European Commission has awarded Erasmus Charter to Kazimieras Simonavičius University for a new Erasmus+ programme period (2021-2027). We welcome the opportunities offered by this charter to participate in academic exchanges of Erasmus students and teachers, as well as in international projects that develop various intellectual outputs, exchange good practices and strengthen cooperation with foreign universities.
Education Exchanges Support Foundation is opening a Call for applications for 70 Lithuanian state scholarships for full-time Master’s degree or integrated studies (a part which is equal to Master’s degree studies) at Lithuanian higher education institutions for the year 2021. Funding under the Call will be provided to the citizens of Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, China, Georgia, Israel, Japan, South Korea, Moldova Ukraine and foreigners of Lithuanian origin from non-EU and EFTA countries:
• A monthly scholarship and a grant covering the study cost is offered to citizens of:
Ukraine (30 grants);
Belarus (20 grants);
Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, foreign citizens of Lithuanian origin, Moldova, (15 grants altogether);
• A monthly scholarship is offered to citizens of China, Israel, Japan, South Korea (5 grants altogether).
More information: https://bit.ly/3rFCrOA
The early admission to undergraduate and graduate programmes at Kazimieras Simonavicius university has started. The sooner you apply, the faster we can give you an admission decision. So get started right away! Before you begin your application, please select the study programme:
Bachelor studies:
Master studies:
If you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact us by e-mail: admission@ksu.lt
This week, a new lecturer, Simonas Bartkus, will join the team of lecturers of the Aviation Management study program at the Kazimieras Simonavičius University Business School, who will teach a subject related to commercial aviation activities.
Mr. Simonas Bartkus is an airline industry professional with 12+ years of experience in airlines, airports, and consulting businesses. He served as Marketing Department Director for Small Planet Airline, Chief Commercial Officer for Lithuanian start-up carrier Air Lituanica and for Vilnius International Airport.
Areas of expertise:
“We are glad and proud that the team of lecturers in Aviation Management study program at Kazimieras Simonavičius University is growing every semester with excellent, and well-known not only foreign but also Lithuanian aviation experts. This allows ensuring the exceptional quality of the modules taught in the study program and at the same time to raise the ranks of the aviation community”. said Deimantė Žilinskienė, Director of KSU Business School.
The International Compliance Association (ICA), the leading professional body for the global regulatory and financial crime compliance community, has partnered with the Kazimieras Simonavičius University (KSU) in Lithuania to offer ICA’s full suite of professional qualifications, including courses in anti money laundering (AML), financial crime prevention, and customer due diligence among others.
Lithuania was one of the countries at the centre of the Nordic banks’ money laundering case1, and has recently embarked on an effort to raise AML standards, including plans to establish an anti money laundering competence center supported by the Central Bank of Lithuania and commercial banks. The ICA-KSU partnership arrives just at the right time, helping to reinforce government efforts to combat money laundering and raise compliance standards in line with global best practice.
Undertaken by over 150,000 professionals globally, ICA qualifications are designed to equip industry professionals with the knowledge, skills and behaviour they need to mitigate and detect financial crime risk more effectively, combining global best practice, case studies, and practical skills. This new partnership will allow compliance and AML professionals at all levels in Lithuania to join this growing community of changemakers.
ICA President Bill Howarth commented: ‘We’re pleased to partner with KSU and combine ICA’s nearly two decades of experience delivering high quality compliance and financial crime prevention education globally with KSU’s established reputation in the region, great professionalism and strong commitment to innovation and excellence. I look forward to working closely together to develop best practice risk managementand equip individuals, government institutions and firms with the right knowledge and skills they need to combat financial crime in Lithuania.’
KSU Chancellor Darius Verbyla commented: ‘With ever-tightening compliance, and in particular anti-money laundering regulations, and changing attitudes towards these crimes, many companies must constantly train and retrain their staff. We are very pleased to be able to provide much-needed compliance training of the highest quality to the Lithuanian financial sector in cooperation with ICA. KSU will offer all range of ICA courses, from introductory level to diploma level courses on anti-money laundering (AML), financial crime prevention, governance, risk and compliance topics so there is something for everyone.
