News

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.

On 8 February, the government of Estonia decided to grant the Ferdinand Johann Wiedemann Language Prize to the dedicated teacher and scholar, University of Tartu associate professor emerita Reet Kasik for her research on word formation, development of text analysis, and educating and encouraging young linguists.

Student Startup Camp was held in Tartu last week for a 5th successful time. Garage48, the University of Tartu Institute of Computer Science and IdeaLab provided an excellent working atmosphere for the 100 students taking part in the camp, who had a busy week of building ideas into prototypes.

The Marketing Office of the University of Tartu conducted a survey among international degree students in summer 2017. The purpose of the survey was to help understand how current international students made their decision to come to study in Estonia. Total number of respondents was 176, 84% of whom were master’s and 16% bachelor’s students. Most of the respondents came from Ukraine, Russia, Georgia, Finland, USA, Nigeria, Germany, Latvia or Azerbaijan.

Kaur Alasoo, a young scientist who has defended his doctoral thesis at the University of Cambridge and is now working as a bioinformatics researcher at the University of Tartu, focused on the reasons for complicated genetic diseases and ways to avoid them in the future.

The University of Tartu Museum and Natural History Museum won three valuable awards at the Estonian annual museum awards ceremony at the Kumu Art Museum in Tallinn on 19 January. The University of Tartu Museum received two Museum Rat awards for the best scientific event and the best collection development. UT Natural History Museum was awarded the special Rat Trap prize as the most tourist-friendly museum.

Estonian Olympic Committee recognises eighteen regional multifunctional sports centres, which stand out for their high-quality infrastructure and offer services and conditions that enable to promote youth and amateur sports in the region.

The daily newspaper Postimees has recognised lead research fellow in conservation biology of the University of Tartu Asko Lõhmus with the title “Person of the Year 2017”. “Lõhmus has led the forest ecology and logging discussion in a balanced and well-argued manner, and thereby significantly contributed to the nature conservation debate in Estonia,” Postimees editor-in-chief Lauri Hussar explained the choice of the staff.

Minister of education and research Mailis Reps and rector of the University of Tartu Volli Kalm signed the merger agreement of Tartu Observatory and the University of Tartu today, on 13 December. Tõravere-based Tartu Observatory will operate as an institute in the Faculty of Science and Technology as of 1 January 2018.

Cooperation between researchers in the United States and Estonia helps to discover changes in brain tissue, which are associated with the very early stages of dementia. The cause of nearly half of all cases of dementia is Alzheimer’s disease. It is estimated that 47 million people are suffering globally from Alzheimer’s – nearly the population of Spain. Due to the ageing of the population, it is predicted that 131.5 million people will be suffering from Alzheimer’s by 2050 – this is slightly less than the entire population of Russia.