What was your path to the Faculty of Forest and Environmental Sciences?

It has been an interesting path. Looking at the roots of my family tree, one branch is right here in Zaļenieki, the other near Kuldīga. During my childhood summers I spent one month in Zemgale, where I experienced a real country farmstead at my godfather's place, with pigs, rabbits, hens, cows, long rows of sugar beet, haymaking and so on — wonderful memories — while over in the Kuldīga area there was work in the garden, fishing and swimming in the Venta and in Lake Nabe with my grandparents. I lived in Riga for a while myself, and now I live in Garkalne, right beside the nature reserve where the European rollers live.

Speaking about my working life, I can say that I am a third-generation academic. My grandmother was a historian and worked at the University of Latvia; my father, Prof. Ainārs Paeglītis, worked in and headed the Department of Roads and Bridges at RTU for several decades (I should certainly add that he lectured on bridges right here in Jelgava, at what was then the Latvia University of Agriculture); and my mother defended her doctorate in infectious diseases at Stradiņš.

I originally wanted to study architecture, but I fell a couple of places short of the cut-off, so I went into civil engineering, where I earned my bachelor's degree, and then in my master's studies I ended up with roads and bridges. I also obtained a doctorate in engineering sciences at RTU. Alongside my studies, while still a master's student, I began lecturing as a research assistant. The core course I teach is soil mechanics, but I have also taught courses on timber and reinforced concrete structures. It seems incredible, but when I count it up, this was the eighteenth time I have welcomed the first of September with students!

Alongside my academic work I have worked in industry; after receiving my engineering degree and gaining experience on various projects, I became a certified civil engineer — a bridge designer. Since 2013 I have worked on various projects in construction and project management. In this connection I should add that the Faculty of Forest and Environmental Sciences (MVZF) is planning a new study programme, "Roads, Railways, Bridges and Hydraulic Engineering Structures". You could say that Latvia's last hydraulic engineers study with us; I have spoken about the new programme with the railway people, who are very interested, and I am doing everything I can to make the plan succeed.

I came to the Faculty of Forest and Environmental Sciences as the contradictions between my own convictions and the direction RTU was starting to take grew sharper. In my view, professional bachelor's programmes are the best form of study at present, because during their studies students gain their first work experience in placements and, on completing their studies, receive an engineering degree. Academic bachelor's studies involve no placements and do not lead to an engineering degree, so studies have to be continued. LBTU currently has a very strong teaching team, and a large proportion of the lecturers also work in industry, which ensures the transfer of up-to-date theoretical and practical knowledge. For the most part, all professional bachelor's students are already starting work while in their second or third year.

If I am not mistaken, LBTU does not divide its bachelor's degrees into professional and academic ones.

They are mainly professional bachelor's degrees; some programmes also have academic bachelor's degrees, which is understandable, because there is no engineering qualification in the speciality concerned.

Did RTU lean more towards academic knowledge, and towards acquiring and consolidating it?

As far as I know, RTU's direction is more towards academic knowledge. It is an interesting time at the moment, though, because several higher education institutions have signed an agreement on introducing an institutional funding model. Put very simply, it means that in future payment will be based on graduates.

That is a little reminiscent of schools 40–50 years ago, when a pupil was dragged along and along until they had at least finished eight grades...

Yes, this model carries risks in terms of ensuring quality, that would be one thing; another problem is the "urge to optimise", adapting to this model at the students' expense.

I believe that both the theoretical and the practical side are very important in the study process; here at LBTU our students are taught both by top-class scientists and by industry representatives, and our principle is quality over quantity. I know that in the short term this creates problems, but in the long term this principle will be appreciated by students, by employers and by the Latvian economy.

