiming for a more just and sustainable university, as well as society, we must acknowledge those differences, make adjustments to (potential) imbalances, and identify and overcome intentional and unintentional barriers arising from bias or systemic structures.

What trends do you see in European universities in the areas of gender equality, work ethics, sexual violence, and other human rights issues?

I had the privilege to study at Södertörn University in Sweden, where I gained a lot of valuable knowledge and experience. The level of institutional and personal support, respect for human rights, diversity, and inclusion there is truly high. Gender equality and equal opportunities are non-negotiable. I observed how different needs, abilities, and life circumstances are acknowledged and accommodated. As PhD students, we were assigned not only two engaged and supportive supervisors, but also another person – an advisor –with whom regular, informal meetings took place. Any struggles, daily or bureaucratic matters, personal issues, tensions with supervisors, etc., could be openly addressed with full confidentiality. In case of conflicts or misunderstandings, the advisor would guide us through the process of problem solving and would provide all the information or help needed. For example, they could sign the student up for free psychological support services, advise to formally reduce workload, or help to find another supervisor if the need arose. In addition, one could ask for a mentor, with whom one could have irregular, informal meetings and conversations about the challenges of the dissertation writing process.

Another thing which inspired me during my studies in Sweden was the openness to diversity and attention to sensitive issues, such as psychological or sexual violence, sexual harassment, bullying, social or psychological pressure, mobbing, conﬂicts, stress, and burnout. A yearly survey about the community’s well-being includes sensitive questions that reveal the actual situation in the institution. When identiﬁed, the problematic areas receive additional attention and resources to ensure organisational and personal well-being.

Prof. Astrida Miceikienė

As a scientist, what do you see for the future of agriculture?

The trend in agricultural development today has only one right direction: away from industrial agriculture and towards bioeconomy. Agribusiness must take on the challenges of sustainable production based on renewable biological resources and the processing of these resources and their waste streams into high value-added products. The agriculture of the future will be based on the key pillars of a sustainable bioeconomic strategy. These include investing in bioeconomy research, innovation, and skills, expanding the bioeconomy sector and

making it more competitive, sustainably intensifying primary production, recycling waste into value-added products, and effective policy coordination.

How can the VMU Agriculture Academy and its researchers contribute to this?

Are we ready for a leap in technological innovation in agriculture, do we have enough knowledge and competences to control these processes, will we be able to take advantage of the opportunities offered by the new technologies, and what competences do we need to invest in today? We can answer all these questions only if we, scientists, agricultural

entrepreneurs, and authorities, work together. Together, we can form a true image of modern and innovative agribusiness, based on the latest scientific achievements, as a basis for other businesses. This synergy makes it possible to fulfil the mission of agriculture and agricultural science to create and spread scientific knowledge and to sincerely strive for every person to have enough healthy and safe food and a fully-fledged living environment. Only by working together can we develop agribusiness leaders with the ability to create and share knowledge, drive, and desire for continuous improvement. By developing and disseminating biological, engineering, and social technologies and innovations, as well as cutting-edge knowledge and experience of the sustainable use and development of forests and water resources, we will create the agriculture of the future.

What recent innovations or discoveries have been or are being developed at the VMU Agriculture Academy for sustainability in agriculture?

The main areas of research at the VMU Agriculture Academy are related to the sustainability of agriculture, tackling climate change, and the transformation of traditional agriculture into sustainable bioeconomy businesses. Research at the VMU Agriculture Academy covers agricultural, food, and forestry sectors, as well as regional development issues. Lately, special attention has been paid to the research of soil as the most important tool for farmers, as well as to precision farming technology, which is environmentally friendly and saves resources. Scientists are exploring the possibilities of using robots, drones, and sensors, projects are being implemented to better target the use of plant protection products and fertilisers, and there is even a wind tunnel where experiments are being carried out to reduce the risk of sprayed chemicals entering the environment. Researchers are also exploring how to use smart technologies to reduce mycotoxin contamination in cereal crops, developing new food and feed products, modelling innovative sales channels, performing control of the genetic origins of forests, creating a network of kinship links between European forests and parks based on their DNA genotypes, and identifying the origins of historical woodwork. In addition, research related to the application of artiﬁcial intelligence in agriculture is being developed, and new business models, which help achieve maximum added value with minimal investment, are being sought. This year, working in a team with colleagues from the Lithuanian University of Health Sciences, VMU AA researchers discovered that

potato tubers with coloured flesh can help in the fight against stomach cancer. This is only a fraction of the ongoing research in the field of sustainability.

What challenges does agriculture face in the world?

In the near future, agriculture will face major challenges. An estimated 800 million people on the planet are currently suffering from critical food shortages. In a typical agribusiness scenario, 8% of people, i.e., around 650 million, will not have enough of it in 2030 either.

Water scarcity is an equally pressing global issue. If the forecasts for population growth are conﬁrmed, water consumption will double. This would reduce the availability of water for crop and livestock production. Such tendencies would pose a major threat to North African countries, India, China, and some European regions. According to scientists, conserving water resources, in contrast to the case of food shortages, is far more likely to be achieved through basic everyday conservation than through innovative solutions and technological innovations. It is estimated that if developing countries invest in better water conservation, and people in the richest regions of the world wisely limit their water consumption, the water saved could be successfully used in the agricultural sector. But scientists are most hopeful about innovation in the food industry and agriculture.

What kind of innovations in the agricultural sector could help address these issues?

The introduction of new business models and innovative technologies in the food industry and agriculture is necessary now if we don’t want future challenges to become a global social and political issue. Experts have no doubt that the impact of information technology and digitalisation processes on the success of agribusiness is now, and will continue to be, one of the most important in the future. Agricultural businesses that implement smart technologies can signiﬁcantly increase their competitiveness. By applying more efﬁcient digital systems and other innovative technologies, it is possible to reduce operational time, ensure better quality, attract more users, and reach new markets faster.

