News

The University of Tartu's Centre for Applied Social Sciences (CASS) prepared an overview for the European Commission of the current situation and future trends of collective labour relations in Estonia. The report compiled by the analysts of the UT Centre for Applied Social Sciences Uku Varblane, Kerly Espenberg and Olena Nedozhogina "Industrial Relations in Estonia: Recent Developments and Future Challenges" aimed to study post-crisis industrial relations and changes in economic development, and to give recommendations for dealing with future challenges.

On 13–14 September, the University of Tartu hosts an international symposium “Islam in Europe: Challenges of Diversity and Ways to Co-existence” to discuss the differences and challenges of European secular society and the Islamic culture and religion.

For the third year already, the Estonian Academy of Sciences organises the competition in which public university students explain their field of science in three minutes.

The European Commission decided to extend funding to the international joint master’s programme EACH – Excellence in Analytical Chemistry. The programme, coordinated by the University of Tartu, is running for the third year in cooperation with three more European universities.

This fall marks the first time a course by the researchers of the University of Tartu goes live on Udemy, one of the largest international online learning platforms. Online course “Introduction to Internet Voting”, developed by the Senior Researchers in Technology Studies Kristjan Vassil and Mihkel Solvak, is available on Udemy - an online teaching platform with 15 million active learners. Currently, this is the only University of Tartu MOOC, massive open online course, offered at such a scale on the international online platform.

From the 29th of Sept to the 1st of Oct, the Garage48 Hardware & Arts Riga hackathon is welcoming participants from the Baltics and abroad. The physical prototyping hackathon for makers and creators is welcoming participants with a wide-ranging skillsets: product designers, UI / UX designers, electronics engineers, mechanics engineers, server programmers, mobile or web apps developers, marketers or researchers are all welcome. The goal of the prototyping hackathon is to bring ideas into reality within an intense 48 hour time frame.

The Times Higher Education (THE), arguably the world’s most influential compiler of university rankings, published the most recent ranking of the world’s best universities. In the 2018 rankings the University of Tartu continues to hold a place in the 301–350 band.

The international interdisciplinary conference “Emotions: Rationality, Morality and Social Understanding”, held in Tartu from 7–9 September, concentrates on the nature of emotions. Vivian Bohl, research fellow in theoretical philosophy at the University of Tartu, believes that it is namely emotions that add colour and give a meaning to life. “As humans we are emotional beings. In the case of pathologies – when emotions get lost – people can no longer act in a rational way,” Bohl explains the importance of emotions in human life.

On 4 September, the centre for arts of Viljandi Culture Academy was opened in the old anatomical theatre of the University of Tartu. The centre will draw the competence of the whole faculty into one unit and coordinate arts studies in the university. The centre offers interesting subjects and continuing education courses for all interested, including people from outside the university.

The Estonian “Code of Conduct for Research Integrity” is now available for public discussion and University of Tartu is awaiting feedback for it until 1 October 2017.

Opening ceremony of the new academic year starts on Monday, 4 September at 10:00 in the university assembly hall. Salutatory addresses are delivered by rector Volli Kalm and the mayor of Tartu Urmas Klaas. In the 2017/2018 academic year, nearly 4000 students start their studies in UT at all study levels.

September 4-5, 2017 the European Company Law and Corporate Governance Conference will take place in Tallinn to discuss necessary changes in the existing EU company law. The conference is planned to cover three different areas of interest: the digital company law, the cross-border mobility of companies (cross-border mergers, divisions and transfers of registered office i.e. conversions) and applicable law in company law matters.

You can find the program from the conference page.

Tongji University (Shanghai) and University of Tartu Summer School in Economics On the 7th and 8th of August, a delegation from Tongji University (Shanghai, PRC) visited University of Tartu School of Economics and Business Administration. This was the second doctoral seminar since Tongji is an official partner university. The previous event took place 27-28th of March 2017, in Tongji.

Tartu Observatory researcher and former ESTCube Program leader Andris Slavinskis is participating in NASA’s Exchange Visitor Program for one-year period at NASA Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley. Slavinskis is working in the Mission Design Division at Ames to study advanced concepts for future NASA missions that could use small satellites for interplanetary exploration.

On 7 August, the University of Tartu School of Economics and Business Administration starts moving to the former National Archives building in Liivi Street to operate there until the new academic and research building Delta is completed.

As a result of a naming competition, the new academic and research building of the Institute of Computer Science, the Institute of Mathematics and Statistics and the School of Economics and Business Administration to be completed in autumn 2019, will be named Delta.

4 offers were made for the tender for finishing the construction work of the University of Tartu Library. The winner of the public tender was AS Ehitustrust and OÜ Tallinna Ehitustrust, which made a joint offer in the amount of 5.75 million euros (plus VAT).

The University of Tartu Institute of Computer Science and PerkinElmer, Inc., a global leader committed to innovating for a healthier world, have entered into a scientific cooperation agreement. The aim of this collaboration is to investigate the possibilities of developing methods of machine learning in order to create systematic analysis tools for microscopic images of cells used in scientific research.

From 10 to 14 July, the 14th conference of the International Cognitive Linguistics Association (ICLC14) is held in the University of Tartu. The conference “Linguistic Diversity and Cognitive Linguistics” brings to Tartu nearly 500 participants from 50 countries all over the world.