We invite students to events that will help them integrate more easily into academic life. From August 28. #studentAUK events begin. Active, engaging, and full of discoveries await you. During these events, students will have the opportunity to get to know the faculty, lecturers, curators, fellow students, and learn more about lectures, electronic systems, and the advantages of being a student.

The VU Kaunas faculty community is invited to welcome the beginning of the new academic year together!

10:00 AM–12:00 PM The beginning of the academic year event will be held at the Linden Courtyard of the VU Kaunas Faculty. During the event, the Dean will greet the faculty community, and students, lecturers and administration staff will be able to participate in a speed friending chat game, taste academic discussion cocktails, socialize and enjoy other entertainment. The event venue is Liepų Kiemelis, Muitinės Str. 12, Kaunas.

12:30 PM From Karaliaus Mindaugas Avenue, in front of Vytautas Church (Aleksoto Str. 3), we will take a bus to Vilnius to participate in the traditional Vilnius University community procession and the celebration of the start of the academic year.
REGISTRATION LINK for students, lecturers, alumni and faculty staff wishing to go to Vilnius: https://bit.ly/3Rexhv5.

2:45 PM The ceremonial procession of the Vilnius University community along Gediminas Avenue will begin - from the Parliament of the Republic of Lithuania to the Great Courtyard of Vilnius University.

3:00 – 4:30 PM Ceremony of the beginning of the academic year RENOVATIO STUDIORUM in the Grand Courtyard, where VU leaders and guests will greet the audience, the first-year students will take their oath, and the beginning of the new academic year will be officially announced.

5:15 PM Departure back to Kaunas from the parking lot at Cathedral Square. Return to Kaunas is planned for around 7 PM.

The decentralized finance (DeFi) sector is growing faster than its regulation can change. New legal acts are coming into force in the European Union, international organizations are publishing new guidelines, and financial technology companies and lawyers must quickly determine which regulatory requirements apply in a specific situation.

This problem is addressed in the project "Formation and validation of a Decentralized Finance Regulatory Knowledge Graph (DeReKG) for semantic matchmaking and analysis of regulatory requirements" by Gintarė Košubienė, a doctoral student at Vilnius University's Kaunas Faculty, which is funded by the Vilnius University Research Promotion Fund.

The research will create a regulatory knowledge graph - a structured network of legal knowledge that links regulatory concepts, obligations, and their relationships. The system will not only be able to answer the question of what MiCA requirements apply to a specific DeFi service, but also demonstrate what legal acts and their provisions the answer is based on.

"Every day, we see how much time and knowledge the analysis of DeFi regulations requires. We want to create a reliable solution that would not only allow us to find relevant legal requirements but also explain why the answer is correct and on what sources of law it is based. This is an important step towards more transparent and reliable RegTech solutions," says project manager G. Košubienė.

G. Košubienė is also the founder of Micapass, a startup developing DeFi regulatory compliance solutions. The rapidly changing regulations and their complex application in practice prompted the question of whether the latest artificial intelligence technologies could help make this process faster, more accurate, and more reliable.

An interdisciplinary team will implement the project. The research will be joined by young researchers from the Faculty of Law of VU, Akvilė Jurkaitytė, who also holds the position of Senior Lawyer of the Finance and Insurance Team of Sorainen, and Legal Assistant Erlandas Prakapavičius. PhD student Jonas Mindaugas Rimšelis will apply artificial intelligence solutions from the Faculty of Mathematics and Informatics of VU.

The project team invites financial technology companies, regulatory compliance specialists, and legal experts to join the research. Their insights will be important for assessing the accuracy and applicability of the developed solution in real-world settings and for validating the research results. Such a partnership will help ensure that the research results are relevant not only to the academic community but also to business and regulatory practice.

Project budget: 17,934.7 EUR.

Project duration: 2026-09-01–2027-12-20.

Project number: MSF-JM-08/2026.