To view the full suite of qualifications, visit: https://www.int-comp.org/course-finder/
About the International Compliance Association
The International Compliance Association is the leading professional body for the global regulatory and financial crime compliance community. Since 2001, it has enhanced the knowledge, skills and behaviour of over 150,000 professionals all over the world either through their internationally-recognised portfolio of professional qualifications (awarded in association with Alliance Manchester Business School, the University of Manchester) or through accredited in-company training.
For more information visit: www.int-comp.org
World-renowned IATA training, known for its high-quality standards, will soon become available for Lithuanian aviation specialists as the International Air Transport Association (IATA) recognises the experience of Kazimieras Simonavičius University (KSU) and its ability to ensure high quality studies, acknowledging KSU as an authorised IATA training centre and granting it the right to organise three accredited courses.
“We are glad to have joined the worldwide aviation and tourism industry organisation IATA, becoming the only authorised IATA training centre in the Baltic States. This is excellent proof that studies organised at KSU and both the experience and resources we hold in performing aviation training is viewed as matching IATA’s global standards and values,” KSU Business School director Deimantė Žilinskienė stated.
According to D. Žilinskienė, KSU is the only university in Lithuania to organise aviation management bachelor’s studies training highly qualified aviation management specialists, and IATA courses will be integrated into the aviation management studies from 2020. Alongside its IATA accredited instructors, KSU will run three authorised courses: Aviation Security Awareness, Cargo Introductory Course and Airline Revenue Management. Individuals who successfully complete the selected modules will be awarded a special IATA certificate, which is recognised around the world.
The IATA training will be available not only to KSU Aviation Management Studies Programme students but also to all those working in the aviation and tourism industries, who seek to improve and obtain this prestigious training certificate.
About KSU
Kazimieras Simonavičius University (KSU) was founded in 2003 as a private higher education institution with departments in Vilnius and Klaipėda. The studies offered encompass the main areas of social science – business and management, public administration, law, communications, political science and various training courses. KSU also organises academic research on the topic of big data.
About IATA
The International Air Transport Association (IATA) unites 290 airlines, which encompass 93 per cent scheduled international air traffic. Currently, IATA operates in 150 countries around the world.
Please be informed that contact activities at Kazimieras Simonavičius University are suspended from 2020 November 3th for the prevention of Coronavirus (COVID-19).
The educational process will continue in a virtual (online) way. Students and lecturers will be informed about the online studies by e-mail.
KSU students (including international students) and staff returned from COVID-19 affected countries, have to spend 14 days on quarantine. International students have to inform International Coordinator about their return and quarantine.
Self-isolation is mandatory upon your arrival from red painted countries: https://bit.ly/3o22rSR
For more information, news and recommendation, please visit World Health Organization website: https://bit.ly/398tvIq
An innovative course titled „Development of Sustainable Aviation” was developed in a partnership of three organizations (from Poland, Lithuania and Latvia). The course includes topics related to a new conceptual model of responsible and conscious aviation that sees its development in line with the interests of the social and natural environment and takes into account existing ecological barriers and expectations of the society.
The main objective of the project „Spread your wings” was to increase the quality and relevance of knowledge and skills of bachelor and master degree Aviation Management and related disciplines students’ in response to the needs of the labour market and the socio-economic environment.
During the project the following results were achieved:
More information on the project’s results is available here.
The project was financed by Erasmus+ programme. Project No. 2017-1-PL01-KA203-038782.
The tourism and hospitality industry is counting month six of the greatest crisis in the history of professional tourism. The World Tourism Organisation has been amending data, stating that unemployment in the tourism sector at the global level will no longer reach the previously predicted 100 million, but 120 million lost jobs, and that now is the time to think about how tourism can prepare for the recovery stage. At the same time, the International Air Traffic Association (IATA) has reported that the transition from 2023 to 2024 could mark a miracle when international aviation returns to around the same flight regime that was seen up until 2019.
