News

On Friday, 22 February at 12 o'clock, a concert ceremony is held at the university assembly hall to celebrate the 101st anniversary of the Republic of Estonia, award the stipendees of the Ernst Jaakson and Peeter Tulviste memorial scholarships and present the UT's badges of distinction. Ernst Jaakson's memorial scholarship that supports UT PhD students, research fellows and teaching staff abroad is awarded at the concert. Ernst Jaakson's scholarship is the largest known privately funded scholarship to be awarded to students and research fellows.

A new diagnostic method that is most suitable for Estonia was developed at the University of Tartu, which helps detect congenital metabolic disorders earlier and more effectively than before. The new method also helps discover more diseases in newborns with one screening. The newborn screening for congenital metabolic diseases in Estonia was outdated and the 20-year-old system needed updating.

The scientific journal Nature Communications published an article by researchers at the University of Tartu in collaboration with colleagues from Chicago, which helps determine a bottleneck in synthetic biology. Their work shows where to look for the mistake and what to fix in order to assemble a well-functioning ribosome in a lab.

16 subjects taught at University of Tartu have made it to the international university rankings published in late February. This year two new University of Tartu subjects have entered the rankings of consulting firm Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) – education ranked in the top 251–300 and business and management in the top 401–450.

On Thursday, 7 March, retired Lieutenant General Ben Hodges, former Commander of the U.S. Army in Europe, will give a lecture „The Contemporary Security Challenges Facing Europe” in the main building of University of Tartu.

On 5–9 February, the Student Startup Camp was held in Tartu, where student teams developed their ideas into working prototypes. The winner of the pitching competition was the DreamField team.

On 28 February, UT IdeaLab organised an Idea Hackathon at Spark Hub to mark the start of a new semester of the Starter business ideas incubation programme. All students and recent graduates of all schools were welcome to pitch their business or project ideas and join other teams.

On Thursday, February 28, 2019, the Estonian Academy of Security Sciences and the University of Tartu signed a contract with the construction company Nordecon for the construction of a Narva Learning Center. Besides the cadets, also the staff of the Police and Border Guard Board, as well as the students of Narva College of the University of Tartu, will start using the study, training and accommodation building. In addition, the construction will include a sports complex with a swimming pool, which is also open to the public.

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On 6 February, the council of the Institute of Clinical Medicine of the University of Tartu re-elected Professor of Anaesthesiology and Intensive Care Joel Starkopf as head of the institute. Starkopf has been in charge of the institute since it was formed in 2016.

Meelis Luht, Director of Administration of the University of Tartu, has made an agreement with Rector Toomas Asser to resign from his post after the Riigikogu elections.

The biggest early-stage business festival in the Baltics, the Startup Day is held in the University of Tartu Sports Hall on 23–25 January 2019. The University of Tartu focuses on the topics related to the development of research-intensive startups at the festival. The UT programme is titled “Science to Business”.

The opening assembly of the University of Tartu of the Republic of Estonia on 1 December 1919 marked the establishment of an Estonian-language university that was above all designed for Estonian students and to serve Estonian society. The centenary of the national university is celebrated throughout the year with a nation-wide cultural programme, an opinion festival and the largest gathering of alumni to date. The anniversary year draws to a close in December.

On 15 January, the new academic and research building of the Institute of Sport Sciences and Physiotherapy of the University of Tartu and the sports complex extension were officially opened. The total cost of the works exceeded 10 million euros. According to Priit Kaasik, Head of the Institute of Sport Sciences and Physiotherapy, the new building offers improved conditions for teaching physiotherapy and training coaches and physical education teachers. There are also rooms for research.

The finals of the students’ business ideas development programme Yep!Starter took place on 17 December in Kyiv. The winner of the main award, tickets and trip to Startup Day was Fonetify, whose browser extension helps to pronounce English text correctly. The author of winning idea Serh Kruchok said that the Yep!Starter programme helped them to develop the idea. “Learning wasn’t always easy, but we got the necessary knowledge and contacts to launch our idea. We are very happy about the win and the opportunity to present our idea at Startup Day in Estonia.”

The Council of the Institute of Cultural Research at University of Tartu elected Professor Art Leete new head of the institute on December 5, 2018, in succession to Professor Ülo Valk whose term will conclude this year. Professor Leete will take up post on January 1st, 2019.

On 13 December, the pre-selection round of South Estonia’s biggest student business ideas competition Kaleidoskoop took place at Tartu V Conference Centre. 36 teams pitched their business ideas to judges, who selected the 10 best teams that will go to the Kaleidoskoop finals at the Startup Day business festival on 24 January. The 10 best teams are: MediBee – online queue and web triage for Emergency Rooms;

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On 30 November, the University of Tartu became a full member in the EIT Health network of the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT), and also participates in two new Knowledge and Innovation Communities that were announced on 5 December: EIT Manufacturing and EIT Urban Mobility. EIT funding to the new innovation communities will increase over the next three years from four to 80 million euros per year.