Scientists identify at least a few trends of the Fourth Industrial Revolution that will determine the progress of agribusiness. One of them is the Internet of Things and the use of sensors. Collecting

information through the Internet of Things –sensors, machines, and drones capable of delivering information in real time, which is then stored and processed in the cloud –makes it possible to increase the efﬁciency of agribusinesses, for instance, by reducing labour costs, monitoring and preparing for adverse climatic conditions that interfere with the production process, tracking the spread of diseases and pests, and so on. Sensors strategically placed around crop ﬁelds, combined with image recognition technology, now enable farmers to view their crops from anywhere in the world. Drones that create 3D images are increasingly being used to assess soil quality and to analyse and plan sowing and planting techniques. Drones are also used to spray crops in a way that prevents chemicals from reaching groundwater. The latest research has shown that drones can increase the speed of spraying by 5 times compared to traditional technologies.

Research also shows that the use of robots in agriculture signiﬁcantly increases livestock productivity and crop yields. Spraying and weeding robots can reduce the use of agrochemicals by up to 90%. Companies developing robotic technologies for agriculture are experimenting with lasers and cameras to detect and remove weeds without human intervention. Transplanting robots are being developed, bringing a new level of efﬁciency to traditional methods. Automation of fruit picking and nut harvesting is also being tested.

The use of artiﬁcial intelligence increases the ability of agricultural entrepreneurs to manage their farms with smart apps installed on their phones. For example, the use of artiﬁcial intelligence in smart cameras installed on farms makes it possible to identify individual animals and determine whether they are healthy and eating enough.

The digitisation of agriculture is fundamentally changing the management of agribusiness. FinTech products, cost management technologies, and farm management service models are being implemented. Business management technologies are already being proposed, applying sensor-based data collection for farm management, and the principle of a sharing economy is being rapidly developed in order to use the equipment needed for agricultural production more efﬁciently.

The digitalisation of agribusiness enables farm management solutions and encourages innovations

that were previously impossible to implement due to lack of data. In particular, it facilitates risk management, opens up new opportunities for agribusiness management at all stages of the agri-food value chain, and contributes to the effectiveness and efﬁciency of agricultural policies and programmes implemented by public authorities.

Our future goals relate to the latest trends in the development of language technologies and cover the ﬁelds of healthcare, law, economics, public administration, and education. We pay particular attention to healthcare, which has become particularly receptive to language technology solutions throughout the world due to the increasing shortage of doctors and the rapid technological development, as well as to education, which, during the lockdown, has become open and receptive to new distance learning tools using the latest technologies. – Darius Amilevičius, Associate Professor at the VMU Faculty of Informatics, Chief Researcher at VMU SITTI and head of the Semantika1 and Semantika2 projects.

Natural Language Technologies have been researched and developed at Vytautas Magnus University (VMU) almost since the university’s re-establishment. In 1994, the Centre of Computational Linguistics was founded. In 2004, it implemented an EU-funded project during which the ﬁrst English-Lithuanian machine translation system was created and made available in open access before Google Translate.

The Centre continues to develop the unique Corpus of the Contemporary Lithuanian Language and conduct computational linguistics research to this day. Gradually, more university researchers from various ﬁelds began to research language technologies, automated text analysis tools were developed, and research and development of solutions for speech recognition and synthesis began.

Assoc. Prof. Darius Amilevičius

The Semantika1 project, implemented in 2015, and especially the Semantika2 project, implemented in 2020, enabled the consolidation of interdisciplinary research forces, gave direction to their work, and helped to rediscover and understand the benefits arising from an effective science - business - state dialogue. Semantika2 brought together an interdisciplinary team of over 50 researchers from the Faculties of Humanities, Informatics, and Law.

Research conducted at the University has taken a leap forward with the creation of several research institutes by the University management. One of them is the Institute of Digital Resources and Interdisciplinary Research, whose main goal is to develop digital language resources and intelligent language technologies. The Intelligent Systems Laboratory and the Centre of Computational Linguistics have been integrated into the Institute.

For a long time, language technologies raised distrust, perhaps because knowledge of the Lithuanian language has always been a matter of honour for us. As I understand, both Semantika1 and Semantika2 projects do not threaten to turn the nation into an illiterate one?

In healthcare, law, and technology, everything is based on trust. A person will never go to a doctor they don’t trust or use technology they don’t trust. We have a paradoxical situation here. On the one hand, mankind has long dreamed of creating machines that would do routine work for us. On the other hand, when a machine starts to encroach on areas reserved for human beings, such as thinking and language, a person immediately takes a defensive position, as if the machine encroaches on human dignity and its role in a humancentric society. The lack of trust in technology is a major stumbling block to the pace of digital transformation and innovation. It’s one of the reasons why the European Commission pays so much attention to the development of “Trustworthy Artiﬁcial Intelligence” and the proper regulation of these technologies.

Natural Language Technologies (NLT) are a group of intelligent technologies (I avoid the term “artiﬁcial intelligence”) that help computers understand, interpret, and use human language, and to communicate with people using human language. These technologies enable computers to read text, as well as hear speech and interpret it. NLT are interdisciplinary, in that they draw on multiple disciplines, including linguistics, computational linguistics, and computer science.

Natural Language Technologies have been developed around the world since 1958, but the biggest breakthrough came around 2007, when the so-called neural revolution took place. Ever since deep learning techniques, neural language models, embedded word vectors, and attention mechanisms, etc. were introduced in Natural Language Technologies, the machine has been able to generate very smooth texts, synthesise texts with a voice that is almost indistinguishable from a human’s voice in its naturalness, and automatically analyse speech data and information; moreover, Google’s newest neural language model, LaMDA, generates texts that give the impression that the machine is sentient. However, in entrusting machines with some tasks, and in striving for a pace of innovation linked to the growth of our well-being, we have to accept there are still limits machines cannot overcome, and it is questionable whether they ever will.

I would suggest distinguishing “illiteracy” from “language simplification”. For some time now, there have been calls for language simplification in various fields, as it’s becoming incomprehensible to ordinary people. There are calls for the simplification of the language of European bureaucrats, because documents have become incomprehensible to ordinary citizens; there are also calls for the simplification of legal language, because an ordinary citizen can no longer understand legal language and thus loses the ability to defend themself; moreover, a number of projects are already underway to create automated tools to simplify the language of biomedicine and other sciences and thus allow introducing innovations to a wider circle of readers or researchers in other fields.

