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2023. 03. 03 -

Head of FTMC prof. G. Valušis: 'We have to go global'

Center of Physical Sciences and Technology (FTMC) had host its Annual Scientific Conference on 1-2 March, where its experts shared their research and discoveries. Presentations covered a wide range of topics such as fighting the coronavirus, laser technology, microplastics pollution, next generation solar cells, the mysteries of astrophysics, etc.

At the end of the conference, the director of the FTMC, prof. Gintaras Valušis, presented his annual report for 2022 and shared his insights on what goals the largest scientific research institution in the Baltic region should aim for in 2023.

According to prof. Valušis, FTMC has already grown to the scale of the country and the region, and now it is necessary to expand the institution‘s influence, to find new partners and opportunities around the world. And this is one of the main tasks for 2023.

"Our Center is quite large and our activities are absolutely dominant in the region. There is no room for expanding here, we have sort of covered everything. Our closest neighbours, from a scientific point of view, are VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland. On the financial side, there will not be the money in our region that we would need for sustainable growth. So we have to go global," said the head of FTMC prof. G. Valušis.

He believes that the Center needs to pay attention to the European Union's cornerstone documents, which talk about the need to establish new technological initiatives, to develop various new materials of strategic and scientific importance.

"In the face of war and pandemic, Europe has realised that it does not have much. Global production chains are not in Europe - if Europe had to develop an entire product internally, this idea would probably fail.

So this is where FTMC could play a role, because we have unique competences and partners from South Korea to the US. There were and are existing projects, but they will probably no longer be enough, because we will have to move on," prof. Valušis says.

Photo: HernandezandSorokina / FTMC