News

At the award ceremony of the L’Oreal Fellowship Programme for Women in Science, held at the Latvian Academy of Sciences in Riga on 5 June, five laureates of the fellowship were announced. The only Estonian to receive the 6000-euro fellowship was Associate Professor and Senior Research Fellow Karin Kogermann of the University of Tartu Faculty of Medicine, Institute of Pharmacy. In her research, Kogermann focuses on enhancing the treatment of chronic wounds by designing and making smart nanofibre-based wound dressings.

New research using ancient DNA finds that a population split after people first arrived in North America was maintained for millennia before mixing again before or during the expansion of humans into the southern continent. Recent research has suggested that the first people to enter the Americas split into two ancestral branches, the northern and southern, and that the “southern branch” gave rise to all populations in Central and South America. Now, a study shows for the first time that, deep in their genetic history, the majority – if not all – of

On 21 May, a seminar about creative teaching methods took place in Kiev, in the Ukrainian Ministry of Science and Education. About 100 lecturers and educators across Ukraine had come to participate in the workshop organised by UT IdeaLab in collaboration with Ukrainian partner organisation “Platform for Innovative Partnership”. On the next day (22nd of May) Yep!STARTER business development programme students presented their semester-long work and competed for the opportunity to pitch at sTARTUp Day, business festival in Tartu.

On 29 May, UT Professor of Romance Studies Sara Bédard-Goulet delivers his inaugural lecture “Inhabiting the Contemporary World: The Novels of Jean Echenoz” in the university assembly hall.

Taxify and the University of Tartu (UT) Institute of Computer Science (UT ICS) have signed a cooperation agreement this month to bring innovative solutions to urban mobility and to millions of Taxify users around the world. “The cooperation between Taxify and University of Tartu will be a two-way process. On one hand, Taxify will be able to bring to the table problems that have a direct and daily impact on millions of Taxify users around the world.

In the editorial of the journal Eesti Arst, six directors of hospitals of Tartu and Tallinn published their idea to join Tartu University Hospital, Tallinn Children’s Hospital and North Estonia Medical Centre into a consortium, which by 2025 would result in a single university hospital with campuses in Tartu and Tallinn.

At the Demo Day, the University of Tartu recognised researchers who have made a great contribution to the development of enterprising university. The title of entrepreneurial researcher was awarded to Visiting Professor of the Cancer Biology Research Group Tambet Teesalu and Professor of Ichtyology and Fisheries of the Estonian Marine Institute Toomas Saat.

The first stage of the UT Library renovation has been completed and parts of the building will be opened for readers on 25 April at 12.00. Although the renovation of the library will continue, students will be able to prepare for their spring exams in the new environment. “We set the goal that by the end of the semester, the students should be able to study at the library,” said Martin Hallik, the UT Library director.

In a joint study by the University of Tartu (Estonia), the Institute of Geological and Nuclear Sciences (New Zealand) and the University of Salzburg (Austria) more than 5,800 scientific articles from three environmental research journals were digitised and analysed. In addition, a geographical search method was developed to identify the location of a studied area.

Before a satellite starts work on orbit, researchers and engineers have to think through everything that might happen out of their reach. In the new HYPERNETS project which includes Tartu Observatory as a partner, an instrument for the support measurements of optical remote sensing satellites is created.

This February a completely new kind of student arrived at the university – a robot called Pepper. It is owned by AS Hansab and its studies in Tartu are supported by Telia. Pepper’s study process will constitute the first financed project-based practical training at the university.

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.