university different from other schools of higher education in the country. During the university's first decade the number of students and teachers grew more than twenty times. It has become the center for academic work in the Humanities and Social Sciences, Theology and Fine Arts, Political Sciences and Law in Kaunas. Modern programs have been expanding in Informatics, Environmental Sciences, Biology, Mathematics and Physics. Master's and Doctoral studies became a priority at the university and demanded a pedagogical staff with high qualifications. Therefore, the university invited to its classrooms and laboratories the most celebrated of scholars from Lithuania's research institutes, creating in 1993 the first Research and Study Association in Lithuania. Ten Lithuanian research institutes formed this association together with the university: the Institutes for Lithuanian History, Lithuanian Language, Lithuanian Literature and Folklore, Lithuanian Philosophy and Sociology, biochemistry, Mathematics and Informatics, Semiconductor Physics, Psychophysiology and Rehabilitation, Architecture and Civil Engineering, and Lithuanian Forestry. The university has the right to grant doctoral degrees in nineteen scholarly fields and their branches and the Doctor Habilitus in eight fields. The pedagogical titles of professor and associate professor may be granted in the fields of Humanities, Social Sciences, Physics and Biomedicine. Structure There are 13 academic divisions (of them 10 faculties): Ranking Vytautas Magnus University is currently ranked 801-1000 among World top universities by 2020 QS World University Rankings. International relations The university has ties with numerous universities of North America and Europe, as well as East Asia. Special student and teacher exchange programs have been set up with the following universities: In Europe: University of Bergen (Norway), ADA University (Azerbaijan), Roskilde (Denmark), Göteborg, Linköping and Växjö (Sweden), Greifswald, Hohenheim, Zittau/Görlitz (Germany), Poitiers, Du Maine, Pierre et Marie Curie University (France), UBS Vannes (France), Bologna, Parma, SDA Bocconi, University of Cagliari, University of Urbino (Italy), Aveiro (Portugal), University of Torun (Poland) and Tbilisi State University (Georgia); In the United States: Alabama, Fordham, Creighton, Loyola, Seton Hall universities; In East Asia: Kansai Gaidai, Akita International University, Waseda and the International Christian University (Japan), Kyung Hee University, Chung-Ang University, and Kangwon National University (South Korea). A program in Baltic Studies for foreign students was initiated at the university in 1997. Club activities Questions concerning students' academic, social and cultural rights are resolved through the Student Council. About thirty student corporations and clubs are active in the university. The university's artistic groups – the Women's Chamber Choir,