News

From 19–20 April 2017 the Estonian Language Technology 2017 conference will be held in Tallinn. On 18 April, the day before the conference, several interesting workshops are organised. One of these is the machine translation hackathon, which tests how machines can contribute to the development of Wikipedia.

Authors of the twenty-year study “Me. The World. The Media” that was recently made into a book admit that Estonia is characterised by the ever deepening differentiation between population groups and the opposition between the accelerators and decelerators of social time. The findings of the comprehensive survey are more closely introduced at a conference in Tallinn on 18 April.

The new annual exhibition “Glory of the Cathedral” will be opened in the Treasury of the University of Tartu Museum on 12 April 2017. The exhibition focuses on the most magnificent cathedral in Old Livonia and its archaeological heritage.

For the last three months, the University of Tartu has tried to come to an agreement with AS YIT about the volume and quality of construction works performed in the library. On 21 March 2017, the university sent another reasoned compromise proposal to the construction company. YIT Ehitus did not respond and instead of looking for compromise, threatened to prevent the university from continuing construction works in the library by taking the matter to the court.

The European Commission and Europa Nostra have announced the winners of the most reputable heritage award in Europe – the European Union Prize for Cultural Heritage and Europa Nostra Award for 2017. One of the winners is the Rode altarpiece research and conservation project, to which a considerable contribution was made by the UT cultural heritage workgroup.

In March, head of the Chair of Marketing of the University of Tartu Andres Kuusik and manager of Initiative media agency Indrek Soom made an agreement whereby they decided to join the skills of the academic world with the real marketing world. The partners’ common goal is to develop the first consumer behaviour laboratory in Estonia, which would enable to analyse consumer behaviour and the ways how it can be influenced.

The master’s thesis “Child protection workers’ interpretations of parenting in assessments”, defended in the University of Tartu this year, reveals that child protection workers have different expectations for mothers and fathers. Besides, they see a mother who leaves a violent relationship as the responsible one, and disregard the father’s role.

Polish Culture Days are held in Tartu from 7–9 April. The programme of this minifestival includes lectures, workshops and various activities both for grownups and children.

The University of Tartu researchers together with international specialists work on a vaccine candidate that has shown exceptionally good results on animals and may in future protect people against the dangerous Chikungunya virus.

Estonian Refugee Council and the University of Tartu Centre for Ethics ask people with migration experience, both Estonians living abroad and foreigners staying in Estonia, to share their personal migration stories. The stories can be submitted until 17 April. Migration stories are collected in order to compile a migration-related poster collection for teachers.

On Wednesday, 29 March, the fourth Student Fair will take place in the sports hall of Estonian University of Life Sciences, giving an opportunity to the students to meet their future employers and colleagues and find out something new about themselves.

On Friday, 24 March, the University of Tartu is celebrating the Skytte Day and UT rector Professor Volli Kalm will award the Skytte medal to rector of Estonian Academy of Security Sciences, former director of the University of Tartu Narva College, Katri Raik. Katri Raik is recognised with the medal for her mission-driven work in integrating Estonian education and developing teacher training, strengthening the position of the Estonian national university in Narva and internationalisation of higher education in Estonia.

University of Tartu Natural History Museum and Estonian Museum of Natural History invite people of all ages to participate in the photography contest “Wild City”. The aim of this contest is to guide people to notice and value wildlife in the urban space and inspire them to capture it.

This year, 2438 applications were submitted to the 20 international master’s curricula of the University of Tartu. The amount of applications filed by Estonian candidates increased by a fifth.

Professor of higher education of Auburn University James Groccia is in Tartu in March, giving lectures, consulting doctoral students and counselling supervisors of doctoral students of the University of Tartu at an open seminar.

From 20 to 27 March, the University of Tartu in collaboration with Dresden and Olomouc universities host the Tajik delegation who are coming to Estonia to explore the organisation of studies and curricula in our university.

It is with deep sadness that I have to inform you that Professor Peeter Tulviste, Rector Emeritus of the University of Tartu, passed away on Saturday, 11 March. We mourn the loss of a great scholar and a great man who served as the Rector of the University of Tartu from 1993 to 1998.

On today’s Mother Language Day, the comprehensive Wikipedia development project Million+ is launched, in which everyone who wants to contribute to the future of the Estonian language and culture can join.

The master’s thesis “The Mobile Phone in the Hands of the Nepalese People: A Humanistic Perspective of Technology", defended in the Department of Ethnology of the University of Tartu in January, demonstrates clearly that the phone has become our inseparable companion, cure for loneliness and best friend.

On 7 and 8 March, researchers from the universities of Estonia and other Baltic Sea countries get together in the assembly hall of the University of Tartu to discuss different spatial planning possibilities for universities at the Liveable City Forum.