What is the difference between the Semantika1 and Semantika2 projects?

It should be noted that NLT solutions for the English language (which have been in development for a long time) are significantly different from the solutions for the Lithuanian language. Firstly, due to the small market, Lithuanian language solutions are unprofitable, and therefore commercially unattractive. Secondly, the complex Lithuanian language belongs to the family of morphologically rich, inflectional languages, so not all solutions for English can be applied to Lithuanian. Also, due to the small number of users, language resources in Lithuanian are scarce, especially in specialised areas (such as law), which makes the development of solutions using machine and deep learning methods significantly more challenging than for English, which

is rich in language resources. For this reason, Lithuanian is classiﬁed as an underresourced language. This means the survival of our national language and the development of its technologies are directly dependent on policy makers and public funding.

For a long time, Lithuanian policy makers did not give adequate attention and funding to the development of national language technologies, as neither the public nor the private sector felt the need for it due to the extremely slow pace of innovation processes. Semantika1 reflects the period when policy makers realised that, in the context of rapidly developing technologies, the Lithuanian language was not sufficiently established in the digital space, thus posing a real threat to the survival of our national language. To address this problem, the first Lithuanian language technology programme, “The Lithuanian Language in the Information Society”, was formed, with the primary goal of urgently solving the problems of integration of the Lithuanian language in digital space and to bring Lithuania’s level of development of these technologies to at least the EU average. While the aspiration was noble, the real needs of the public and private sectors had not yet been shaped, so the results of Semantika1, like those of other projects, were more reflective of the needs of science. During this project, a state information system was created, which provided several free Natural Language Technology services (for instance, browsing the Corpus of the Contemporary Lithuanian Language and the Lithuanian Online Media Corpus, automatic text analysis, and automatic spell check, among others).

Although Semantika2 was a further development of Semantika1, it marks a qualitative leap forward in Lithuanian language technologies, both in terms of technological solutions and the extent of their use. Among our achievements, I would mention the speech recognition service (for which we received the prestigious “Science Service of the Year for Business 2020” award from the Lithuanian Business Confederation), also the solution for automatic document summarisation, an automatic sentiment analysis system of users’ opinions published on social networks, a tool for hate/offensive speech detection in online texts, a detailed statistical text analysis, and the solution for smart search in Lithuanian texts, among others. Semantika2 has primarily focused on innovations in the automation of clerical, text preparation, and language data extraction processes, which enable the public and private sectors to increase work efﬁciency and reduce labour costs. The tools and services

developed during both projects are free and the Semantika2 tools are designed so users can easily and conveniently install them on their own computers and reuse them according to their needs.

Where are these tools used and who actually uses them?

As an example, I will mention several uses of the speech recogniser (also known as transcriber) we developed in Semantika2. As an IT solution, speech recogniser takes an audio file (a recording of an interview, a recording of a conversation with a client, a recording of a meeting, etc.), converts it into plain text and returns it to the user. This allows the user to save precious time, prevents tedious and time-consuming manual transcription, and allows the user to engage in more creative work. If the speech recogniser is integrated into a clinic’s information system, the doctor no longer has to spend hours entering the patient’s data into the medical record. They simply speak, and the speech recogniser automatically fills in the required fields in the medical record.

Our speech recogniser provides not only the transcribed text, but also a file adapted for subtitling. Since all Semantika2 tools are free of charge, it allows for using the digital divide cheaply, efficiently, and qualitatively, and it becomes possible to provide videos with subtitles in Lithuanian for people with hearing disabilities. The most popular services are speech recognition, text analysis, and spelling correction. Semantika2 tools have already been successfully installed in the information systems of the Office of the Seimas of the Republic of Lithuania, Lithuanian Radio and Television, Lithuanian Police Department, and other public and private sector institutions.

As I understand, these projects have artificial intelligence enabled. How does it manage to master the complex grammar and pronunciation of the Lithuanian language? Can only humans feel the difference?

In Semantika2, we have made full use of the most advanced solutions of intelligent technologies (often called artiﬁcial intelligence technologies). This has allowed us to achieve truly astonishing results. However, human language is a complex system, and it is not always possible to create rules that reﬂect the complexity of the problem at hand. For instance, there are many ways a person pronounces the letter “o”.

Another issue is the synonymy of words. Language can be standard, and it can be typical of social networks. The language of social networks is very much alive and changing rapidly, which makes it challenging to study. In Semantika1, we developed tools to analyse standard language. In Semantika2 we started developing tools for the analysis of online language as well, but it turned out that tools designed for standard language were not suitable. One of the challenges in developing a tool for hate/offensive speech detection was to explore the vocabulary. This was greatly facilitated by the vectorised model of online texts, which allows the machine to identify synonyms quickly, based on the context, so that it is no longer up to the human to provide the machine with a list of synonyms, but the machine to help the human to analyse the synonyms currently in use.

What are the future goals of VMU researchers in this area?

the increasing shortage of doctors and the rapid technological development, as well as to education, which, during the lockdown, has become open and receptive to new distance learning tools using the latest technologies. The real challenge is the legal ﬁeld, which is particularly resistant to technology all over the world, but the lockdown conditions and the rapidly deteriorating situation regarding access to justice are also forcing it to open up to technological innovation and transformation.

Among the achievements that have been realised since Semantika2, I would mention the neural voice synthesis solutions for the Lithuanian language developed by our team in cooperation with businesses. Using our automatic accentuation, case and gender matching, and other solutions, we have developed a solution for the neural synthesis of Lithuanian speech, which is no different in naturalness from the human voice. We plan to develop this further by creating fully-ﬂedged communication robots, since this solution contributes signiﬁcantly to reducing the digital divide as it allows people with vision impairments to listen to texts. We are particularly proud that a few weeks ago, a student with a speech impairment, who was defending his bachelor’s thesis, used our synthesiser to synthesise his answers to the committee’s questions. This provided new ideas for further development of the synthesiser.

