Three architecture studios have been shortlisted in the design competition to create a Science Island for the Lithuanian city Kaunas.

SMAR Architecture Studio, SimpsonHaugh and Partners, and Donghua Chen Studio will now negotiate with Kaunas City Municipality, which will decide the design concept it wants to proceed with. Each of the winners will receive an honorarium of €15,000 (US$16,800, £13,000.)

The centrepiece of the 44 acre Science Island – the new name for the currently disused Nemunas Island – will be the National Science and innovation Centre of Lithuania. As a museum and innovation centre, the 13,000sq m (140,000sq ft) facility will celebrate recent achievements in science and global technologies with the aim of inspiring visitors to expand their knowledge and support innovation.

All concept designs for the centre and the island masterplan were judged anonymously. In total 144 submissions were received from 44 countries, making Science Island the most popular design contest ever held in Lithuania.

"The initiative has clearly resonated, being both universally and humanly relevant, as well as of great national importance for Lithuania,” said the country’s prime minister, Algirdas Butkevicius. “We believe that Science Island will show how science can inspire positive change for the planet and humanity."

Competition organiser and jury chair Malcolm Reading said: “Each of the three winners could create a worthy addition to Kaunas, a city with a most distinguished architectural heritage and increasingly known as a key hub within the Baltics."

"The three concept designs show originality, cultural confidence and a deep understanding of public engagement with science – that the design must do as well as be. Science Island must inspire and lead, it sets the highest bar: a building where presence and performance are perfectly matched."

Kaunas City Municipality anticipates construction will begin in 2017 and the island will open to the public in early 2018.

The project will be managed by Kaunas City Municipality in cooperation with the Ministry of Science and Education and the Lithuanian Science Academy.