Best Dissertation 2021 Award Winners, Including a Group of VU Scientists, Honoured at the Presidential Palace
On Tuesday, President of Lithuania Gitanas Nausėda awarded the winners of the Best Dissertation 2021 competition. Representatives of Vilnius University (VU) are also among the authors of best scientific dissertations.
One of the winners in the fields of humanities and social sciences are Simona Balčaitė (dissertation "Closed settlements in Lithuania: the problem of territorial integration", sociology; scientific supervisor – Professor Dovilė Krupickaitė), and Dr. Gintė Medzvieckaitė, member of the VU community, (research paper "Human echoes of divine words: spiritual madrigals based on poetic paraphrases of Latin sacred texts in Italian", University of Manchester, UK).
The winners in the fields of natural sciences, technology, medicine and health and agriculture are Žana Kapustina from the Institute of Biomedical Sciences at VU Life Sciences Centre and the Research and Experimental Development Centre at Thermo Fisher Scientific Baltics (dissertation "The application of modified nucleotides in large-scale nucleic acid analysis", biology; scientific supervisor – Professor Arvydas Lubys), Milda Mickutė (dissertation "Application of animal Hen1 methyltransferases modifying single-stranded small RNAs for RNA labelling and sequencing", biochemistry; scientific supervisor – Professor Giedrius Vilkaitis), and Justinas Kilpys (dissertation "Investigation of the snow cover indices by remote sensing in the plain areas", physical geography; scientific supervisor – Professor Egidijus Rimkus).
Congratulating the scientists, the President emphasised that their example shows how much can be achieved through intellectual courage, creativity and patience.
"The success of each young scientist in Lithuania is also an achievement of Lithuania as a whole. The continued prosperity and growth of our country depends directly on the extent to which scientific discoveries are made, and on how much knowledge is accumulated and applied. It is therefore essential to ensure that Lithuania's scientific potential is constantly renewed and strengthened through consistent and continuous public support. Only by consistently nurturing and empowering talent can we expect a significant breakthrough in scientific knowledge and innovation", said the Head of State.
104 dissertations were submitted to the competition: 57 dissertations in the natural sciences, technology, medicine and health, and agriculture, and 47 dissertations in the humanities and social sciences. From 31 March to 15 November this year, phase I and phase II of the dissertation evaluation took place. The submissions were assessed by 260 experts. They recognised 10 best dissertations defended in Lithuanian research and study institutions and 2 dissertations of Lithuanian citizens defended in research and study institutions abroad as the winners of the award to be announced during the event.
The aim of the Best Dissertation competition is to encourage PhD students to prepare high-level dissertations that will be recognised not only in Lithuania, but also worldwide, to foster inter-institutional and interdisciplinary cooperation and to increase the motivation of young scientists of Lithuania to carry out scientific activities of the highest quality and relevance to society.
The event is under the patronage of the President of the Republic of Lithuania Gitanas Nausėda.