As the number of online hate comments increases, artiﬁcial intelligence comes to the aid: Researchers from Vytautas Magnus University (VMU), together with the Lithuanian Human Rights Centre, European Foundation of Human Rights, and the Department of National Minorities under the Government of the Republic of Lithuania, have developed a tool intended to help automatically detect and remove cases of hate speech in, for instance, the comment sections of news portals. According to Professor Tomas Krilavičius, Dean of the VMU Faculty of Informatics and one of the project developers for “#Be Hate-Free: Building Hate-Free

Communities in Lithuania”. The development of such a tool is quite challenging: since people themselves often find it difficult to recognize hate speech, artificial intelligence needs to be thoroughly trained to do so.

“While working with social media texts and comments at the university, we noticed a lot of negative things, incitement to hatred on the Internet. However, identifying hate speech is difficult for artificial intelligence: good and effective solutions in this area have not yet been proposed for any language since the definition of hate speech itself requires careful

consideration of the context. Moreover, there are no clear legal regulations, and people themselves sometimes disagree on what counts as hate speech and what does not,” says the professor.

He also notes that hate speech is not a comment or insult directed against a speciﬁc person, but rather threats or an attack on weaker groups of society, such as national minorities or LGBT communities. “In other words, if you write something mean only about me, it’s not going to count as hate speech. But if certain vulnerable groups are attacked and threatened with violence, then it will count as hate speech,” Krilavičius explains. According to the researcher, the tool for hate speech detection developed by the team of the VMU Faculty of Informatics, together with their partners, uses artiﬁcial intelligence and language technologies to assess the likelihood that a particular text is hate speech.

“We used many examples, some of which were marked as hate speech, and some of which were not. Such artiﬁcial intelligence solutions learn from various examples and word combinations. Employing more sophisticated methods allows it to detect that some word may be used instead of another similar word in a similar context. We reviewed many methods and experimented with a small data set before trying a larger one,” says Professor Krilavičius.

Experiments enabled researchers to create an initial hate speech detection model, which was then tested to evaluate its performance. The results were promising enough for further analysis. This led to the development of a tool for hate speech recognition, functioning in a real operating environment. In addition, a methodology for hate speech detection was also developed.

The solution was improved by using sample texts that artificial intelligence later made use of when assessing other cases. The focus was on short texts, such as messages, comments, and posts on social media. The tool is currently prepared for demonstration and application. During the project, experts in artificial intelligence, technology, linguistics, law and other fields were collaborating to develop the solution.

While the tool is expected to be useful in combating hate speech on the Internet, the professor maintains that the artiﬁcial intelligence in such solutions only assists people and will not replace them for a long time to come, as understanding context, and having additional knowledge, such as the ability to recognize sarcasm, is crucial. Thus, in some cases, it will be necessary for a person to assess possible manifestations of hate speech.

The VMU professor describes the principle of the functioning of the solution: “The tool will indicate, in percentage terms, the probability that the text analysed is hate speech. For example, if the probability reaches 70 percent, the comment will be automatically blocked, and if it reaches only 50 percent, it will be published. However, if the probability is between 50 and 70 percent, then the comment will be temporarily blocked and handed over to people for veriﬁcation.”

The main challenges in developing such a tool include not only the fact that there is a lot of debate about the definition of hate speech, but also the fact that there is an insufficient number of examples from which artificial intelligence can learn. “We don’t have enough corpora and annotated examples and preparing them takes a lot of work,” says Professor Krilavičius. “Furthermore, training artificial intelligence models requires a considerable amount of computational resources.”

As can be seen from comments on Facebook and other platforms, there are currently no solutions for effectively identifying and removing hate speech. The new tool, the development of which is based on some foreign research and solutions, mainly in the English language, is expected to contribute to progress in this area. This solution could be particularly useful for news portals wishing to keep their comment sections clean. Taking this into account, testing and use of the tool is currently being discussed with media channels.

In addition to developing the solution, researchers are also encouraging discussions on hate speech to help understand the causes and origins of this phenomenon.

These are demanding children who know what they want very early on, so we need to realise that this young generation will very clearly dictate their terms to us. I think we should be happy about this because they force us to look for new solutions. – Professor Lina Kaminskienė, Chancellor of Education Academy of Vytautas Magnus University (VMU)

Could it be argued that the university is, in fact, becoming responsible for the development of its own future students?

The mission of the university is becoming quite broad and is oriented towards learners of all ages, moving away from the classic, restricted age group in university activities. Education Academy sees the importance of educating the young generation, so our activities start with pre-primary education. We had some doubts, but the Education Academy and “Gifted”, the gifted children’s centre, have professional teachers we can trust. We know they are not only able to engage children – they are teachers who understand what a university is and are able to train a young audience

to explore, be curious, ask questions, and try to ﬁnd answers in non-standard ways. Hence, little by little, they are able to develop an understanding that learning is not just about reading a textbook and passing an exam. Instead, it is a signiﬁcant part of human life, and lifelong learning can only be fully realised when we have that skill.

We see teacher training much broader than just a specialty, and perhaps this vision helps us better communicate with our social partners: schools, kindergartens, and other educational centres and institutions. We believe this is the right way to go: to take a holistic view of an individual and to offer what they need at different stages of life.

Prof. Lina Kaminskienė

Starting with the youngest and working in parallel with older students, we want to develop young people who identify themselves with VMU as early as possible and feel that this is their home, where they can realise their dreams and get an education that will lead to the career they want. It is gratifying that in addition to the activities carried out by the Education Academy, VMU also has other programmes, such as Academia cum laude or the Entrepreneurship Academy, which carry out a mission of accompanying students on their way to the ﬁrst year of their university studies or, later, to more in-depth studies.

Of course, it is also in our interest that as many talented, creative and open-minded individuals as possible choose the career of teacher, because without ensuring a generational change, it would be difﬁcult to expect changes in society.

When you talk about early childhood education, are you referring to the “Gifted” programme?

