On the 23rd and 24th of May, 2016 the Lithuanian Prime Minister Algirdas Butkevičius arrived in the Czech Republic and together with representatives of Lithuanian companies and scientific institutions visited the international laser center ELI Beamlines in Dolni Brezany.
On May 24th the conference entitled “Perspectives of Czech-Lithuanian Research Partnerships” was held to calibrate the long-term cooperation between Czech and Lithuanian entities in the ELI Beamlines laser center.
The significance and importance of the conference was confirmed by the attendance of top leaders of the Lithuanian research community, as well as representatives of technological companies. The aim of the conference was to identify the main directions of the collaboration between Czech and Lithuanian partners from the academic and commercial spheres, thus to promote the start of the research potential of both countries. The conference was organized under the patronage of the Prime Minister of the Republic of Lithuania and the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports of the Czech Republic.
The contributions from the Lithuanian side were presented by Valdemaras Razumas, the President of the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences, Algis Petras Piskarskas, the President of the Lithuanian Laser Association, Gintaras Valušis, the director of the Centre for Physical Sciences and Technology and Elona Juozaityte, the Head of the Institute of Oncology at Lithuanian University of Health Sciences. The Czech part was represented by Robert Plaga, the Deputy of Minister of Education of the Czech Republic, Jan Šafanda, the Vice-President of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Jan Hála, the Vice-Rector for Development of Charles University in Prague, and Jan Řídký, the director of the Institute of Physics.
The Lithuanian Prime Minister expressed the support for research initiatives of Czech and Lithuanian scientists in his speech: “It is important to use the significant potential for cooperation between ELI and Lithuanian scientific institutions and thus stimulate further development in the field of science and education,” said Algirdas Butkevičius.
ELI, as a unique European experimental laboratory provides an opportunity for a wide variety of disciplines to push the boundaries of human knowledge. At the same time it allows the application of a number of high-tech companies during its construction and operation. Lithuania is a great example of collaboration between academic and application spheres in the development and production of laser systems. “I am delighted to welcome to ELI Beamlines our Lithuanian colleagues headed by his Excellency Prime Minister Butkevičius. The Lithuanian-Czech cooperation is essential for us, and successfully runs in several ways: together with the US-European consortium is in development of the most intensive laser system for ELI Beamlines. The Lithuanian company EKSPLA supplies the pump units for the front end section of the laser as well as the laser power supplies and additionally we bought from the Lithuanian firm Light Conversion the device for converting the pulse wavelength,” says the director of the Institute of Physics Jan Řídký.
The all-day program ended with a tour of the ELI Beamlines building and HiLASE laser center which focused on the development of lasers for industrial applications.