Is it possible to create a meaningful work of art using artificial intelligence? This question is asked by Paulius Danielius, a scientist and lecturer at the Kaunas Faculty of Vilnius University (VU), in the exhibition "Beyond Intelligence". Using AI as a creative tool, the scientist presents worlds in which intelligence, civilizations, and man himself acquire previously unknown forms.

An exhibition born from dialogues with a machine

The exhibition "Beyond Intelligence" grew out of consistent creative experiments. Dialogues with AI models and the reflections they prompted gradually merged into a story about the future of man, artificial intelligence, and civilization.

The exhibition consists of five cycles that examine possible scenarios of future civilizations and the paths of man's relationship with artificial intelligence. The first cycle, "Forms of Service," presents eight posthumanoid forms that embody different roles of artificial intelligence – from the first sparks of artificial consciousness to a duty that persists even when the world and its creators have disappeared. The other cycles – "Refusal", "Imprisonment", "Worship" and "The Paths that Remained" – open up the possibilities of the relationship between humans and intelligence: the abandonment of AI, the transfer of consciousness to another state, the becoming of artificial intelligence as an object of worship, and the as-yet-undefined paths of their common future.

The author's role was not limited to formulating queries for the AI model. He created the exhibition concept and the stories for individual works, sought a suitable visual language, evaluated AI-generated interpretations, refined the compositions, and selected the final versions of the works. During the creative process, more visually or conceptually strong works emerged. Still, they did not make it into the exhibition because they did not fit the overall narrative. Some of them may become part of new stories and creative cycles in the future.

"The creative process did not start with a request, but with an idea – what do I want to say with a specific work, what emotion or question should it convey, and how to fit into the overall narrative of the exhibition. DI offered various visual interpretations, but it was necessary to decide which of them were closer to the idea and which were further from it. Sometimes a few attempts were enough, but more complex works took more than an hour or even a day: many versions were produced, requests were rewritten, results were analyzed, errors were corrected, and details were edited. Some paintings were born from a long dialogue – constantly returning to the original idea and searching for the most accurate visual expression," P. Danielius shares the creative process.

P. Danielius' main tools during the idea development stage were the text-based AI platforms ChatGPT and Claude, and to generate images, he used ChatGPT, Grok, and Midjourney.

One of the biggest challenges in the creative process was the visual "noise" appearing in the images and the desire to convey the conceived idea as accurately as possible. According to the author, when a work must reflect a specific thought, emotional state, or symbolic connection with other works, the aesthetic result alone is not enough. It is necessary to constantly edit, remove excess elements, and return to the original idea, especially since AI models can deviate from the topic as the conversation progresses.

The value of a work is created not by technology, but by human decisions

Works created with AI tools inevitably raise questions about authorship, originality, and the role of humans in the creative process. The author responds calmly to skeptical opinions. According to him, new technologies in the field of art always attract similar discussions. Still, the technology used does not yet say anything about the work's artistic value. What is more important is how it is used in the creative process: in one case, the result can be an image generated randomly or in just a few moments; in another, the result can be the product of long thought, selection, editing, and consistent work.

"Speaking of the works in my exhibition, I would not like to judge for myself how much art they contain - let the viewers judge that. It is important for me that these works are not just beautiful pictures. Each of them has a concept, a story, an emotional charge, and often a long creative process: from the formulation of the idea to numerous tests, corrections, rejections, and selection of the final version. AI can generate an image very quickly, but this does not mean that it should automatically be considered good work. Artistic value appears when a person knows what he is looking for, can recognize what works, what does not work, and gives meaning to the result," says P. Danielius.

AI literacy is more than just the ability to create queries

According to P. Danielius, the ability to work with AI tools needs to be developed like any other skill. "Language allows us to share our imagination. Language is not just a means of communication – it is the infrastructure of thinking. The richer our language, the clearer we can name a problem or express our intention, the more precisely we will formulate a task for artificial intelligence. In the age of AI, getting an answer is becoming easier and easier. It is much harder to know what to ask, how to ask, and how to understand whether the answer received is really valuable," the lecturer is convinced.

