VU Rector Artūras Žukauskas: New Scientific Infrastructure shall Release Scientific VU Potential

Interaction of science, education and business is a major success factor in nowadays economy.

Two new research centers – the Joint Centre for Life Sciences and the National Centre of Physical and Technological Sciences will be opened on March 15 at the Saulėtekis (Sunrise) Campus, Vilnius. VU Rector Arthur Žukauskas considers that the new scientific centers will facilitate VU scientific potential, it will bring VU up to the world's top 300 universities in the near future, and possibly create preconditions to nurture the Nobel Prize winners in the years to come.

The opening of the centers is significant not only to VU, but to all Lithuania. The emerging Lithuanian science nucleus will lead the country's progress in the most promising technology fields for many decades ahead. Large share of the most prominent Lithuanian scientific groups will concentrate here, extensive knowledge and experience is expected to be created at the centers as well.

In mid-March, alongside with the opening ceremonies of the new science centers, CERN exhibition “Accelerating Science” will be held at the Saulėtekis (Sunrise) Campus.

It is symbolic indeed that this unique exhibition will be opened simultaneously with the new science centers. Its size and the imagery will far outweigh the previous CERN installations in Lithuania. The peculiarity of the exhibition is that the visitors will be met and served by professionals – Vilnius University scientists having a long track record on joint projects with CERN.

The goal of the exhibition is to inspire a sense of wonder and curiosity about the origin of the Universe and the basic constituents of matter.