Lithuanian Research Library Consortium heralds its twentieth anniversary and recognizes members’ achievements with research excellence awards in support of the future of Lithuanian research

Marking the year of Lithuanian Universities, a one-day event, Towards Future Research Impact in Lithuania, hosted by Vilnius Gediminas Technical University, brought together members of the LMBA to assess two decades of Lithuania’s research and chart a course for its continued impact.

Findings from a signature report prepared by Elsevier, A research landscape assessment of Lithuania, were presented to attendees as a lead-in to a discussion on the strategic aspects of research evaluation in Lithuania.

LMBA has been instrumental in its contributions in advancing the research ecosystem in Lithuania over the past two decades. Through its advocacy for research quality, LMBA sought and secured subscriptions to high-quality research services and tools, ensuring Lithuania’s academic research community benefited from superior access to scholarly content.

The event featured Research Excellence Awards, which bestowed recognition on Lithuanian institutions and individual achievements in research and its impact.

• The Research Growth Award was presented to Mykolas Romeris University AND Vytautas Magnus University, acknowledging the universities with the highest compound annual growth rate (CAGR) in the last twenty years (2002-2022).

• The Klaipėda University was recognized with the International Collaboration Award, which honors the university with the highest metric in field-weighted International Collaboration for publications produced by the university’s authors throughout 2002-2021

• The Research Impact Award was presented to the Lithuanian University of Health Sciences, recognizing the university holding the highest field-weighted citation Index (FWCI) for publications produced throughout 2002-2021.

• Vilnius University was the recipient of the Sustainable Development Impact Award, in recognition of the university with the highest share of papers mapped to SDGs, weighted by the number of scholarly works produced in the last three years (2019-2021).

The Research Library Impact Awards recognize the libraries and librarians whose contributions led to marked improvements in the university’s research impact.

• Lina Bloveščiūnienė, Library Director, Vytautas Magnus University, for the development of the University Science Management System (VDU CRIS), developed using the DSpace CRIS platform) and serving as the university's institutional repository for scholarly works, thereby ensuring their dissemination and long-term preservation

• Raminta Pranckutė, Head of the Scientific Information Department at the Library of Vilnius Gediminas Technical University, in recognition of authoring a published review article “Web of Science (WoS) and Scopus: The Titans of Bibliographic Information in Today’s Academic World“, Publications 2021; https://doi.org/10.3390/publications9010012 opens in new tab/window, achieving an admirable 14,925 views.

A subset of Research Excellence Awards, the Special Contribution Awards honor impact of the LMBA:

• Emilija Banionytė, Past President (through 2022), Lithuanian Research Library Consortium, was heralded for her 20 years fruitful service as president of LMBA and the successful development of a unified subscription model for scientific databases for Lithuanian academic institutions, serving as a benchmark for other countries.

• LMBA team, namely:

• Aušra Vaškevičienė, former Head of LMBA Administration (through 2022 May),

• Jevgenija Ševcova, LMBA Database Administration

• Indrė Daugialienė, LMBA Manager of Public Procurement

• Inga Kavaliauskienė, LMBA Lawyer

• Danutė Peslekienė, LMBA Accountant

• Rima Klusovskienė, LMBA Administrator

• Andrius Blažinskas, LMBA Programmer

• Dainius Bružė, LMBA IT specialist

President of the Lithuanian Research Library Consortium Ingrida Kasperaitienė stated, “Often, in our daily activities, we do not recognize the great meaning of the work we do. And only when we stop for a minute, only when we gather, when we look at what we have created in the perspective of time, do we realize that our work created a change that our daily work and cooperation brought benefits to society and created significant added value: for an ordinary student, researcher, academic institution. LMBA is proud of the work it has done during its twenty years of operation and thanks everyone for the cooperation and joint activities. I firmly believe that this special meeting, "Towards Future Research Impact in Lithuania,” which has brought together a large group of experts from the Lithuanian academic community, will inspire us for further active cooperation to expand the results of Lithuanian scientific research and contribute to the development of open science.“

"It is clear that efforts by the Consortium to increase the availability of high-level content for researchers across Lithuania have been very effective. As a trusted partner to LMBA, Elsevier is very proud to be part of this story. I appreciate the high commitment of LMBA Leaders and look forward for next 20 years of successful collaboration," stated Tomasz Psonka, Regional Director for Poland & the Baltic Countries.

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Notes for editors

About LMBA

The LMBA opens in new tab/window was founded on 4 December 2001 by twenty-three founding members. At present, the Lithuanian Research Library Consortium unites forty-six members. Currently, the association organizes access for members to over one hundred databases in the fields of nature, technology, medicine and health, agriculture, social sciences, and humanities and arts as well as universal databases. 

The main objectives of the Consortium are:

• Collect demand from all Lithuanian academic institutions for database subscriptions;

• To analyze the efficiency of the use of subscribed databases;

• Organize the selection of state-funded databases;

• Carry out distribution of funds;

• Organize database subscription purchases;

• Facilitating subscription access to electronic databases for the Consortium members and other libraries;

• Encouragement of participation in the European Union (EU) programs and projects;

• Enhancement of professional competencies of librarians;

• Co-operation with foreign and international library associations and other organizations with a relevant profile;

• Defending the freedom of reading and providing possibilities to the users to access information resources in libraries and remote databases without any restrictions.

About Elsevier

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We have supported the work of our research and healthcare communities for more than 140 years. Our 9,500 employees around the world, including 2,500 technologists, are dedicated to supporting researchers, librarians, academic leaders, funders, governments, R&D-intensive companies, doctors, nurses, future healthcare professionals and educators in their critical work. Our 2,900 scientific journals and iconic reference books include the foremost titles in their fields, including Cell Press, The Lancet and Gray’s Anatomy.

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