1. Arūnas Germanavičius, MD, PhD is graduated in 1994 from Vilnius university (Lithuania), and has been
trained as adult psychiatrist, and was shortly working as resident in clinics in Greifswald (Germany) and
Zuerich (Switzerland). Dr.Germanavičius has 18 years of experience in clinical psychiatry, research and
training of professionals in mental health. The main research areas focus on the development and evaluation
of community-based services for people with severe mental illness, psychosocial rehabilitation, social
psychiatry, suicide prevention, human rights and stigma due to mental disorders. He has worked on
numerous regional projects in Central and Eastern Europe, combining clinical psychiatry expertise with
experience in human rights monitoring, stigma evaluation and setting-up destigmatisation activities. Since
2004 the research group at Vilnius university Faculty of Medicine has been led by Dr.Germanavičius and it
has been involved in regional projects (in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Kaliningrad region (Russia)), as
well as into 7 European Union research projects on mental health (project acronyms: EMILIA, POMONA-2,
HELPS, ITHACA, INDIGO, ASPEN, SUPREME). In 2013 dr.Germanavičius held training programme
“Mental health and media: what we can do for diminishing public stigma?" in Baku (Azerbaijan) for local
journalists. In 2015 he co-authored and delivered training programme on behalf of the Council of Europe for
Georgian psychiatrists on human rights in psychiatry and UN CRPD “Introduction to human rights
monitoring in mental health services”.
After in 2001 Arūnas defended sucessfully his PhD on "Prognostic variables of treatment of depression
among females" in Faculty of Medicine, Vilnius university, he established first community centre for
psychosocial rehabilitation for people with severe mental illness - "Vilnius centre for psychosocial
rehabilitation" (Vilniaus Psichosocialines reabilitacijos centras, www.protnamis.lt) that provides psychiatric
rehabilitation for people with schizophrenia, psychoses, bipolar illness and other severe mental illness in
community free of charge. This centre currently acts as an expert centre in Lithuania for implementing
community based psychosocial interventions.
Since 2005 dr.Germanavičius was involved into research group led by prof. D.Puras, aiming to assess mental
health care reforms; consequently 2007-2011 he was a member of various research and implementation ad
hoc groups at the Ministry of Health and National Parliament (Seimas) for mental health care.
Dr.Germanavičius is one of the authors of the National Strategy on Mental Health, adopted by Lithuanian
Parliament in 2007, and later he co-authored several laws and guidelines in mental health.
Dr.Germanavičius is co-author of 3 textbooks and more than 30 research articles, two of them were awarded
by international gremiums (in 2011 and 2012).
Arūnas knows EU Agenda on mental health very well. In 2008 he participated in final high level Conference
in Brussells, where "Pact on Wellbeing and Mental Health" was adopted. Since then he is among people who
support WHO and EU policies on mental health in Lithuania and other countries in a wider region of Central
and Eastern Europe. In 2013 he was international scientific committee member of experts conference in the
frame of Lithuania's Presidency in European Council "Mental Health: Challenges and Possibilities" (10-11
October, 2013, Vilnius), and also has contributed to EU member states Chief Medical Officers meeting in
Vilnius.
Since 2009 dr.Germanavičius is member of international committee on history of psychiatry at World
Federation of Societies of Biological Psychiatry, and member of the Working Group in the History of
Medicine at the Oxford Brooks university (UK). He is currently also the president of the “Lithuanian
Association of Psychosocial rehabilitation” and member of Lithuanian Association of Psychiatrists.
Dr.Germanavičius is an Executive Board member of ENMESH (European Network for Mental Health
Service Evaluation: www.enmesh.eu) and member of European network on Training, Evaluation and
Research (ENTER: www.entermentalhealth.net). 2009-2010 dr.Germanavičius was academic advisor and
mentor for US Fullbright scholar academic Ramon Pebenito Jr, who has performed comparative analysis of
Lithuania’s national mental health policy. Dr.Germanavičius is a peer reviewer for multiple major psychiatric
journals and is an associate editor to the Nordic Journal of Psychiatry.
Dr. Germanavičius is currently on the Faculty of Medicine, Vilnius university as full time Professor of
Psychiatry. He lives in Vilnius with his wife Gabriele and 4 children.
Arūnas Germanavičius, Professor, MD, PhD
Vasaros str. 5, Vilnius, LT-10309
Clinic of Psychiatry / Psichiatrijos klinika
Faculty of Medicine / Medicinos fakultetas
Vilnius university / Vilniaus universitetas
Lithuania / Lietuva
dr.germanavicius@gmail.com; Phone: +370-698-06866