Taking all of the above into account, in the spring of 2024, when it became clear that RTU's further development did not match my own outlook, I came to Jelgava and met the newly elected rector and her team, and set out my thoughts and ideas. Just a few months later, Professor Vivita Puķīte, then acting dean, invited me to become director of the MVZF Institute of Civil Engineering and Wood Processing. I have worked at the faculty for a year and, given that my ideas and plans were bigger than what could be done and achieved at institute level, I took part in the open competition for the dean's post and was selected.

Why does the plate on your office door say "acting dean"?

As I mentioned, I have only worked at LBTU for a year, which is why the decision was taken initially to appoint me as acting dean.

One gathers that you would like to continue in this job.

Absolutely! There is so much to be done. I am surrounded by very capable and strong colleagues, and I see great potential for the faculty's development. Given that the faculty was merged relatively recently, the greatest attention at the moment goes to bringing the team together and building research teams. After that we plan to continue jointly with the research projects already under way and to actively bid for and carry out new ones at both European and global level.

In short, a scientist who knows his way around and has a good command of the practical side.

Yes, I suppose you could say that! Over the course of my professional and academic career I have been in various roles, which has given me the chance to look at things from different points of view. That experience helps in working with students, colleagues and partners.

The Faculty of Forest and Environmental Sciences has become "bigger" relatively recently. What has your cooperation with the forestry sector been like so far? Have you had occasion to work together?

I certainly would not say I have "had occasion" to — it has been an honour. We have excellent cooperation with the Latvian Forest Industry Federation, from which we receive help and support, and with the association Latvijas koks, which informs and tells young people about the future opportunities in the timber industry that some still do not see. Great thanks must go to Latvijas Finieris, which supports the faculty with materials and, since this September, with teaching staff too. We also have successful cooperation with Latvijas valsts meži, the Forest Research Station, SIA Meža un koksnes produktu pētniecības un attīstības institūts, SIA KUREKSS and many other partners.

If we take a broader view and imagine the university (LBTU) as a strong bird, one wing is the research side, the other is teaching and involvement with industry. You cannot fly on one wing, so if there is no link between real life and theory, the result will be very sorry indeed.

The sector does often "take" students as early as their second or third year, and it happens that they disappear from the study process... some time passes and they come back, because they have realised that a diploma is needed for their further career.

On the research activity of the Faculty of Forest and Environmental Sciences — what do you want to achieve?

In my view, the research side of the faculty has not so far revealed its potential, and I intend to change that. At the moment it is critically important to bring together, at faculty level, the researchers working in the institutes, so that we can share information, help one another towards a common goal, and build cooperation with industry and with research organisations in Latvia and around the world. As a result of all this, I want every institute to be capable of carrying out research projects at both the local and the European level. That is my big goal, and it is why, as I said, I hope to continue in the dean's post, because it is neither achievable nor doable in a single year.

What will you be teaching students yourself?

My subject is soil mechanics, which is called different things at different institutions (also geotechnics, or foundations and subgrades for transport structures). I will teach soil mechanics to students of Civil Engineering and of Environment and Water Management. In the spring semester I have also arranged to meet students of the Forest Engineer programme in the course "Forest Infrastructure", where I will talk about soils as well as forest roads and bridges. I have always enjoyed working with students, because over the years I have accumulated many interesting examples, stories and jokes too, which make lectures easier to follow and complicated things easier to take in.

From a professional standpoint, is it possible to assess in practical or scientific terms the gloomy stories of recent years about the dreadful state of our bridges? Is it really that bad?

On the whole, bridges in Latvia are not in a dreadful state; I know that Latvijas valsts ceļi, Latvijas valsts meži and local authorities actively carry out bridge inspections and try to renovate them as far as they can. The problem is that most bridges were built in the 1960s and 1970s and are nearing the end of their service life. In that period, bridge structures were made of precast reinforced concrete with insufficient concrete cover, poorly built waterproofing, and barriers that do not meet safety requirements.

