Prior to starting a career at the Chancellery of the Government of Lithuania, Assoc. Prof. Bieliauskaitė taught and conducted research at the Mykolas Romeris University. She is also serving as Head of the Lithuanian Section of the International Association for Philosophy of Law and Social Philosophy. Assoc. Prof. Bieliauskaitė defended her Ph.D. in Law at the Mykolas Romeris University in 2011. In addition to Lithuanian, she speaks English, German, and Russian.
Rector Prof. Sergei Ignatov says: “I am glad to welcome Assoc. Prof. Jolanta Bieliauskaitė at our University. I am sure that her leadership at the Department will not only ensure the fulfillment of the objectives of the Strategy 2019-2024 but also fostering a closer integration into the Lithuanian education environment and intensifying cooperation with partners of EHU in Lithuania”.
“European Humanities University is a unique University in the Lithuanian system of higher education, I see a huge potential in it. Thus I am happy to have an opportunity to become a part of the EHU team, implementing University mission and seeking strategic objectives”, says Assoc. Prof. Bieliauskaitė.
According to Prof. Emeritus Ryhor Miniankou: “The Department of Social Sciences represents a very complex, multidisciplinary and very promising academic unit. The last two years have been a period of formation of the Department as a single, internally and organically interconnected unit. In my opinion, we managed to solve the problems of the transition period. Now the Department is entering a new stage of development, the main task of which, I believe, is to maximize its potential. I welcome the arrival of Assoc. Prof. Jolanta Bieliauskaitė and I wish her the greatest success in solving the indicated and other tasks. Here, it will be very important to rely on the potential of existing faculty, which, I believe, is unique in terms of its experience, competencies, and prospects. Obviously, the arrival of new people together with the new leader, including those closely associated with the Lithuanian academic community, will only strengthen the study programs and allow the successful development of joint study programs, which the Department already has experience with. In addition to attracting more attention in the region to the existing programs of the Department, it is important to propose new projects, primarily interdisciplinary ones. We have just begun these steps, the potential here is tremendous, and it seems to me that it is precisely such projects that can especially clearly represent the uniqueness of the Department”.
Starting from October, Prof. Emeritus Ryhor Miniankou, who led the Department of Social Sciences since June 2017, will lead the new unit of the University — Research Publications Center. It is expected that on September 11 the Governing Board will make a decision on the establishment of the Center.
“I want to express sincere gratitude to Prof. Emeritus Ryhor Miniankou for his substantial input for the development of the Department of Social Sciences. His years-long experience will be particularly demanded to strengthen the research capacity of EHU, thus Prof. Emeritus Miniankou was invited to lead the new Research Publications Center”, adds Rector Prof. Ignatov.
Addressing future plans of the Center, Prof. Emeritus Miniankou stresses: “The creation of the Research Publications Center is a very important step in fostering efficiency of the implementation of the Strategy’s objectives as well as Research and Art Activities Strategy, including, above all, its priorities and directions. In the near future, it is necessary to develop and update documents regulating the implementation of editorial and publishing projects, and, most importantly, together with all academic units of the University, to develop and to submit to the Senate and the Rector realistic annual and long-term plans for the production of EHU publications. An important step should also be the creation of the expert body on publishing”.
Undegraduate, graduate and integrated study programs in fields of communications, poltiical sciences, sociology and law are run by the Department of Social Sciences.
In addition, to study programs, the Department hosts research centers and laboratories: Center for Gender Studies, Laboratory of Critical Urbanism, Laboratory of Visual Culture and Contemporary Art Studies, Center for the Philosophical Anthropology Studies and Center of Constitutionalism and Human Rights.