Since modern generative AI models are controlled by language, the ability to accurately formulate thoughts and understand the structure, argumentation, and context of the text becomes an important advantage. Large language models recognize not only individual commands, but also the structure of thought, the way of reasoning, subtexts, and tone. To achieve better results, P. Danielius also advises not to limit oneself to one platform: the result generated by one model can be presented to another, which is then asked to critically evaluate it, identify weaknesses, and suggest alternatives.

The most important thing at the university is to develop critical AI management

The VU researcher claims that through self-study, one can master individual AI tools well. Still, this approach does not always pay sufficient attention to the systematic evaluation of results, ethics, risks, and the validity of the methods used. The lecturer notes that many people still use artificial intelligence only for simple tasks and do not always exploit its capabilities – AI can be used not only to generate texts or images, but also to test ideas, formulate arguments, compare scenarios, or analyze the risks of solutions.

This is where the value of the Bachelor's degree program in Language and Artificial Intellingence Management offered by the Kaunas Faculty of Vilnius University is revealed. It aims to develop the ability to strategically organize work with AI tools: to formulate tasks, critically evaluate results, recognize systematic errors, and manage emerging risks. Modern specialists need to be able to adapt to technological changes, critically evaluate their application, and constantly update their knowledge.

"In studies, the most important thing is to learn not only specific instructions on how to deal with one or another model. It is much more important to understand the field of possibilities itself: which tasks AI can help solve, which techniques work better, where errors occur, when to refine the query, and when to change the approach to the problem. Therefore, it is important to experiment, discuss, reflect on experience, and be able to evaluate the result critically," shares P. Danielius.

Future prospects of AI

When asked about the future of artificial intelligence, the VU scientist admits that it is extremely difficult to answer this question unequivocally today. In P. Danielius' opinion, artificial intelligence is not a short-term technological trend that will soon pass. In his opinion, it is one of the most significant turning points in human history – a change comparable in scale to the Industrial Revolution and, in certain respects, may even surpass it. According to the scientist, cooperation with AI systems is becoming an integral part of everyday life; the most important question today is: how will we live with it?

"Observing the development of AI, reading the publications of its creators and researchers, and listening to discussions between specialists, it is becoming increasingly clear that the greatest challenges will not only be technological. They will also be cultural, psychological, and even existential. Man will have to come to terms with the idea that intelligence is no longer his exclusive privilege – or at least that many of the abilities that we considered evidence of intelligence are no longer exclusively human territory. This can be a very unpleasant thought, because it touches on the very foundations of our self-concept: who are we if the ability to analyze, speak, and create no longer guarantees our uniqueness?" – shares P. Danielius.

This is precisely the uncomfortable question raised by the exhibition "Beyond Intelligence". In it, AI becomes a mirror that allows us to look at man himself – his search for uniqueness, responsibility for his creations, and decisions about the future.

We invite you to visit P. Danielius' exhibition "Beyond Intelligence" at the Faculty of VU Kaunas, Building III (Karaliaus Mindaugo pr. 4, Kaunas). Opening hours: Monday to Friday, from 8 AM to 6 PM.

More information about the exhibition can be found at: https://pauliusdanielius.lt.

From June 29 to July 3, Agnė Markulytė, a master’s student in Audiovisual Translation at the Kaunas Faculty of Vilnius University, participated in the University of Antwerp Children’s Literature Summer School in Belgium. Her participation in the international programme was funded by the Research Council of Lithuania (RCL), which supports Lithuanian higher education students’ participation in international summer schools, promoting international collaboration, scientific networking, and academic cooperation among young researchers.

The theme of the summer school was international perspectives on children’s literature and translation. This year’s program focused on contemporary research methods, theoretical approaches, and challenges in translation. Participants attended lectures, took part in interactive seminars, discussions, and practical workshops. The culturally diverse group of students created valuable opportunities for exchanging ideas and sharing academic experiences.

