Institute’s strategic priority actions in the period of 2017-2021 will be mainly implemented by the long term SR&ED academic research programmes, prepared and approved with regard to the tendencies of the international and Lithuanian scientific, social and cultural developments and the needs for Lithuanian literature, folklore and mythology research of the Lithuanian society, international academia, institute’s cultural and social partners. Since 2017, four new long-term institutional SR&ED (Scientific Research and Experimental Development) Programmes (2017–2021), approved by the decree of the Minister of the Education and Science of the Republic of Lithuania of 24 April 2017 No. V-273 have been carried out:

SR&ED programmes:

1. THE LITERARY CANON OF MODERN LITHUANIA

2. RESEARCH ON LITHUANIAN FOLKLORE, MYTHOLOGY AND CONTEMPORARY FOLKLORE PROCESSES

3. LITERATURE AS WITNESS TO SOCIALITY: AESTHETICS, MEMORY AND MENTALITY IN THE LATE SOVIET PERIOD AND THE EARLY TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY

4. FUNDAMENTAL RESEARCH ON THE WRITINGS OF EARLY LITHUANIA AND PRUSSIA

These SR&ED programmes are based on fundamental long-term research of academic groups, include a variety of publications of research results and source materials, academic research visits, international conferences and social publicity actions, and are prioritized in the Institute’s activities. In addition to these SR&ED programmes, a specific long term comparative research programme “Baltic Comparative Literature: Typological Aspects” (Department of Modern Literature, head of the programme dr. Vigmantas Butkus) has been continued since 2012 (see detailed description at http://www.llti.lt/lt/programos/). It’s research activities are particularly focused on continuous international academic cooperation in the Baltic region, and related to the EU funded academic mobility project “Lithuanian Academic Scheme for International Cooperation in Baltic Studies” (2017–2023), carried out in partnership with Vilnius University and the University of Vytautas Magnus in Kaunas.

In addition, the Institute pursues numerous projects to concentrate and activate research in the theoretical and interdisciplinary fields represented and developed by the Institute’s scholars. These projects are mainly financed via grants from the Lithuanian Research Council, Lithuanian Council of Culture, EU funding and other financing bodies. The main fields of the projects include:

1) social and cultural studies of literature (e.g. cultural identity and gender studies, memory studies, literary sociology, geocriticism and ecocriticism, literature and cultural psychology);

2) contemporary literary hermeneutics and phenomenology;

3) literary and folk anthropology (e.g. the theoretical concept of indigenous/inherited culture studies, developed in the annual seminars and conferences since 2011);

4) digital textology and digital archives: contemporary theoretical and practical competence related to institute's function as the major archival and academic publishing centre.

Regarding the comparative literary studies, in addition to continuation of the Baltic Comparative Literature programme, further projects in the field of Central and East European literary studies and Jewish studies are planned, among them: comparative research on the formation of the Central and East European modern literary canons; comparative Jewish, Lithuanian and Polish literary geography; Lithuanian Holocaust literature studies and source publishing etc.

In addition to academic research activities, the Institute of Lithuanian Literature and Folklore carries a threefold mission of a cultural memory institution, a major centre for literary criticism, and a competence centre for literary education.

Therefore, it’s long term activities are also concentrated in these three main directions:

1) the critical analysis of contemporary Lithuanian literary process, the critical evaluation of new literary works in the media and public sphere, and the international representation of Lithuanian literature and folklore;

2) the research dedicated to public cultural commemoration (e.g. the national commemoration programs, anniversaries of literary classics, the expertise on problematic issues of Lithuanian cultural memory, esp. Wold War II and Soviet period, etc.);

3) the literary education programs, methodologies, textbooks, sources and expertise for the Lithuania’s secondary and higher education system.