News

Rectors of the top science universities belonging to the Guild network gathered in Tartu on Oct 13 to discuss how to expand the influence of scientific research and make the contribution of universities more visible to the society.

On the 13th of October, along with the celebrations of the 385th birthday of the medical faculty, the Valda and Bernard Õun Scholarship will be awarded to Silva Kasela, a specialist at the Estonian Genome Center and a doctoral graduate of University of Tartu.

On October 7 2017, the Ministry of Education and Research hosted the ‘Estonia Learns and Thanks’ gala to acknowledge educational workers and supporters. The title awarded to faculty members went to the University of Tartu for the third year in a row, with the winner being Maido Merisalu, a material science engineer at the Institute of Physics. The ministry awarded UT associate professor Mart Noorma with the title of Friend of Education. Professor Alvo Aabloo was recognised as one of the people behind the technology and design hackathon series Garage48 Hardware and Arts.

On October 6, Kairi Tamuri defended the doctoral dissertation ‘Basic emotions in speech read out in Estonian: acoustic analysis and modelling’ at the University of Tartu, during the preparation of which she managed to identify the acoustic sound of anger and sadness in text that is read aloud and teach a robot producing speech to express these.

Are you ready for an exciting life of an entrepreneur? Apply for the pre-accelerator program, build your team, develop the idea and start a business! As simple as that with the new project ‘EstLat-Accelerate’ that is launched as a part of European Regional Development Fund program ‘Interreg Estonia – Latvia’. There are two partnering cities involved – Riga and Tartu. And five strong community partners have joined forces to boost startup scene of both countries.

You are welcomed to a public lecture in science communication by The Economist science writer Jason Palmer. Lecture is focused to early-stage researchers and is taking place in Tartu University main building assembly hall during 13th October 11.00-12.15

Since 1998, the International Summer University of the University of Tartu has introduced higher education and research in Estonia, incl. study opportunities at the University of Tartu, to participants from all over the world.

On 8 December, the sTARTUp Day business festival will be held in Tartu for the second time.

The European Research Council (ERC) awarded the University of Tartu scientist Tambet Teesalu a grant of 150,000 euros to support his research on developing a smart anticancer drug.

On 15 September, UT Idea Lab opens the new season with an event in SPARK, where an all-day idea hackaton takes place for the development of exciting ideas and finding teammates. The event is an introduction to the Idea Lab’s pilot course “From Idea to Execution”.

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.