Institution: Our Mission and Objectives

The Department of Cultural Heritage under the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Lithuania is an institution responsible for implementing the national policy for the protection of immovable cultural heritage and movable cultural property (listed in the Register of Cultural Property). 

The mission of the Department is to preserve Lithuania's cultural heritage and pass it on to future generations as a guarantee of the survival of the nation's identity, an integral part of the landscape, and a means of creating Lithuania's image, enabling the society to get to know it and use it. 

The main tasks of the Department are as follows:
•    to coordinate and organise the process of recording and inventorying cultural heritage and to maintain the Register of Cultural Property;
•    to provide methodological guidance for the protection of cultural heritage and offer advice on the issues of the maintenance of cultural heritage;
•    to draw up programmes for the management and compensation of immovable cultural heritage and to organise their implementation; 
•    to organise specific territorial planning for the protection of immovable cultural heritage; 
•    to deal with issues relating to research into immovable cultural heritage and movable cultural property, organising and carrying it out;
•    to organise and coordinate international cooperation related to the protection of cultural heritage;
•    to organise and coordinate the identification and dissemination of knowledge of the immovable cultural heritage and movable cultural property;

Currently, the structure of the Department consists of 8 central and 7 territorial divisions, the Cultural Heritage Research Board and the Heritage Conservation Library.