20 million Euros of investment, joined competences of Lithuanian and Swedish researchers, collaboration between universities, research centres and the State – Lithuania is taking steps to create the first in the Baltics centre of excellence for information and communication technology.
The Centre of Excellence (project’s working title is InnoITeam) is being created by a team uniting representatives from three Lithuanian and two Swedish institutions. The project, which has been selected from more than 200 applications submitted for funding to the European Commission, is now in the first, business plan creating stage. After successful completion of this stage, the Centre should start operating in autumn 2019.
“Lithuania has very talented researchers, but they need appropriate conditions for realising their research potential. The Centre of Excellence will be of great benefit for the scientists working in IT, which will allow them to show excellent results in creating innovations 
on European and global level”, says Asta Pundziene, Vice-Rector for Research and Innovation at Kaunas University of Technology (KTU).
The new Centre of Excellence will develop innovative products, carry out research and development in the fields of internet of things, health technologies, and create new technologies which answer the priorities of Industry 4.0.
Lithuanian and Swedish research and higher education institutions, and state institutions collaborate in founding of the new Centre of Excellence – it unites competencies of researchers from Kaunas University of Technology (KTU), Vilnius Gediminas Technical University (VGTU), Linköping University and the Swedish Research Institute RISE. The important partner of the project is Lithuanian State Enterprise Centre of Registers.
This partnership opens possibilities to digitalisation of business and state sector, creates conditions for founding new legal basis, which is at the same time compatible with open data and services and secure.
“The development of internet and internet of things not only creates endless possibilities, but also raises challenges for security”, says Pundziene.
According to the InnoITeam project leaders – Rytis Maskeliunas and Egidijus Kazanavicius, researchers at KTU Centre of Real Time Computer Systems – the strength of the team lies in the complementary competencies.
“Judging by the products, innovations and research our competencies in the field of internet of things is among the best in the Baltics”, Kazanavicius is convinced.
Arianit Kurt, senior researcher at RISE is looking forward to collaboration with Lithuanian partners.
“We are living in a very dynamic world, where internet technologies and internet of things, which are the main topics of this project, have tremendous impact on all the aspects of our lives. I am looking 
forward to taking part in the future, which we are going to create together”, says Swedish researcher.
The representatives of all collaborating institutions are convinced that more national and international organisations will join the Centre’s operations after its opening. The project is being supported by Lithuanian government.
20 million of Euros will be invested into the founding of the Centre after the project passes the second stage. In the future, the Centre of Excellence will become self-supporting, creating additional value to the Lithuanian economy by commercialising high-technology products and innovative solutions for society and the state.