We are currently working on several initiatives that have turned into their own divisions. In addition to “Gifted”, we have a kindergarten called “Little Ones Academy.” It is a platform with a dual mission. First, it is an innovative concept of early childhood and pre-primary education. Second, it is a place of practice for our students and teachers, an opportunity to develop their practical skills and to conduct research and observations. In this way, kindergartners get used to the university because they see students every day and they are not afraid of them – the university students and instructors organically become members of the kindergarten community, who appear to come to play, but who are actually doing some kind of research or practice at the time.

We always talk about a “happy” school and “happy” children. Why are gifted children singled out?

The reason why we turned our attention to gifted children is that Lithuania has not yet developed a systematic appraoch for the education of gifted children, which is really unfair to these children. Gifted children are special, not only because they have one or another special ability in a particular area or the so-called high IQ, but also, they often have a need for complex support. Gifted children are not always recognisable – they may be mischievous and have behavioural problems or learning difﬁculties. Unrecognised giftedness prevents a child from growing as a person and, trapped in a standard

educational framework, children are not always able to reveal their abilities. We see this notion in Lithuania that a gifted child is someone who wins prizes in Olympiads and we are trying to change this notion.

We are delighted about our partnership with Israel’s Ron Vardi Centre for Gifted Children and the University of Haifa, who talk about the holistic education of the child – you can’t focus on just one talent and not see the child as a person. A developing person needs the overall ability to deal with themselves and perhaps discover their giftedness in other areas as well. One needs to try out many things instead of perfecting only one talent. I think the idea of the “Gifted” education centre for gifted children is in line with VMU’s Artes Liberales concept – we are trying to realise this idea of liberal arts and a free, fully educated personality through this programme as well.

How many children participate in the programme and how are they selected?

There are many testing methodologies around the world. Some are more focused on the recognition of intellectual abilities, while others focus more on the overall identiﬁcation of giftedness. We follow a methodology adopted from Israel that allows us to see the bigger picture: the child’s creativity, out of-the-box thinking, and intellectual potential. The programme, which has been running in Lithuania for only two years now, is growing. Currently, around 300 children participate in the programme in Kaunas and Vilnius. The programme has gained a lot of interest, but we don’t have the ability to accept everyone, although all children would beneﬁt from the programme.

Is it possible that gifted children educated at “Gifted” will be too gifted for Lithuanian universities?

Deﬁnitely not. Lithuanian universities can certainly offer high-level studies, as well as various international mobility programmes. For example, VMU is currently part of the Transform4EU university alliance, which provides an opportunity to study at one of seven European universities. So, there are great opportunities to model these qualiﬁcations in Lithuania. But yes, these children are recognized, and I think more than one foreign university would be happy to accept them for their study programme, especially since future employers want such talented staff.

Indeed, if the programme continues, these children will be an inspiration for the university in creating and redesigning study programmes.

Yes, deﬁnitely. These are demanding children who know what they want early on, so we need to realise this young generation will clearly dictate their terms to us. I think we should be happy about this because they force us to look for new solutions. They are the inspirers who come with their own ideas and even help to implement them. These are the children who, at the age of 10, can equally discuss and work on projects with 16-year-olds. This is unique, and we should be happy to have such a source from which we can draw.

VMU alumn “Language is not only about translation. It is about people, their culture, identity, history, and art. I believe language studies will remain as long as people exist,” says Julija Vasilenko-Maskvytė, an alumna of Vytautas Magnus University and polyglot, currently studying her 22nd language.

alumna Julija Vasilenko-Maskvytė

VMU offers to learn 30 languages. Ten years ago, you said you were going to learn all of them. How many languages do you know now and what is your goal?

Let me answer your questions not as a linguist, but as a simple person who has a passion and love for languages. In the past ten years, I managed to increase the number of languages in my repertoire to 22 (I haven’t mastered all of them, of course). Currently, I am taking Finnish at VMU and Georgian at VU.

There is no speciﬁc goal. I just keep learning as many as I am capable of. I absolutely love the process,

and I enjoy being able to use the skills I’ve acquired. Learning languages has been my passion from an early age and I am happy I still enjoy it; the desire has not disappeared with time and maturity.

Language can be an obstacle or an opportunity. What does language learning mean to you?

Language can indeed be an obstacle, especially if you are trying to be accepted, ﬁnd a job, friends, or enjoy music while you do not have the knowledge of the language of the speciﬁc culture. In order not to feel like an outsider, to be able to mingle with locals, laugh with them, one needs to put in some effort

VMU

and learn the language. As a rule, every society is friendly and forgiving of mistakes once you try to communicate in their language.

Learning a language to me is not just leaning a new set of rules, words, and utterances. It means immersing yourself in another culture and trying to understand why people, throughout the ages, used the language the way they do. It brings you closer to their mindset and their culture. For instance, when learning Japanese, the different levels of politeness in the language force one to immediately become aware of the importance of hierarchy.

Do different languages have their own story in your life or is it the number of them that counts?

Each language is unique, it was learned in a special place at a special time of my life; it is my history now. The number is just some sort of an achievement, a challenge for me. I can recollect that at a certain year, I was in the USA, studying New Testament Greek; I was one of the best students in the class. I also enhanced my Spanish skills, as there were a lot of Mexicans in Texas, where I studied. My roommate was from Hong Kong, and she spoke Cantonese; I set a goal to visit Hong Kong and learn the characters to be able to read what my roommate had written on a little Christmas tree she made for me, with many little gifts on it that had the Cantonese characters on them. While studying in Taiwan, besides Mandarin, I learned Japanese and Taiwanese (the local language of Taiwan). It was strange for Taiwanese students to have a blond girl learning Japanese instructed in Mandarin. The same happened when I attended Mandarin classes in Indonesia. I was more ﬂuent than the Indonesian students of Chinese descent and it was a lot of fun learning with them. Many cultures, many languages… many good memories.

We live in an English-speaking world. Isn’t the idea of a multilingual society too enthusiastic in the modern world?

I dare to disagree. In the global perspective, we may enthusiastically claim that English is a lingua franca, but what about the rural areas of China, Indonesia, and other heavily populated nations? Once you step out of the capital, few people can actually speak English, and I don’t believe this will change rapidly; it would probably take generations. Every country tries to emphasize its uniqueness and is proud of its history and culture; people cherish their language, literature, songs, and any other

linguistic expression, it is part of their identity. So, the language is not likely to easily disappear. Big cities and touristic places designed for western tourists are not the rule.