We spoke about the challenges tourism is faced with and prospects for the coming few years with long time tourism businesswoman, Kazimieras Simonavičius, and University senior researcher docent Dr Rasa Levickaitė.
We know that tourism is one of the industries most harmed by the COVID-19 pandemic. Could you briefly overview the core issues?
I believe that the freeze in the tourism industry that was caused by the pandemic is fundamentally related to three critical factors – the collapse of modes of operation, world-level uncertainty, and loss of communications. However, we must not forget that crises are also historic opportunities, which I believe will divert tourism in specifically the direction of innovation.
Could you present a broader overview of these factors?
Firstly, tourism subjects have for the first time in history been met with the collapse of operational models of an unpredictable scale. The existing business models, the consolidated service activities, supply chains, partnership networks developed over decades, improved physical customer service forms and electronic sales platforms were created for mono-directional tourism service provision movement. Due to the pandemic, this movement was reversed, and so the business models that proved effective prior to the pandemic proceeded to fall apart. In essence, tourism has historically been a business of advance payments and so, a global debt chain emerged immediately, with its structure being a difficult task to overcome for both affected customers, and governments seeking solutions.
Second, the tourism subjects cannot secure incomes in the face of the lockdown and emergency situation, and are struggling with global uncertainty. Countries maintained differing lockdown restrictions, apply varying infection rate indicators, and policies of movement between countries and self-isolation. The rules change too frequently for it to be possible to plan even a month ahead. Organisations have been encouraging their staff to work remotely and only travel in exceptional cases, and local tourism has been shattering records, but not all countries’ infrastructures and consumer expectations match. Due to this, the World Tourism Organisation announced that in 2020, international tourism will have fallen by 78 per cent by the end of the year.
Third, the tourism industry, both at the micro and macro levels, will always be based on the importance of communicating. The practice of communicating simply vanished within a few weeks into the pandemic. The internal communications of organisations cooled off or ceased, which can be blamed on the stress of company leadership, and the diverting of priorities to urgent activities. Communication between partners weakened to the point where some businesses even didn’t indicate to other businesses or long term partners that they would be halting operations for half a year. And when finally, at the level of some states, tourism became a demonised industry overnight, one that supposedly not only boosted the spread of the pandemic, but also appropriated the consumers’ money.
So what do you predict for the tourism industry?
Academics and businessmen concur that tourism will no longer be as it was. However, radically diverging forecasts are being employed to model the future – some say that travel will be rare, slow, deep and, without a doubt, more expensive. Others believe that a pause of a few years when we will have travelled all across our own countries will grant travellers an unquenchable desire to see as much as possible and so the intensity of tourism and the demand for experiences and entertainment will jump well above the pre-pandemic period.
Scientists are studying the pandemic’s impact on tourism, but at a practical level, would you advise to choose tourism studies if the situation is so difficult right now?
The Lithuanian research and study programme creator community has spoken up about future scenarios and how to adequately prepare for them. For example, this year, the Kazimieras Simonavičius University Institute of Creative Society and Economics‘ Leisure and Tourism Industry bachelor‘s study programme is running in parallel with new views dictated by the pandemic. Alongside academic communications theory and business management disciplines, a cycle of lectures is being included with Lithuanian, Chinese, Italian, American and Finnish leisure and tourism industry researchers. Furthermore, businesspeople; airline, hotel, travel organiser and hospitality sector representatives will share news, novelties and concrete knowledge, which will lay down a foundation of practical understanding, as well as prospects for the students and academic community to model the near future of tourism. In response to the freeze in tourism and the uncertainty felt by those applying, application to this programme has been extended to September 30, with an exceptional opportunity offered by lecturers to catch up on the lectures missed in September.
What do you imagine the future of tourism will be like?