The three-year CyberAgent project, which has reached nearly half a million Europeans, announces its conclusion. The European Union-funded initiative demonstrated that cyber resilience in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) is built not only by implementing technologies but, above all, by providing necessary knowledge to the employees themselves. The training ecosystem developed during the project enabled the preparation of more than 400 internal cybersecurity change agents and achieved high women's inclusion rates.

Launched in 2023 and bringing together 8 partners from different countries, the CyberAgent project (funded by the ERASMUS-EDU-2022-PIALL-INNO program) addressed a pressing challenge: how to help SMEs protect themselves against growing digital threats. The project's answer: to train employees capable of identifying risks, sharing best practices, and shaping a secure digital culture within their organizations.

From June 10 to July 9, VU Kaunas Faculty hosted Lithuanian Language and Culture Course for international participants. The courses were attended by 12 students: four from Latvia, three from Turkey, one from Poland, one from Germany, one from Kazakhstan, and two students of Lithuanian origin from the United States. The participants studied Lithuanian with Assoc. Prof. Dr. Saulutė Juzelėnienė and Assoc. Prof. Dr. Eglė Gabrėnaitė and explored Lithuanian culture with Assoc. Prof. Dr. Rita Baranauskienė and Assoc. Prof. Dr. Saulutė Juzelėnienė.

The intensive programme combined Lithuanian language classes with cultural activities. Participants learned about Lithuania’s and Kaunas’ history, art, music, folk traditions, literature, cinema, and culinary heritage. Their interest in the courses was motivated by a desire to discover one of Europe’s oldest languages, compare it with their native languages, and learn more about the development and history of Lithuanian.

For some participants, the language classes provided an opportunity to acquire the basics of Lithuanian and communicate with teachers and fellow students using A1-level phrases by the end of the course. Others improved their existing Lithuanian skills and were able to communicate in Lithuanian during classes and excursions.

On June 19, the most important event of the academic year—a graduation ceremony—took place at the Kaunas Lutheran Holy Trinity Church. 68 bachelor’s and 49 master’s students received their diplomas at the celebration. Vilnius University bachelor’s and master’s diplomas were presented to the graduates by Vilnius University Pro-Rector for Studies Assoc. Prof. Dr. Valdas Jaskūnas and Dean of the Faculty Assoc. Prof. Dr. Giedrius Romeika.

The graduation ceremony featured an inspiring speech by Vilnius University Pro-Rector for Studies Assoc. Prof. Dr. Valdas Jaskūnas. Congratulating the graduates, the Pro-Rector emphasized that the value of the university is not limited to professional knowledge alone – it is a place where one discovers and realizes one’s true calling. V. Jaskūnas wished not to be afraid of the challenges that await in the future, to be confident in oneself and not to be afraid of changes: “The university is an immeasurable space of opportunities, which is created and changed by rebellious hopes. You need to have a very vivid imagination to call Vilnius University rebellious. Still, the paradox lies in the fact that instead of rebelling itself, it ignites rebellious hope in the heart of every student. It arises from the desire to know what is unknown, to experience what is not experienced, and to make mistakes that we will make anyway. Without it, there would be no openness to the world, to our own and others' future. However, this hope alone is not enough. It must be nurtured, transformed into a new reality, change and be changed. Therefore, use the opportunities that open up to you and be sure – you will never be ready for changes. And if you feel ready – there will be no changes.”

The guests were also congratulated by the Dean of the Vilnius University Kaunas faculty, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Giedrius Romeika. On behalf of the faculty, symbolically thanking the graduates’ family members and friends for their patience and support, he promised to return the students’ time, thoughts and emotions devoted to their studies. The dean emphasized that the VU Kaunas faculty is always open to returning: “A new stage of life begins, in which a Vilnius University diploma opens many new doors all over the world. And even though the world is getting wider, I just want to remind you of one thing – you are always welcome in our common academic home.”