News

On April 19-21, 2018 Narva College of the University of Tartu opens its doors for international students who are coming to Estonia to participate in the International Student Research Conference. The event is recognized as one of the longest standing student conferences in Estonia and is held on a yearly basis since 2000. Many talented students from different countries all over the world will come to share their opinions within the topic “Neglecting the boarders: 6 Dimensions of EU-RUS relations”.

The Estonian Genome Centre, a part of the Institute of Genomics of the University of Tartu, launched this year an unexpectedly popular project to find 100,000 gene donors in Estonia. The biobank project has enjoyed enormous success at home, but now it has caught the eye of a prominent UK science magazine New Scientist.

At a festive ceremony held on 6 April President Kersti Kaljulaid presented Leopold Parts, Senior Research Fellow of the Institute of Computer Science, and Mark Fišel, Chair of Natural Language Processing, with this year’s Young Scientist Award and Young IT Scientist Award respectively.

Until March 28, the University of Tartu is inviting its members’ to ask questions from the rector candidates, Toomas Asser and Margit Sutrop. All university employees and students can ask questions via the special form (anonymously) or by sending an email to [email protected]. This is an excellent opportunity to hear the rector candidates’ opinions on university life and on the development of the area that interests you most in the University of Tartu.

At the end of February, the prominent QS World University Rankings published its World University Rankings by Subjects 2018, covering 48 subjects. This year 18 subjects taught at the University of Tartu are represented in the rankings, five more than last year.

At the traditional lunch of opinion leaders, the daily newspaper Postimees declared Mihhail Lotman the Opinion Leader 2018. The title Opinion Leader of the year and the accompanying sculpture of Johann Voldemar Jannsen, a journalist, poet and leading figure of the Estonian National Awakening movement, is traditionally granted to a person whose role in the Estonian press and society equals Jannsen’s achievements.

On Tuesday, 27 March at 16:15, the University of Tartu Professor in Laboratory Medicine delivers his inaugural lecture “Immune system and diabetes mellitus” in the White Hall of the University Museum.

On March 26 at 18.15, UT's College of Foreign Languages and Culture is holding its first research seminar: Professor Marko Pajević is giving an open lecture titled “Poetics’ transformative power. Bible translation and society”.

All UT business-tycoons-to-be have until March 26 to apply for the International business development programme NGAL®. The intensive hands-on business development programme for early-stage student teams takes place at UT IdeaLab, TTU Mectory and Nebraska Wesleyan University (USA). During the programme, all participants will get to travel, see local start-ups and develop their business idea in 3 different cities: Tartu, Tallinn and Lincoln, with all travel, accommodation and food expenses paid. The best team will be awarded with 3000 dollars of prize money.

On 15 March, the commission formed for the University of Tartu (UT) rector elections registered Professor Toomas Asser and Professor Margit Sutrop as rector candidates. Professor Toomas Asser was submitted as a candidate by the councils of the Faculty of Social Sciences, the Faculty of Medicine and the Faculty of Science and Technology. Professor Margit Sutrop was set up as a candidate by the councils of the Faculty of Arts and Humanities, the Faculty of Social Sciences and the Faculty of Science and Technology.

The conference takes place in the University of Tartu main building on 12 March and aims to draw everyone’s attention to the appreciation of the native languages of all people. The conference is not focused solely on the Estonian language, but the mother languages of all people living in Estonia. At the conference, participants discuss role of the Estonian language in the past and the future, and reflect on the topic of language more generally.

In February, the ADAPTER network signed contracts with two new institutions: Bio CC and Estonian Business School (EBS) joined the list of partners who connect research and business. Through the ADAPTER platform, enterprises can now contact 12 partners who provide research and development services.

On February 27 IdeaLab and Ukrainian partners initiated inspiration event Idea Storm in Kyiv. More than 100 students from different universities gathered around idea tables to generate world changing ideas. Idea Storm in Kiev was a kick-off event of the programme Yep!STARTER that aims to transfer best practice of Estonian entrepreneurship studies to Ukrainian universities and improve students’ skills and knowledge.

EstLat-Accelerate pre-acceleration program for Estonian and Latvian early-stage start-ups invites all new business owners to apply for its second season before March 11. The program suits best early-stage startup projects, who need to validate their idea and test the team before diving into the process with full speed. EstLat-Accelerate consists of joint workshops both in Tartu and in Riga on topics such as business development, marketing, and pitching, followed by one-on-one mentoring speed sessions and meetings with a coach to monitor your process.

On Monday, 5 March at 16:15, University of Tartu Professor of Asian politics Lisheng Dong will deliver an inaugural lecture “Housing Reform in China: Rational interests gone wrong or organizational design failure?”. The lecture is in English.

Until March 12, all students of the University of Tartu are invited to send in photos and videos from their time spent studying or interning abroad as part of our My Adventure Abroad contest. The only requirement for the photo or video to be taken during an overseas study or interning experience, meaning short tourist trips do not count. The winner of the contest will be rewarded with an aerial adventure – a unique sightseeing flight over Tartu. The runner-up will receive University of Tartu memorabilia and souvenirs.

On 22nd of February the 4th Idea Storm brought a few hundred people together in Tartu generate a hundred new ideas.

The Danish LEO Foundation supports researchers of the University of Tartu with 220,000 euros to conduct laboratory studies to discover the causes of atopic dermatitis, a frequent skin disorder. Atopic dermatitis is a chronic inflammatory skin disease, which in many cases is of allergic character, but the causes of which are not exactly known. Researchers participating in the project want to study how the early molecular events in atopic dermatitis are influenced by the specific small RNA molecules, known as microRNAs.

The government of Estonia has announced the laureates of this year’s national research awards. The award for outstanding lifetime achievement in research and development, 40 000 euros, was granted to professor emeritus of the University of Tartu, academician Agu Laisk. In addition, three projects won the award for best research work. Minister Mailis Reps congratulated all the awardees and expressed gratitude for their contribution to Estonian science. “The laureates are committed scientists and determined trailblazers in their field,” said Reps.

On 20 February, UT Professor of Software Engineering Dietmar Pfahl delivers his inaugural lecture “Data-driven Decision Support in Software Engineering and Management” in the university assembly hall.