It is difficult to present a single accurate answer right now on what will be, and what would be best. It is premature to discuss, but systematic preparations are needed, new scenarios must be envisioned. The renaissance of tourism is inevitably nearing and in a few years, we will need new modes of operation once again, new competencies, new forms of communication. And so we should begin to oil our skis in the summer and appropriately prepare for the near and very interesting future of the tourism industry.
From now on, the quality of studies at Kazimieras Simonavičius University will be supervised by the newly established Quality Management and Analysis Department, headed by Agnė Bružaitė as the director of the department.
The new Department will supervise the study quality, including gains in both cognitive and non-cognitive aspects of learning, carry out analysis and improvements of study programs, their committees, research processes, monitor graduate’s careers, and employment, introduce new technological knowledge into the study process, etc. The Quality Management and Analysis Division will also be responsible for coordinating curriculum development, self-assessment, and accreditation.
“Quality assurance and continuous improvement of studies and research are one of the main priorities of KSU. Taking into account the consistent growth and development of the university academic activities, the newly established Quality Management and Analysis Department will help to monitor, analyze and ensure the quality supervision of studies and other activities and promote its improvement: implement the new, modern study and research methods, technological knowledge, innovations, the latest technology. I believe that this department will help to maintain and further develop the progressive cooperation between the University’s academic departments, the academic community, and social stakeholders”, said Agnė Bružaitė, Director of Quality Management and Analysis Department.
We kindly invite you to participate in the Bachelor’s and Master’s degree awarding ceremony of Kazimieras Simonavičius University (KSU), which will take place on 3rd of July at 1 p.m. at the University (Dariaus ir Girėno st. 21, Vilnius).
During the ceremony, degrees will be awarded to graduates of the bachelor’s programs in Creative and Cultural Industries, Fashion Industries, Aviation Management, Political Communication and Journalism.
Master’s degrees will be awarded to graduates of the Law and Organizational Innovation and Management programs.
We recommend KSU graduates to arrive an hour in advance so that you can dress up in an academic gown, sign the diploma register, and sit comfortably in the 1st-floor hall.
More information about the Gown: studijos@ksu.lt
Attention: guests will be able to park their cars on Dariaus ir Girėno str. 25 in the parking lot.
Kazimieras Simonavičius University (KSU) in cooperation with the Civil Aviation Association (CAVIA) and the International Air Transport Association (IATA), is organizing an open webinar and panel discussion “Restart of Aviation Industry: How We Do it in Lithuania?”.
Moderator – Artūras Stankevičius, President of the Civil Aviation Association (CAVIA).
The webinar will be held online on June 4th at 10 a.m., on the Zoom platform.
During the webinar-panel discussion, the speakers will share good practices and their insights on:
Webinar Speakers
Programme:
10:00-10:05
Opening Word
Artūras Stankevičius, President of CAVIA Lithuania.
10:05-10:20
A Roadmap to Safely Restarting Aviation
Ioannis Mavroeidis, Aviation Industry Analyst, Nordic and Baltic at International Air Transport Association (IATA)
10:20-10:35
A Roadmap to Safely Restarting Aviation
Catrin Mattsson, Area Manager, Nordic and Baltic at International Air Transport Association (IATA)
10:35-10:50
A Green Recovery for the Aviation Industry.
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Anil Padhra, Visiting professor of the International Aviation and Aviation Finance modules of the KSU Aviation Management Bachelor’s study programme.
10:50-11:05
We Took Off for the Recovery But It Will Not Be Steep: COVID-19 Impact for Fleets and Capacities
Simonas Bartkus, CMO (Chief Marketing Officer), “ch-aviation”.
11:05-11:20
Importance of Dialog with the Key Stakeholders for Successful Re-start
Arijandas Šliupas, Chairman of the Board of Lithuanian Airports.
11: 20-11: 50
Panel Discussion
Moderator – Artūras Stankevičius, President of CAVIA Lithuania
Registration is open up here until June 3rd at 9 p.m.
Participation is free of charge, but registration is required.
