Dr Arūnas Stirkė Elected as the New Chair of the FTMC Scientific Board

On 10 September, the newly elected FTMC Scientific Board held its first meeting. During this session, the Council members elected the leadership for the upcoming five-year term.

Three FTMC employees stood as candidates for the position of Chair – with the highest number of votes (9) going to Dr Arūnas Stirkė, Senior Researcher and Deputy Head of the Department of Functional Materials and Electronics.

We warmly congratulate our colleague and wish him every success in his work!

Dr Gediminas Račiukaitis, Head of the Department of Laser Technologies, received 5 votes, while Dr Zigmas Balevičius, Head of the Plasmonics and Nanophotonics Laboratory in the same Department, received 2 votes.

The newly elected Chair selected his deputies: Dr Renata Butkutė, Senior Researcher and Deputy Head of the Optoelectronics Department, will serve as Vice-Chair; and Dr Marius Franckevičius, Senior Researcher at the Department of Molecular Compounds Physics, has been appointed Secretary of the Board.

You can find the full list of the Board members via this link.

(Dr Arūnas Stirkė. Photo: Hernandez & Sorokina / FTMC)

As he takes up his role, Dr Stirkė notes that the Board’s initial tasks will concern the new FTMC strategy plan and its implementation.

“The first step for the Board will be to draw up a plan of key tasks. Without doubt, we shall begin with the completion of the FTMC strategy document. The new strategy has already been approved, but for now it exists more as a set of guidelines. So ahead lies what will likely be a long and intensive effort, where I see the Board playing a significant role. The strategy could become a very important document for the Center, one that we will need to follow for the next ten years. This will require careful thought and serious discussion.

The initial draft of the guidelines already sparked heated debates, in which I took part as a member of the previous Board. I believe our comments were not sufficiently taken into account at the time, but we now hope that this Board will be somewhat stronger and able to achieve more. I am convinced that its members represent the entire FTMC scientific community.

The FTMC administration is visionary – which is very good, and exactly as it should be, especially when looking a decade ahead. However, for the scientists working here, such a vision can sometimes appear very difficult to achieve, or even unattainable, while our competences may seem insufficient to meet the goals set. Therefore, I believe we must find common ground, an agreement with the administration, and at the same time not be afraid of ambition,” says Dr Stirkė.

Info: FTMC