News

University of Tartu (UT) scientists hope create a solution for chronic infections that do not respond to antibiotic treatment after having discovered mechanisms for listening in on sleeping bacteria. Having recently published a research article on the topic in Scientific Reports with his team, Senior Research Fellow in Molecular Microbiology Arvi Jõers writes about the ability of bacteria to listen in on one other and what this discovery means for medicine.

Senior Research Fellow of Tartu Observatory Enn Saar was awarded the University of Tartu Grand Medal. The medal was handed over on December 18 before this year's last astronomy seminar in Tõravere.

Recently, news of Mozilla’s new translation programme Bergamot spread through international technology news portals. Few know that the high-level team also includes language technologists from the University of Tartu who are helping to improve the flexibility and quality of machine translation. The head of the Tartu part of this work, professor of natural language processing at the Institute of Computer Science Mark Fišel, describes the background of the collaboration.

Baltics biggest business festival Startup Day just launched its program of the 2020 festival on January 29-31 in Tartu, Estonia. This year the festival lasts for 3 days, it has 4 stages and over 40 great seminars and a special day for pre-events. Altogether the festival is expecting over 120 speakers and 4000 guests.

Celebrations of the 100th anniversary of Estonia’s national university outside Estonia culminated in the visit of the rector and delegation of the University of Tartu to Sweden. On 11 December a ceremony and reception was held to mark the anniversary in the Estonian House in Stockholm. Rector Toomas Asser greeted the representatives of the local Estonian community, many of whom have close connections with the university. Professor Birute Klaas-Lang held an academic lecture on the possibility of and need for research in the Estonian language.

Professor emeritus of public law and legal philosophy at Kiel University, renowned German legal philosopher and constitutionalist Robert Alexy will deliver a lecture on the topic of Constitutional Rights, Proportionality and Argumentation in the Assembly Hall of the University of Tartu from 12:15 to 14:00 on 10 December.

Chronic inflammatory skin diseases, such as psoriasis and atopic dermatitis, may in certain cases, based on visual inspection, be very similar and this complicates their accurate diagnosis. University of Tartu scientists together with Tartu University Hospital dermatologists studied a novel approach for diagnosing psoriasis vulgaris. The purpose of this research was to drive forward the development of biomarker-based diagnostics in the field of inflammatory skin diseases.

The Estonian Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications has concluded an agreement with the University of Tartu for carrying out online training courses in computer programming in cooperation with schools for at least 500 young people by spring 2022.

The Estonian fuel cell manufacturer Elcogen was named the winner of the Award for Innovation at Europe’s biggest and most prestigious business competition European Business Awards on 4 December.

Yesterday, on the 9th of December, Centre for Ethics, University of Tartu (CEUT) awarded quality badges to schools who do exemplary work with values education. Prof. Margit Sutrop, the head of CEUT, gave the highest recognition, the School of Values Education 2019 award to Võru Gymnasium and Võru Kesklinna Kool. Võru Kesklinna Kool was awarded for great leadership culture, valuing mental and physical health and creating a values-based school environment.

We are inviting all student teams to participate in the pre-selection round of Kaleidoskoop, the biggest business ideas competition in South Estonia, which is held on 12 December in Spark Hub. Registration is open until midnight on 9 December on the University of Tartu’s Startup Lab webpage.

On 5 December the Government of Estonia held its special session at the University of Tartu to mark the 100th anniversary of Estonia’s national university. During the meeting the university leaders gave an overview to the government members of the University of Tartu’s development plans and of the solutions the university could offer to help the country achieve its long-term goals.

Interesting visiting scientists will give presentations on school educators’ moral professionalism, character education and servant leadership on the 9th of December at the annual values education conference organized by the Centre for Ethics, University of Tartu (CEUT).

5–7 December symposium “The formula in oral poetry and prose. New approaches, models and interpretations” will be held in Tartu. It is part of the project “Formulae in Icelandic Saga Literature”.

One of the best-known products of evolution is the fight or flight response. But such gut reactions aren’t necessarily appropriate when it comes to one stressful activity many people undertake frequently: driving a vehicle. As 1.25 million people die in road traffic accidents each year, according to the World Health Organization, we need a better understanding of why individuals drive the way they do.

Tomorrow, on 5 December, the Government of the Republic of Estonia will hold the government session, cabinet meeting and press conference at the University of Tartu to mark the 100th anniversary of Estonia’s national university.

The opening ceremony of the University of Tartu of the Republic of Estonia was held on 1 December 1919 and an Estonia-language university that was primarily aimed at Estonian students and served the Estonian society started operating. A hundred years later, on 1 December 2019, 138 new doctors and honorary doctors will be promoted at the anniversary ceremony and the National Thought prize and the visiting professor’s grant will also be presented.

At the ceremony dedicated to the 100th anniversary of Estonia’s national university, the University of Tartu’s first scholarship for visiting professors from the Estonian Diaspora was presented to David Ilmar Lepasaar Beecher, a lecturer of history and global studies at the University of California, Berkeley. David Ilmar Lepasaar Beecher is a historian and social scientist of Estonian descent, a lecturer with nearly 20 years of teaching, supervising and curricula development experience from the universities of the United States of America and Europe.

At the ceremony dedicated to the 100th anniversary of Estonia’s national university, the University of Tartu award for contribution to Estonian national identity was presented to poet, publisher, essayist and national thinker Hando Runnel.

The new exhibition dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the national university will be opened tomorrow, on 29 November, and it will take the alumni on a nostalgic journey through the history of the University of Tartu, inspire present and future students alike and tell stories that will touch even those who have never connected with this institution of higher education. Inspired by the interior of the historical library, the environment and the fascinating stories spanning four centuries culminate in modern solutions.