Vitalija Simonaitytė, Ph.D. in Social Sciences (Political Sciences), is a researcher at the Lithuanian Social Research Centre. Her recent research focus has been sustainable regional and rural development policy, circular bioeconomy, green transition, interest groups, and political parties, and local and regional actors. She is an author and co-author of publications in various scientific journals and research studies, co-author of the Palgrave monography “Rural Economic Developments and Social Movements. A New Paradigm”, also she participates in international scientific conferences (ECPR, CEPSA) and international research projects (Comparative Interest Groups Survey, CIGS; European Social Survey, ESS; Green Transformation! A policy tool for Regional Smart Specialisation in Baltic Sea Region” (GRETA) under INTERREG Baltic Sea Region Programme 2014–2020).