On 23rd November in the Constitution Hall of the Seimas of the Republic of Lithuania, the international conference "Situation of young researchers in the Baltic countries: development of future scientific potential or its waste?" was held. During it, representatives of the scientific institutions of Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, France and Italy shared their insights about the situation of young researchers in the Baltic countries and Europe.
The conference delved into the complex challenges faced by young researchers, including career and financial insecurity, high workload, international competition, lack of financial and psychological support, bureaucracy, gender inequality, pressure and fatigue.
According to the Vilnius University Life Sciences Center researcher Assoc. Prof. Dr. Urtė Neniškytė, possibly the pressure is the main reason why talents leave the academy:
"Today's young researchers are much better able to recognise the limits of their possibilities and are brave enough to say 'I don't want to do this anymore, I like to do research, but I don't want to experience this pressure anymore', so if we want to create a research field, we have to pay much attention to that. One way is not to define a strict number of publications for the completion of doctoral studies and to allow for time-consuming but high-quality research."
The international conference is organised by the Association of Baltic Scientists "BASNET Forumas", Vilnius University Life Sciences Center, Kaunas University of Technology, Center for Physical Sciences and Technology.