„Celebration of legal thought 2022“
Project title: „Celebration of legal thought 2022”.
Project duration: from 2022-01-01 to 2022-06-30
Project manager: prof. dr. Eglė Bilevičiūtė
Summary: The development of students’ scientific competences at Mykolas Romeris University (hereinafter – MRU) Law School, as well as at other national universities and their academic departments, has been a subject of great debate for some time. Today’s student is an active person who seeks quick results and, unfortunately, often faces challenges when it comes to the preparation of a scientific research paper, which requires consistency, high concentration, patience and academic writing skills. MRU School of Law fromlat seeks ways to improve the quality of final theses, to strengthen students’ academic writing skills and to develop personalities that not only have a high potential to succeed in the legal labour market, but also are motivated and empowered to pursue a career in academia. The involvement of students in scholarly activities is also an important criterion in MRU’s internal and external performance evaluations, which MRU Law School strives to meet. Furthermore, the development of scientific competences is seen as a means of reducing the number of students who drop out or withdraw in the last year of their studies.
The MRU School of Law (formerly the Faculty of Law) has a long tradition of fostering student research activities. In 2000, the “Celebration of Legal Thought” was started, but unfortunately discontinued in 2016, as a way for students to prepare scientific publications and present them during the event. The main organiser of the first Legal Thought Festival in 2000 was the then newly established Student Scientific Society of the Lithuanian University of Law, which united all the various previously established scientific groups. The very first student-organised Legal Thought Festival 2000 became an international event. Guests from Ukrainian and Belarusian universities took part in the first edition of the event and gave presentations. More than 80 presentations were given at the first edition of the “Legal Thought Festival”. The second Legal Thought Festival took place in 2001. 70 papers were read at this event. Representatives of three foreign countries – Poland, Ukraine and Germany – already gave presentations. The beautiful tradition of student scientific events continued in 2016. A series of activities is being promoted for the development of students’ scientific competences and the discovery and use of their scientific potential, including various lectures, discussions, workshops, interaction with experienced scientists, mentoring, preparation and publication of scientific papers, their presentation at the event, and their participation in the graduation celebration. The skills acquired through these activities should not only be of substantial help to students in the preparation of their written and thesis work during their studies, but should also be useful in their daily work as a lawyer, which involves the preparation of a large number of legal documents requiring high literacy, preparation and analytical skills, and should also inspire students with the highest potential to pursue a career as a researcher and an academic career.
The project was funded by the state budget under the Ministry of Education, Science and Sport of the Republic of Lithuania’s call for support for civic, scientific, entrepreneurial, creative and sporting student initiatives.