What are the typical stereotypes preventing people from learning more languages? Is it a notion that it is not worth knowing a language unless you have “a native-like” proficiency?

I can’t really speak on what others feel about languages, what motivates or demotivates them. I only know what I hear people say: “I am no good at learning languages; I am better with numbers. Languages just do not stick.” From Americans, I often hear that “it’s good to know languages, but we’re lazy, and we usually get by with English.”

I strongly believe it is worth learning a language, even at the most basic level, since it provides good practice for your memory, a little window to understanding different cultures, and a bridge for establishing friendships.

What future do you see for language studies? Do universities have to adapt their programmes to a changing society and its needs?

I hope and believe that language studies will never cease to exist. Of course, it depends on the ultimate goal. Is it to educate translators, linguists, or culture specialist? This should determine the structure of programmes.

If we speak about translation tools, machine translation, as perfect as it gets, will never be able to fully transmit the culture incorporated into a given language. So, language professionals will still be in demand. Maybe there will be a need for broader IT knowledge to speed up, ease and perfect the translation process. However, language is not only about translation. It is about people, their culture, identity, history, and art. I believe (and this is only my personal opinion) language studies will remain as long as people exist.

The prevailing attitude at Vytautas Magnus University is that good knowledge of several foreign languages and well-developed plurilingual competences make an indispensable part of a modern university education. VMU Institute of Foreign Languages offers the widest range of foreign languages in Lithuania and allows us to embody a value consistent with the spirit of Artes Liberales, namely the possibility for all community to select as many courses as they wish from the list of over 30 modern and classical languages.

“VMU language policy is an important tool of internationalisation at home which beneﬁts everyone: students of all study cycles, teachers, researchers and non-academic staff. Its sustainability is enshrined in our Study Regulations with options for students to study languages and cultures as a major or minor study programme in the Faculty of Humanities or to improve their plurilingual competences by ascending over language levels at the Institute of Foreign Languages. Moreover, our academic and non-academic staff can enrol in language groups together with students or join the language courses tailored for their speciﬁc needs,” says the Vice-Rector for Communication Vilma Bijeikienė.

VMU pays very special attention to the Lithuanian as a foreign and a heritage language. We offer short and intensive summer and winter Lithuanian language and culture courses which are highly appealing to the Lithuanian diaspora all around the world and to anyone interested in gaining competences of Lithuanian and learning more about our beautiful country.

Since the beginning of Russia’s war in Ukraine, VMU committed itself in helping the Ukrainian refugee community by, among other things, providing them with the options to learn the Lithuanian language. Over 1000 Ukrainians were engaged in volunteer-led Lithuanian language classes in Kaunas and Vilnius, while around 200 of Lithuanians joined the classes of Ukrainian. A Tandem learning activity was also organised for 70 Lithuanian-Ukrainian pairs involved in teaching and learning each other’s language and culture.

“I

strongly believe the division of children into those who are more into exact sciences and those who are more into humanities, which starts at school, is wrong. There will always be people in the midst who feel the need for art and culture for the fullness of their lives, and who seek it. Because it is related to a person’s spiritual life, and after all, no one can deny that a person is a spiritual being,” says Rasa

Žukienė, Art Critic, Curator, and professor in the Faculty of Arts at Vytautas Magnus University.

According to the professor, the need for creativity and artists in society is greater than we imagine, and the impact of creativity on young people is farreaching.

Art studies have unofficially been taking place since the re-establishment of VMU in 1989 with the Faculty of Arts officially established in 1991. Why is it important to give students the chance to study culture and art?

The focus on cultural education at the university has been present from the beginning. The academics

who were re-establishing the university agreed that culture, arts, and education in humanities were essential for students of all backgrounds. They implemented the signiﬁcant idea – ever since the re-establishment – that all students had to choose introductory courses from a block of arts, such as photography, ﬁne arts, or theatre, as well as completing practice in dancing, painting, acting, or drawing. It’s very appealing for the students –a break from the intense theoretical, verbal work in the lectures, and later, when they started the art studies program, it provided an opportunity to feel and understand how art is born.

Prof. Rasa Žukienė

What impact do such arts and culture studies have on students?

In general, exposure to the arts brings a lot to a young person – through sensation, through selfawareness and self-expression, and it also broadens their horizons and makes them more flexible. Every speciality has its own rules, regulations, and formulas, but art is more flexible and doesn’t have so many rules. A person who comes into contact with it simply becomes more creative. Music and mathematics are said to have much in common; both have a system, but one is precise and rational, while the other is concerned with the human psyche and emotions, dealing with such personal and perhaps even subconscious feelings. Art, and cultural knowledge in general, makes a person more pliable and soft, and can even influence aspects of communication.

Are you talking about art knowledge or art creation?

They are related. Through knowledge of art, one becomes truly more creative. Many of our students work in advertising agencies, TV and radio, become gallerists, or theatre producers. This shows that knowledge of art and creative people are not only needed in the ﬁelds of art history or museology. A person who has experience with theatre has more control and understanding of his or her body language, and better control over the intonations of their voice. We pay attention to this in Art History and Criticism lectures and seminars, and we also develop public speaking skills, because the goal of an art connoisseur is to interest, persuade, and educate the art consumer. These are both things that are felt and values created by a professional with a deep knowledge of the ﬁeld of art.

To what extent did arts studies at the university influence student cultural and activism movements in the 90s?

It was a period of shared enthusiasm to create, to do something new, and to use the freedom, without constraints, which had opened up. There was certainly a positive energy in the university, which was, perhaps, related to the students’ increased courage and openness. They used to organise exhibitions of their artwork, although when they enrolled in Art History and Criticism studies, they chose to be art connoisseurs rather than artists. For some reason, it seems to me that nowadays students are calmer, maybe even more indifferent, or have some other priorities.

You’ve written a book called The Art of Identity and Memory: Toward a Cultural History of the Two World Wars in Lithuania. Tell us, what did you investigate?

