News

With the participation of medical researchers from the University of Tartu, two research articles were recently published in Science, describing the mechanisms the coronavirus uses to infect cells and spread in tissues. The findings provide new potential ways of preventing viral infection by the novel coronavirus, and clues as to why it is more infectious than other similar viruses.

The Estonian start-up company GuavaHR in cooperation with the Institute of Psychology of the University of Tartu have started an R&D project to develop an employee engagement monitoring system. In the course of the project, they will create an employee engagement model and organise a wide-ranging engagement survey, which will be completed by the middle of next year.

While the spread of the coronavirus can separate people physically, researchers exchange ideas more frequently than earlier – they work to solve the problem no matter what day of the week or time of the day, said Professor Irja Lutsar of the Insitute of Biomedicine and Translational Medicine in University of Tartu (UT), head of Estonian government’s scientific advisory council.

Today, on 11th of March, an international scholarly conference begins at the University of Tartu, focusing on the philosophical analysis of disagreements. The conference also constitutes discussions with an international community of scholars of the results of a funded investigation led by Margit Sutrop, Professor of Practical Philosophy at the University of Tartu.

Researchers of the Centre for Applied Social Sciences of the University of Tartu have conducted a survey to analyse how the university as an organisation responded to the crisis, and to what extent it is possible to use the gained experience to plan future work.

Research groups of the University of Tartu led by Professor of Mathematical Statistics Krista Fischer and Professor of Bioinformatics Jaak Vilo who have supported the state with the data collection and analysis since the beginning of the corona crisis can continue their work thanks to a private donation by entrepreneur Väino Kaldoja.

Marine science like other natural sciences is male-dominated in most countries, with considerably less women in leading and decision-making positions. The Estonian Marine Institute is exceptional in that matter: the number of men and women is equal among academic staff and half of the departments would like to recruit more male scientists. Conversely, all research professors are men. The University of Tartu Estonian Marine Institute was a partner in the Horizon 2020 project Baltic Gender which concluded in August.

How to support millions of people below poverty line due to COVID-19? Join us to reevaluate the ways we imagine the sustainable development and to reimagine the way we look at the sustainable development goals (SDG) in terms of finance and digitalization. Reimagining ways to achieve the sustainable development goals (SDG) - innovations in finance and digitalization 15. October at 16:00 – 18:00 (13:00 GMT) #KAPTalks Zoom

A study by the researchers of the University of Tartu revealed that in the years 1992–2015, the incidence of lung cancer among men living in the Estonian oil shale industrial regions was higher compared to the rest of Ida-Viru County and the Estonian average: 133.6 in industrial regions and 95.5 in Estonia as a whole per 100,000 men. Other cancer sites did not show any difference in incident rates between Ida-Viru County and the rest of Estonia. On the positive side, the lung cancer incidence rate in industrial regions has been decreasing.

The recently concluded Estonia-wide wave of the coronavirus prevalence study led by the University of Tartu indicates that the virus is also spreading outside the known outbreaks and mostly covertly, that is without notable symptoms. This is why it is increasingly important to follow general precautions such as safe distancing and wearing a mask in crowded indoor spaces.

International research group studying the digital competence of European adolescents in the course of the ySKILLS project reported unequal access to digital tools and uneven level of digital literacy across countries.

The earth’s crust in Estonia contains valuable mineral resources that have not been thoroughly studied so far, yet demand for such resources on the world market is growing. An applied research study led by the University of Tartu sheds new light to both these natural resources and the socio-economic impact of their potential use.

Researchers of the University of Tartu Department of Nursing Science are leading an international study in Estonia focusing on the impact of COVID-19 on the nursing care service and nurses working in the local healthcare system. As nurses are the central human resource in healthcare, it is important to assess the nursing care provided in the crisis as well as the factors influencing it to foster the quality and safety of healthcare.

On Monday, 28 September, at the XXIII Estonian museum festival in Narva, the souvenir of the University of Tartu museum – a mug with the rectors’ signatures – received the Estonian museum souvenir award EMMA. The rectors’ mug shared the first place with the art lotto of the Art Museum of Estonia.

Five new applied research projects are about to start at the University of Tartu with the aim to study and develop materials and surface treatment agents inhibiting the transmission of the virus, technological solutions for reducing virus particles in indoor air, and automated solutions reducing the workload in the healthcare sector. Materials inhibiting the spread of the virus

University of Tartu researchers participated in a study published in Science, indicating that about 10 per cent of young and healthy people who develop severe COVID-19 have misguided antibodies that attack not the virus, but the immune system itself.

On 7 September at 16:15, Professor of Computer Vision at the University of Tartu Gholamreza Anbarjafari will deliver his inaugural lecture on the applications of computer vision in human-robot interaction with a focus on affective computing. The lecture entitled “Affective Computing: Human Behaviour Analysis Using Computer Vision and Machine Learning” will be held in English in the university assembly hall.

On Friday, 2 October, a college and dormitory building jointly administered by the University of Tartu, the Estonian Academy of Security Sciences (EASS) and the Police and Border Guard Board (PBGB) was opened on Paul Keres street in Narva. About a quarter of the 9,708 m2 building will be used by students of the University of Tartu.

On 2 October at 15, the new Estonian-English-Estonian dictionary of genetics is presented in the Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology (IMCB), University of Tartu. The authors of the dictionary, comprising 541 pages and more than 7500 terms and definitions of genetics, are Professor Emeritus Ain Heinaru and Head of the Vivarium Sulev Kuuse, IMCB, both well-experienced textbook and dictionary authors.

The Institute of Education of the University of Tartu and the Lithuanian start-up company BitDegree have started a cooperation project that is expected to significantly increase the effectiveness of e-learning. To this end, they research and develop an open learner model.