„Europos Bures“ („European sails“) awards ceremony took place on January the 30th in Vilnius. These Awards, hosted by the Lithuanian Ministry of Finance, are given to Lithuanian projects which make the best use of European Social Funds.

129 ESF projects were given to the jury of specialist from the ESF and various other organizations. They selected 27 of them to be nominated in 9 different categories, and the public voted on the website delfi.lt to determine the final winners in each category.
Three projects competed in the “Most effective communication” category, but project “Study in Lithuania” came ahead as a winner. This project, administered by the Education Exchanges Support Foundation, aims to increase the internationalization of higher education in Lithuania and to attract foreign students to Lithuanian Universities and Colleges.

Director of Education Exchanges Support Foundation Ms. Daiva Sutinyte was happy about the award: “The recognition of our work at the Foundation is important for us. We get a lot of good feedback about this project from our partners – Lithuanian Higher Education institutions – they feel the direct benefit of our efforts. This award proves that our team is truly mature and professional”.

Few of the best seen results of “Study in Lithuania” are this unified national website and our video clip, already nominated as the best image film of 2013 in the Digital Communication Awards). These and other measures positively influence the number of foreign students in Lithuania, which grew by 12% last year from 3798 to 4284 students.