Recording: Ceremony and concert marking the 107th anniversary of the Republic of Estonia

The University of Tartu held a ceremony and concert to mark the 107th anniversary of the Republic of Estonia. At the ceremony, annual awards and scholarships were presented, and Professor of Political and Sociosemiotics Andreas Ventsel delivered a lecture.

Rector Professor Toomas Asser held the opening speech of the ceremony. The academic lecture on information security “The deterring power of words” was delivered by Andreas Ventsel, Professor of Political and Sociosemiotics at the University of Tartu.

At the ceremony, the university’s contribution to society award, research award and language award and the teaching staff of the year awards for 2024 were presented. The contribution to society award went to the University of Tartu Move Lab for their initiatives to improve the health and well-being of children and young people. The research award was given to the Centre for Climate Research for the discovery that anthropogenic air pollution causes snowfall and reduces cloud cover in industrial areas. The language award was presented to the Neurotõlge working group for their work on creating the digital translation engine for Finno-Ugric languages.

The title of the University of Tartu teaching staff of the year 2024 in the Faculty of Arts and Humanities went to Teacher of Estonian Language Piret Toomet, in the Faculty of Social Sciences to Lecturer in Special Education Pille Häidkind, in the Faculty of Medicine to Lecturer in Radiology and Medical Biochemistry Maksim Zagura, and in the Faculty of Science and Technology to Associate Professor in Developmental Biology Tambet Tõnissoo.

At the ceremony, the University of Tartu awarded four early-stage researchers. The €18,000 scholarship of the Ernst Jaakson memorial fund was awarded to Research Fellow in Materials Science Kristjan Kalam. The Professor Peeter Tulviste memorial fund prize was awarded to Research Fellow in Theoretical Philosophy Uku Tooming. The Lennart Meri award for research went to historian Timo Aava, and the Lennart Meri award for master’s thesis went to Hegle Pärna for her master’s thesis in law. Read more on the university’s website.

Urmas Klaas, the Mayor of Tartu, and Gloria Margret Rose, a third-year student of French Language and Literature and Political Science at the University of Tartu, delivered their greetings to university members.

Music was performed by Tartu Academic Male Choir, conducted by Roland Viilukas, and the ceremony ended with a concert by Vaiko Eplik.

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