News

On 8 February, President Toomas Hendrik Ilves awarded by way of exception two Young Scientist Awards. The prize was given to UT mycologist Leho Tedersoo and media and communication researcher Andra Siibak. Graduate of the Institute of Computer Science Dan Bogdanov was given the Young IT Scientist Award. Leho Tedersoo is Senior Research Fellow in Ecology of Biological Interactions at the University of Tartu. In a short period of time he has founded his own research group and become an internationally acknowledged mycologist.

On 5 July, the University of Tartu Art Museum exhibition “Dissecting a Painting. Portrait of G. F. Parrot” is opened in the rotund of the Old Anatomical Theatre. This is the first opportunity to see the portrait of the well-known rector and professor of physics of the University of Tartu, painted by Franz Gerhard von Kügelgen 200 years ago.

University of Tartu Institute of Computer Science opens a new position in autumn – the professorship of information systems. The new position will be held by current Professor of Software Engineering Marlon Dumas, who is ranked among the world’s top 1% of most cited researchers in the area of computer science.

On 30 June, the inauguration ceremony where rector Professor Volli Kalm takes an oath of office for the new term as the rector will be held in the assembly hall of the University of Tartu.

On Friday evening, University of Tartu teams took the two first places at the final competition of an exclusive NGAL® business development program. Among ten student teams from Estonia and USA, Cody was selected to be the winner and got 3,000 USD to implement their idea. The second place and 2,000 USD went to the Coulomb Sailing Group.

On 20 June, a cooperation agreement was signed by the Estonian Bar Association and the University of Tartu, aiming to support the development of high-quality Estonian Wikipedia and to appreciate and highlight Estonian-language wiki articles on law and the Bar. The cooperation is a part of the University of Tartu’s Million+ project, which hopes to raise the number of Estonian Wikipedia articles to one million by the year 2020. The prize fund of the article competitions is 3000 euros.

A master’s thesis defended in the University of Tartu’s Department of Philosophy claims that top athletes, who more and more often attract media interest even outside the sports sphere, should also behave more morally than the so-called average person outside the training and competition period.

The University of Tartu’s patented strain of lactic acid bacterium Lactobacillus fermentum ME-3 gains more and more popularity in the world. Food supplements containing ME-3 have so far been sold in 12 countries; in April a new supplement made it to the Australian market. Scientists are looking for new areas of use for the friendly bacteria.

From 22 to 26 May, the researcher and visionary in educational management and innovation Professor Thomas Hatch from Columbia University is visiting Tartu and will hold two seminars for doctoral students, their supervisors and for everyone who is interested.

On 14 June at 15:00 the Genome Centre’s information day is held in the assembly hall of the University of Tartu, where experts explain what can be done with genetic data and how the data gathered in the course of research study can become valuable for ordinary people.

Feature film "Dhokbu - the Keeper" June 16th at 18.00 Estonian National Museum (Muuseumi tee 2, Tartu) J. Hurt hall (A-entrance) The film is in Lepcha and in English, with subtitles, 88 min Free entrance

The University of Tartu (UT) has once again improved its position in the prestigious QS World University Rankings published today, reaching 314th place. Compared to last year, UT has improved its position by 33 places. Compared to 2015, UT has moved up a total of 65 places. Considering the fact that there are nearly 26,000 universities in the world, this places UT among the top 1.2%.

A recent survey of the reputation of universities conducted by Kantar Emor confirmed that the University of Tartu (UT) remains the most prestigious university in Estonia.

On 1 and 2 June the Forum and General Assembly of the Guild of European Research Intenstive Universities (the Guild) took place in Brussels. At the meeting the Guild elected a new Board of Directors and admitted a new member university.

This year, an exclusive business development program NGAL® (Network Globally, Act Locally) takes place from 5th to 24th June, engaging five universities from USA and Estonia. The program starts with the boot camp at UT IdeaLab and ends with a launch-camp in Charleston, USA. University of Tartu will be represented by two teams: STARTER program graduate Cody and the Coulomb Sailing Group.

This academic year’s last lecture of the UT University for Senior Citizens was held in Türi last week. In 2016/2017, approximately 2400 learners all over Estonia participated in the programmes of the University for Senior Citizens.

The University of Tartu Botanical Garden will open an exhibition, which is dedicated to the oil palm and seeks answers to the question why manufacturers prefer palm oil and whether consumer choices can save the environment. Among all the goods in shops and stores it is not easy to find a product that does not contain palm oil. However, to found oil palm plantations, rainforests – the most species-rich places on our planet – are cut down. If the use of palm oil is constantly increasing, the question how long the rainforests survive is asked more and more often.

The Baltic TRAM project has opened the first application round for entrepreneurs, offering companies free access to state-of-the-art analytical research facilities in the research institutions of the Baltic Sea region, providing scientific and technical support for the development of new products or services.

From 24 to 27 May, the international Nordic Econometric Meeting, organised by the University of Tartu School of Economics and Business Administration, is held in the Dorpat Convention Centre. One of the keynote speakers is winner of the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences in 2011 Christopher A. Sims. The conference concentrates on professional skills required by the financial sector in future, monetary policy and interactions between business cycles and financial markets.

Nature published five of the best images from the competition, which ran throughout March and attracted about 170 entries, from New Zealand to Norway, Canada to Qatar. Winners were chosen by a panel of Nature designers and journalists, who judged the images purely on their aesthetic impact. We did not ask for additional context, and we accepted only one image per person. Submissions could be made either through social media or by e-mail.