RTU Council nominates two candidates to the rector’s position – RTU Vice-Rector for Research Tālis Juhna and Director of RTU Riga Business School Jānis Grēviņš

12th of January, 2023
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RTU Council has nominated two candidates to the position of RTU Rector – RTU Vice-Rector for Research, Academician Tālis Juhna (first from the left) and Director of RTU Riga Business School Jānis Grēviņš. Photo: Elīna Karaseva, RTU

The Council of Riga Technical University (RTU) has selected the best candidates for the rector’s position and nominated RTU Vice-Rector for Research, Academician Tālis Juhna and Director of RTU Riga Business School Jānis Grēviņš to the position of the Rector for election at the meeting of RTU Constitutional Assembly. It is planned that the election of the new rector will take place in February, but until then the candidates will have to present their vision of RTU development to RTU family.

The Council has selected candidates who could continue the strategic development initiated by RTU, ensuring quality education, excellence in research and cooperation with industry. “RTU has already done a lot – the study and research infrastructure has been developed at the campus in Ķīpsala, the study and research process is being strengthened, investments are being made in attracting young scientists, in promoting pupils’ interest in engineering and natural science studies. But we as the Council consider that RTU should have even greater ambitions – with a new breath, everything that has already been well started should be continued and new horizons should be reached, for example, moving toward the goal of entering the top 500 universities in the international ranking, as well as strengthening ties with industry, which is very important for RTU as a research university,” says Chair of RTU Council Andris Vanags.

He believes that one of the main challenges of the new rector will be to attract funding because RTU, as an engineering university, is able to successfully cooperate with industry, both by fulfilling its orders and by developing innovations, which is one of the factors of successful development and financial attraction opportunities of RTU and Latvia. Currently, RTU is successfully working in the creation of innovations, supporting the efforts of both scientists and students in this field, and together with the Ministry of Economics, it forms the Regional Innovation Partnership, drawing up proposals on how to develop innovations in Latvia, especially in green technologies and digital management, where RTU scientists already have significant performance indicators – new products and prototypes have been created. The Council believes that what has been started should be continued and it is necesary to achieve even more, and it will be the task of the new RTU Rector.

J. Grēviņš and T. Juhna have been chosen from three candidates whom RTU Council got to know after a careful selection process. In total, nine candidates applied for RTU rector’s position, but the strongest candidates were identified during the evaluation process, in which both the recruitment company “Eiro Personāls” and the Nomination Commission established by RTU Council participated.

Before election at the meeting of the Constitutional Assembly, the candidates selected by the Council will have to demonstrate their strategic vision of RTU development in public debates to RTU organisational units, as well as in the final discussion at the open meeting of RTU Constitutional Assembly. According to current plans, new RTU Rector should be elected by February 24.

RTU is a modern, internationally recognised and prestigious university. It is the only multidisciplinary technical university in Latvia. At RTU nine faculties, it is possible to acquire versatile education in high technologies and engineering sciences, as well as in social sciences and humanities.

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12th of January, 2023 at 15:56

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