Trends in the Applied Profiling of Research Institutes in Vilnius in 1945–1965

Based on archival documents and published sources, the article attempts to identify and evaluate the main features of the process of establishing applied research institutes and organising their activities in Vilnius during the first two postwar decades. This period marked the formation of the institutes’ organisational structure and formulation of the main directions of their activities. The developments of this period in the history of the research institutes can be attributed primarily to the efforts of the academic community in Vilnius to mobilise the scientific potential that had survived the postwar years and to plan research that was more relevant to the Lithuanian context at a time of strict Soviet ideologisation and regulation of activities. In postwar Vilnius, applied research and studies were first initiated at the institutes of the then Health Commissariat. The postwar situation also meant that the research institutes established in Vilnius under the Academy of Sciences focused on applied and natural sciences. The structure and specialisation of these institutions was based on the organisational model of the Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union. However, the aim in Lithuania was to align research as much as possible to the needs of the region and to upgrade the qualifications of young Lithuanian scientists. The sources and published data discussed in this article reveal that the further specialisation of the main applied and theoretical research areas, pursued at the institutes of the Academy of Sciences, took place between 1956 and 1965.