Our project, involving six researchers, looked at art produced during the wars. We explored what is created when people are surrounded by danger, bombs, and affliction. We looked at what people depict, what themes they choose, and what an artist or a writer creates, when anxiety and danger are in the air. My own research focused on the work of Lithuanian war refugee artists in Germany, where the Freiburg School of Fine Arts and Crafts, founded by Lithuanians, operated during World War II. At first glance, it may seem that this book is merely concerned with the development of Lithuanian culture and the psychological traumas of artists who lost their homeland. But this study is relevant to people in many countries, especially now that war has broken out again near our country, in Ukraine. After initially diving only into the study of art (artefacts), in the end, our group came to conclusions that are important not only for the field of Art History and Criticism, but also for the humanities and social spheres in general. For the knowledge of human existence.

What does art mean to a person in times of war?

In times of war, art is like a lifebuoy or a straw one clings to. It’s hard for me to imagine how, knowing the prospect that you could be gone in an instant, a person still sets out to create, and still produces professional and interesting works.

In the face of war in Ukraine, we are witnessing the rescue of artworks, the unification of people through music amidst sirens and explosions, the emergence of new street art in bombed-out cities, and the spread of performances and art activities, both site-specific and created virtually. What can art and creativity do in the face of war?

If a person ﬁnds the strength to concentrate and express themselves through creation, it helps them feel better. However, creators are more sensitive people, so what is happening in Ukraine right now will leave a deeply traumatic experience. That pain will remain in the work of artists for a very long time.

Watching Ukrainians cover urban sculptures with sandbags, one probably often asks: why save them?

Monuments and sculptures are symbols of their identity. It is an art that people value as a way

of embodying ideas that are important to their country and their people. That’s why they protect them. Walking around the city, it may not seem the monument is important, but such moments show you who you are and what is important to you. There are also less visible stories of rescuing works of art –stories of people who self-sacriﬁcingly protect museum exhibitions and collections during wartime. I had a chance to experience something like this when I was an employee of the M. K. Čiurlionis National Museum of Art. During the January, 1991 events in Lithuania, I spent a night in the museum, on the ﬂoor, together with other staff, responsible for the security of the works. We assigned ourselves to guard different parts of the museum, so that in case of danger, we could call for help as soon as possible and save the works of art.

What were your thoughts when you were lying on the floor like that?

You feel that you have to be in that place now and that’s it. Of course, you could say “no, I’m afraid and I won’t be there,” but somehow you feel it’s your duty to be in that culture and to protect it.

Do students who graduate from the Faculty of Arts feel some kind of obligation to protect culture and art?

Absolutely. During their years of study, works of art and cultural heritage, in the broadest sense, become “ingrained” in young people’s minds and their perception of the environment. After graduation, they both notice more things and are able to appreciate what may seem worthless to others. Sometimes it is enough just to talk to the owner of the work or site, to the town elder, or to advise whom one should consult, and an abandoned, unappreciated object starts a new life and is preserved for culture. And this is significant, this is the power of education. It is my firm belief that people who have experience with art have a deeper, more subtle approach to life. After all, art has always been about people, their inner feelings, and about beauty, its changes, and powers. It is also true that art is sometimes a weapon, a means of fighting injustice.

If we see the university as a team working together, then the best solutions are always offered here. – Prof. Juozas Augutis, Rector of Vytautas Magnus University (VMU), mathematician, pioneer and executor of the prediction of active cases of COVID-19 in Lithuania, Head of the Energy Security Research Centre of VMU and Lithuanian Energy Institute.

When and for what purpose was the Energy Security Research Centre established?

The Centre was founded in 2009, when Lithuania was heavily dependent on Russian energy resources. It was then the Lithuanian Energy Institute, together with VMU, undertook this initiative. It was an interesting project. Energy specialists, mathematicians, statisticians. And science specialists, all worked together at the Centre. We developed a methodology that allowed us to assess not only the technical and economic aspects, but also geopolitical threats. If we had taken into account only technical and economic calculations,

Lithuania would have never had a liqueﬁed natural gas terminal – after all, it was much cheaper and more convenient to get gas from Russia. We managed to convince those in charge that it was necessary to include in the calculations the threats which may arise not only from natural phenomena, but also from geopolitical ones. And we were 100% right. Lithuania is now practically the most selfsufﬁcient country in terms of energy resources.

Is the Centre still active?

Yes, but after Lithuania built a gas terminal and electricity interconnections with Sweden and Poland,

Prof. Juozas Augutis

its relevance decreased. The Centre played a big role at the time. Now, I notice that its activities are becoming relevant again in connection with Russia’s war against Ukraine.

Have specialists from different fields found common ground?

Yes, we have. It was an interesting experience to work in a team of mathematicians, energy specialists, sociologists and political scientists. Engineers and economists would ask, “How will you assess those threats?” And we would say “Just as we assess the threats of natural phenomena –probabilistically.”

So what exactly is probability?

There are two phenomena in nature. One of them we know will definitely happen – for example, if I throw a pebble up in the air, it will definitely fall to the ground. We call such phenomena deterministic, defined. But there are also phenomena where no one can tell how things will turn out. You may have applied the same conditions, but the result could be completely different. The worst kind of probability is 1/2, when you can’t predict anything.

Which probability was it when you started predicting the spread of COVID-19 in Lithuania?

It’s not true that the coronavirus appeared only three years ago. It was already known many years before that, but it was highly unlikely it would spread so widely. Certain conditions had to be in place for it to acquire such a mutation as COVID-19. And so, the probability of the spread of that speciﬁc mutation became high.

How much additional knowledge of the coronavirus was needed to predict its spread?

Sometimes journalists ask me questions I cannot answer. I am not a medical doctor, and our role as mathematicians is much more modest – to make predictions about the spread of the virus from all the data and information provided to us by doctors. When the process, the wave as we call it, begins, then, knowing certain parameters, such as how often people get infected, or how quarantine or other measures work, it is possible to make predictions about how that wave will continue to develop. However, mathematicians and statisticians cannot say anything about whether the virus will emerge, or how it will mutate. That’s the only role,

but it’s an important one in ﬁghting and managing the pandemic.

