On September 24–25, Vilnius and Kaunas hosted the Forum "Developing Talents for Innovation-based Economies", the main theme of which – business and scientific cooperation. Vilnius Gediminas Technical University (VGTU), a partner of this event, payed attention to the conversion of scientific knowledge into the economically useful product and moderated presentations on the topic "Turning Knowledge into Economic Sustainability."

 

According to the opinion of Prof. Habil. Dr. Antanas Čenys, VGTU Vice-Rector for Research, they have frequently discussed business and education partnership recently, but there is a misunderstanding between the participants of this process. "Although theoretically the universities are encouraged to collaborate with businesses, practically their efforts are not always being adequately assessed. The achievements of the universities are still measured according to the academic and scientific results, not always noticing the real value for the society and economy", - said VGTU Vice-Rector for Research, drawing attention to the problems which should be analysed during the discussions of such forums.

 

The European Commission (EC) in partnership with the Lithuanian Confederation of Industrialists (LCI), the Lithuanian Ministry of Education and Science and the Lithuanian University Rectors’ Conference (LURC) organised the Forum. Sergey Cymbal, the founder of company "Mobile Angels", Markku Markkula, the President of the European Committee of the Regions, Asta Radzevičienė, the Vice-Rector for International Relations at VGTU, Antanas Čenys, the Vice-Rector for Research at VGTU, Arūnas Mark, the Regulatory Affairs Expert at public agency "Invest Lithuania", Professor Karin Markides, the Advisor to the President of Chalmers‘ University of Technology (Sweden) and many others were among the participants of the Forum.

 

Timo Tuukkanen, the Director of "Bentley System Solutions", presented good examples of cooperation between international business and science, one of which is the cooperation of VGTU and "Bentley Systems" concerning the founding of the BIM (Building Information Modelling) Academy at the university. VGTU is coordinating the activities of this academy in the Baltic countries.

 

The attention of the scientific and business institutions, as well as the abundant number of the representatives from the two areas, proved the relevance, importance and need to further develop this cooperation.