Young Scientists Dr. Aistė Kiltinavičiūtė and Dr. Vytautas Klimavičius Received Additional Funding from the VU Foundation

The annual Vilnius University (VU) Foundation competition to attract young scientists awarded Dr. Aistė Kiltinavičiūtė, a candidate from the Faculty of Philology of VU and Dr. Vytautas Klimavičius, a candidate from the VU Faculty of Physics.

The talented young researchers with international experience received up to €30,000 of additional funding for two years on top of the income already provided by the departments. The funds are allocated from the return on investment of the VU Foundation’s endowment fund.

A promising researcher from the University of Cambridge joins the Faculty of Philology

Dr. Aistė Kiltinavičiūtė completed her undergraduate, postgraduate, and doctoral studies at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom and internship at Stanford University in the USA. In 2022, the young researcher defended her PhD thesis Sensory Perception in Dante’s Dreams and Visions at the University of Cambridge.

The academic position in the field of contrastive studies developed by the VU Faculty of Philology is closely related to translation and intercultural communication, which is the young scientist’s area of expertise. Her knowledge of Italian and Latin, comparative literature, and theories of translation studies helped Dr. A. Kiltinavičiūtė start a complex project

Dante Translations and Reception in Lithuania, 20-21th Century at the VU Faculty of Philology. The young researcher’s contribution will be important for maintaining the high quality of research at the VU Faculty of Philology, increasing the dissemination of research in the humanities around the world, and opening up opportunities for younger researchers to work with internationally experienced scholars.

Young physicist to apply nuclear magnetic resonance knowledge gained in Germany at the VU Faculty of Physics

Dr Vytautas Klimavičius, a candidate from the VU Faculty of Physics, spent three years as a researcher at the Technical University of Darmstadt in Germany. The young physicist has held fellowships in Poland and Slovenia and won the prestigious Alexander von Humboldt Foundation scholarship for postdoctoral fellows.

Dr Vytautas Klimavičius’s knowledge of solid-state nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy and its applications in studying functional materials gained in Germany will be applied at the VU Faculty of Physics. The young scientist’s research also focuses on dynamic nuclear polarization (DNP), currently one of the most promising areas of NMR hyperpolarization.

Dr. Vytautas Klimavičius maintains strong collaborative ties with colleagues in Germany, France, Poland, Japan, the USA, and elsewhere. His international ties will strengthen the Magnetic Resonance Research Group at the Institute of Chemical Physics, the VU Faculty of Physics, and thus VU’s international competitiveness.

Funding for researchers to increase alongside the endowment fund

The VU Foundation with a portfolio of around €3 million has already funded five researchers using the return on the endowment fund: In 2020, Dr. Guillermo Hausmann-Guil joined the VU Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, in 2021, Dr. Thomas Peak joined VU Institute of International Relations and Political Science, and Dr. Mantas Šimėnas joined the VU Faculty of Physics (in 2021, researchers were also partly funded by the MJJ Foundation’s targeted support).

Justinas Noreika, the CEO of the VU Foundation hopes that with a steady increase in both the endowment fund and the return on investment it generates, in the near future, it will be possible to fund even more young researchers with a strong international track record and thus strengthen the University’s international competitiveness.