You have developed a prediction tool. Who uses it?

Initially, we were developing a tool that could be used to predict the spread of COVID-19 in the university, but it’s open now – it can be used by any doctors and vaccination specialists. Later, a Presidential Council of Experts was set up, comprising experts in various fields: mathematicians, statisticians, doctors, public health specialists, and even communication specialists. The goal was to find solutions to fight the pandemic, and the aforementioned tool was also used for this purpose. The phases of the pandemic evolved, but the prediction model was quite universal and suitable for modelling any such event. The principle of the model is to simulate what is taking place in reality. Earlier models were based on the deterministic phenomena I mentioned previously, but in reality, the nature of this phenomenon is random – after all, one sick person meeting a healthy person does not necessarily mean that the latter will get infected.

You must have had many sleepless nights during the peak of the pandemic?

The workload was heavy, and a lot of information had to be managed. For instance, the movement of people. When you think about it, who can calculate who moves where in Lithuania? But since practically everyone has a mobile phone, Google and Apple gave us weekly information on mobile phone tracking, including routes and locations. This information was used to determine the overall situation regarding the quarantine. The information is quite complex, but fully manageable with modern technology.

Were there any inaccurate predictions?

Since it was a new phenomenon, the beginning was difficult. Especially since making predictions is easier when there are more active cases of infected people, and during the first wave, we counted them not in thousands, but in ones and tens. It worried us a lot because there were a lot of unknowns at first, and it was quite difficult to make those calculations.

What projects do mathematicians work on at VMU?

Mathematics is needed in virtually all projects in the natural sciences, but social sciences also make use of

it. I’m glad there is no longer such a divide between areas of science. We are already starting to train teachers so that separate subjects are not taught in schools – after all, solving a problem requires the integration of various sciences. This is the reality in life, but for our convenience we separated the different branches of science in the hope that if we teach them separately, people themselves will be able to link and use them in life. We now realise it is much more effective and useful to learn how to already link different areas of science at school. Thus, VMU mathematicians can be found in projects in medicine, ﬁnance, genetics, and other ﬁelds.

Examples of your work, where mathematics and statistics are involved in solving global issues, probably provide new motivation for students?

Although there is a severe shortage of mathematics and data specialists, fewer and fewer students are enrolling in math majors both in Lithuania and in Europe overall. I think the problem lies not in the universities themselves, but in schools, where teaching methods are far behind what today’s youth are capable of and want. Of course, it’s not that we don’t need the multiplication table anymore, but we cannot teach it the way we did 50 years ago, when the pace was several times slower than it is now. Just look at the ﬂow of information today’s pupils have to deal with; we can no longer spend as much time teaching individual subjects as we used to.

Should the university reorganise its study programmes to address this issue?

VMU has been working on this ever since its reestablishment. We have created interdisciplinary areas of study, such as Computational Linguistics, Multimedia and Internet Technologies, and Data Analytics (which is not pure mathematics or statistics because it also deals with the object itself). In theoretical mathematics, it is not necessary to be attached to a speciﬁc object or phenomena, but the applications of mathematics, as in the case of the pandemic, require familiarity with the phenomena itself, even with statistical data.

You’re a mathematician – do you catch yourself counting something in your everyday life?

That happens (laughs). For example, a funny thing happened quite recently: VMU participates in a university alliance, the meeting of which took place in Katowice, the University of Silesia. We were walking around the city with our guide, and while he was

talking about one of the buildings, he forgot how many floors it had. I immediately said 14, because the first thing I did, when I got to the building, was to count how many floors it had (laughs). Everyone started laughing and asking if I was a mathematician. Of course, all people try to calculate and model things in life, but at different levels. Sciences such as Data Analysis help to bring out the essence of phenomena that may not be apparent at first glance.

Does a mathematician make better decisions in life?

Answering this question, a true mathematician would immediately ask: how do you understand better decisions? What are the criteria? Which is better: the one that generates ﬁnancial beneﬁts, saves time, or gives satisfaction? If we look at this critically, then even when answering the question “how are you doing” one should ask: what do you mean? Which period – just today or my whole life? Just like that you can sometimes go round in circles with mathematicians and never get an answer (laughs).

Faculty of Economics & Management

Faculty of Natural Sciences

Faculty of Humanities

Faculty of Law

Faculty of Political Science & Diplomacy

Faculty of Arts Music Academy

Education Academy (Kaunas/Vilnius)

Institute of Foreign Languages

Faculty of Social Sciences

Innovative Studies

Institute

Botanical Garden

Agriculture Academy

Faculty of Agronomy

Faculty of Bioeconomy Development

Faculty of Forest Sciences & Ecology

Faculty of Engineering

Faculty of Catholic Theology

Faculty of Informatics

Institute of Educational Research

Vytautas Kavolis Transdisciplinary Research Institute Bioeconomy Research Institute

Institute of Natural Sciences and Technology

Institute of Digital Resources and Interdisciplinary Research Research Institutes

VMU is a unique higher education institution in Lithuania, the only one providing a broad higher education based on Artes Liberales principles. In my view, this is the strength of VMU which highly appeals to broad-minded and promising young people. Students are given an opportunity here to choose from many study ﬁelds and simultaneously to enrol in minor study programs. They can broaden their horizons and experience an enriching student adventure by joining various VMU organizations. Everyone studies together here: from an agricultural expert to a future teacher, from a businessperson to a philologist, from an artist to a psychologist. VMU should more eagerly communicate with the students of general education enlightening them about the beneﬁts and values of such broad education for future generations. We believe that VMU must continue improving and must nurture its name as a liberal and innovative university, in that way, attracting more and more creators of the future.

President of Students‘ Representative Council Ieva Vengrovskaja

Students at University of Lithuania in 1930s.  VU Library Rare Books Division Students at Vytautas Magnus University in 2022.  VMU.

52 international@vdu.lt www.vdu.lt/en VMU International vmuinternational VYTAUTAS MAGNUS UNIVERSITY