I recently took part in a meeting organised by the office of the Speaker of the Saeima, where we discussed timber structures. I was invited to talk about timber bridges in Latvia. Interestingly, in around the 1950s and 1960s Latvia had more than 3000 timber bridges; today the number of timber bridges is around 100, which in my view should be increased. Timber bridges can be manufactured in Latvia from local materials, their strength is identical, these structures are lighter, and their cost is currently similar to that of reinforced concrete bridges; however, if such bridges were used more widely, production capacity would grow and costs would come down. I dare say most people have more than once seen the sight of a bridge with lumps of concrete broken away and the steel reinforcement showing when you look at it from underneath.

In the Jelgava area, especially across the Svēte, there were still plenty of timber bridges in the 1970s...

Timber survives if it is 100% under water or relatively dry. If dryness and damp alternate, the structures start to deteriorate and rot.

At the meetings held by the office of the Speaker of the Saeima we also touched on national security, because in the border zone, for example, there may be a need for bridges that can be put in place easily and quickly and removed just as easily and quickly. Such bridges can be produced quite simply right here in Latvia. In the border area, our own timber or timber-concrete bridges could be useful in a very broad sense. Looked at from another angle, this is an innovation of our faculty and university that we are working on and will develop further.

As a professional, how do you view the fact that in a country rich in forests and timber, plans to use wood in construction often end at the moment when a stack of documents is placed in front of the would-be builder of a timber structure (or that same stack is emailed to them) and they are told: "It says here that... Here are these restrictions, over there are others, and so on." For the forestry sector this has been a live issue for quite some time — a tussle with restrictive regulations and entrenched thinking...

To encourage the use of timber in Latvia, work is needed on three issues. The first is how to produce the timber materials needed for buildings in Latvia; my conclusion is that electricity here is not cheap enough, which would be very much needed for various processes such as drying timber. The second issue, which you touched on indirectly, is our strict fire safety rules (and the legal framework associated with them). On the one hand that is a good thing, but I think changes to these rules would be possible, even necessary, taking the Scandinavian experience into account. The third, ever-present issue is funding. In order to produce a building, around 50% of the funding is needed in advance to purchase materials. Credit institutions often provide funding split into instalments, which makes buying a timber-frame building very burdensome for private individuals. As far as I know, work is under way to solve this problem by bringing in Altum. These three are the most serious obstacles to the use of timber in construction.

How do you view the discussions of recent years about forests and land use in general? The sector seems to come under attack in cycles, with all sorts of methods used in those attacks.

In my view, all these questions have to be looked at as a whole. Latvia, like its neighbours, has to be able to use its own resources in order to ensure the use of forests and revenue for the development of the economy. In the same way, there needs to be a proper procedure for how reserves and biotopes are established and removed if the animals and plants originally recorded there are no longer found in their territory.

I think that in this respect the question of balance is the most important of all. Your question contains another question within it — whether the situation is being addressed on the basis of figures or of emotions. It sometimes seems to me that emotions are heard more.

What are we to make of the fact that enthusiasts get "appointed" as assessors of various sectors — people who may love walking in the forest and enjoy the view from a timber or concrete bridge, but who know nothing about forests or about building a bridge.

It seems to me that far more dangerous than enthusiasts are those who know at least a little about the subject in question. I have experienced someone explaining to me, a certified civil engineer, how bridges should be designed according to various regulations. What is more, the person I was talking to could not be called a complete "know-nothing", but... they know just enough to be able to talk cleverly, and no more.

Cleverness, incidentally, is a very broad concept — there is theoretical knowledge, practical knowledge, empathy, and leadership and communication skills. If we look at students, for a young aspirant to become well-rounded, erudite and knowledgeable, theoretical knowledge alone is far too little. Experience shows that the cleverest people will never say that they are. You sense it when you talk with them.

It matters to me that students not only gain knowledge but also learn to see more broadly and find their own path in the profession they have chosen. Under my leadership, the Faculty of Forest and Environmental Sciences will become an ecosystem where talent grows, ideas become reality, and together we will move towards a smarter and more successful Latvia.