News

On 21 October, the University of Tartu Department of Scandinavian Studies with its about a hundred alumni, students and professors will celebrate the 25th anniversary. On that day, the doors of the new lecture rooms and the library of the College of Foreign Languages and Cultures will be open and new research projects will be presented by international faculty members at a seminar. The event will end with a sing-along.

On 11 October, the meeting of the Investment Advisory Board of Kääriku Sports Centre formed an opinion that the Kääriku sports complex should become a unique smart centre of the future for the entire region, which provides innovative solutions from trainings to sports medicine.

On 8 October 2016 the ClimateLaunchpad finals took place in the Tallinn Creative Hub and the best European starting clean technology start-ups were awarded. The winner was the Estonian start-up Gleather which originates from UT and produces leather-like material from gelatine.

For the second time the Ministry of Education and Research presented the title Lecturer of the Year at the “Eestimaa õpib ja tänab” (“Estonia studies and expresses gratitude”) award gala and it was awarded to Lecturer at UT Institute of Computer Science Eno Tõnisson. The title was awarded for the first time last year when it also went to the University of Tartu.

The aim of the research work of doctoral student Anne-Mari Anton Willmore, who is conducting her research in the UT cancer biology research group, is to reduce the side-effects and dosage of cancer drugs. She received a 5,000 euro scholarship from the Valda and Bernard Õun memorial fund of the UT Foundation to work on her research and doctoral thesis.

From 9 to 12 October, an international environmental conference focusing on environmental sustainability will take place in Estonia for the first time. The topics include global climate change about which Estonia needs to be forward-looking and find ways to adapt with, for example, the average temperature increase. Speakers at the international environmental conference EcoBalt2016 session on adapting to climate change include among others UT Associate Professor of Environmental Health Hans Orru who will discuss the effects of climate change and the need to adapt.

Tartu’s university campus is unique in the world because Tartu and the University of Tartu are one of the most excellent examples of the formation of a university landscape in Europe in architectural as well as cultural sense. Accordingly, an international conference will take place at UT from 5 to 7 October which focuses on studying the university ensembles formed during the age of Enlightenment and the education of the time and formation of university landscapes.

On 3 October 2016 the Riigikogu elected Kersti Kaljulaid president of Estonia. 81 members of the Riigikogu voted for Kersti Kaljulaid. Kersti Kaljulaid has been chair of UT Council since 2011 until assuming the office of the president.

UT Rector’s Office, deans of faculties, vice deans and several heads of institutes will host the delegation of Uppsala University on 28 and 29 September. The aim of the meeting is to strengthen the relations between the two partner universities and meet the rector and administration of Uppsala University. UT Vice Rector for Development Erik Puura said that we can think of Uppsala University as our 155 years older brother and, naturally, bigger brother because it has more than 41,000 enrolled students.

UT Rector Volli Kalm and Vice Rector of the Catholic University of Leuven Danny Pieters have invited representatives of eleven Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Finnish and Belgian universities to the cooperation seminar “Internationalisation and language” at the University of Tartu today, on 21 September 2016, to discuss how to preserve national culture and native languages in an increasingly internationalised higher education sphere.

In the Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings, published yesterday evening, UT holds the highest place of all times—it placed 301–350.

A genomic study published in Nature online on 21st of September this year, suggests Papuans harbour traces of an additional early dispersal out of Africa, highlights genetic gradients in Eurasia and reveals new genetic candidates underlying the local adaptation to the various diets and environments.

Johan Skytte Institute of Political Studies is opening a new online course (MOOC) this autumn semester - ‘Diffusion and Impact of Internet Voting’, which will be taught in English and will last from 17.10.2016 to 11.12.2016. All interested can resister to the course at: https://goo.gl/5VVDan. The registration deadline is 14.10.2016.

Five projects have currently received funding from the Archimedes smart specialisation measure, UT is a development partner in three of these. Two projects received funding in the last round, the first studies population mobility on the basis of mobile data and the second aims to create lactic acid bacteria with specific characteristics.

The Baltic region holds a key position in terms of “education”. More than 70 presentations will discuss about the topic at the „Baltic Educational Histories. Interdisciplinary conference“ at the University of Tartu on 19.-22.09.2016. Everybody is welcome to attend! See the live broadcast of the opening ceremony www.uttv.ee.

Scientists of UT Institute of Physics won first place among 36 research groups in an international competition for creating super-resolution microscopy software in the 3D microscopy category. Second and third place in this category went to the teams of Harvard University. UT was represented in the competition by scientists and doctoral students of the Institute of Physics: Ardi Loot, Marko Eltermann, Andreas Valdmann, Mihkel Kree and Martti Pärs.

Visiting Professor Archana Upadhyay from the School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India, have two public lectures in September in the University of Tartu. Wednesday, 21 September, 18:15-19:45, University Main Building (Ülikooli 18) room 228 Religion and Politics in Contemporary India

University of Tartu Faculty of Arts and Humanities Associate Professor Tõnu Seilenthal has been a member of the association since 1977. In August this year he was named vice president of the association. The new position highlights Seilenthal’s contribution to developing Hungarian studies in Tartu and Estonia.

The new director of the Centre for Migration and Urban Studies at the UT is Professor of the University at Buffalo, State University of New York and Research Fellow of the University of Tartu Dr Daniel B. Hess. The Centre explores contemporary challenges facing urban regions including migration, residential mobility, housing and neighbourhood change, as well as the integration of immigrants and ethnic minorities across multiple life domains (such as places of residence and work, as well as intermarriages).

It is extremely difficult to succeed in Asia without knowing the local language and culture. University of Tartu Asian Centre brings together Asian expertise which has until now been rather dispersed in Estonia, shares its experience and uses contacts of an international cooperation network to help the private and public sector, organisations or private persons with matters related to Asia. The centre’s work is not limited to China, Japan, Korea or India, it also includes Middle Eastern countries and Turkey.