Presentation by Vice Rector for Research, professor Mari Moora at the University of Tartu development conference

Mari Moora, professor and Vice Rector for Research

The text is based on the presentation at the University of Tartu development conference “A university for us, Estonia and the world”.

The University of Tartu’s strategic plan for 2026–2035 is titled “A university for us, Estonia and the world”. In this presentation, I will talk about the university for us. What is it like?

The university is its people, and the broader aim of the strategic plan is to ensure a high-quality next generation for our university community – both for the academic staff and support units. For the university to be able to fulfil its responsibilities to society, we must be strong and resilient.

Only through its people can the university contribute to research, culture and society. This is why the quality of our people’s knowledge and shared values matter, as well as the environment in which they learn and work.

The university is a unique organisation because it brings together almost four generations at a time. They all have different experiences and worldviews, yet, ideally, they should share a common set of values. In addition, the university has a clear academic hierarchy, reflecting the academic age, knowledge and experience of university members.

Academic succession, in its narrow sense, is the entry of young people into the academic hierarchy. Here, however, I use the term in a broader sense, covering the entire academic career model – from student to professor.

I am an ecologist, and to describe our university, I borrow metaphors from my own field (see definitions below). In my view, the university is like a functioning ecosystem, home to various organisms and populations of different species.

Thus, the university as a system resembles an ecosystem in its structure. It is a community of people within a social and physical environment. The people represent functional groups – guilds – without which the university would not be able to function: students, academic staff and support staff. To maintain the stability of the university as an ecosystem, its functional building blocks – the guilds – need to be in balance. Each guild must be able to reproduce itself in a way that preserves the overall equilibrium.

Academic succession is primarily associated with doctoral studies. However, this is just one link, although important, in the longer chain extending from student to professor. Academic succession cannot function without an effective support structure, the renewal of which is just as crucial – people in support units who ensure professional administration (bureaucracy, in its best sense) and manage property, laboratories, IT infrastructure and other matters. Effective reproduction must keep the entire ecosystem’s guild structure intact; otherwise, the ecosystem would cease to function.

A stable university also means a balanced population structure, which makes the continuity of education and research possible. Populations within the university can be categorised in various ways, for example, by faculty and discipline, or by different positions. At the same time, there is no reason to expect a perfect balance between disciplines. In developing fields of research, we anticipate progressive populations, while in some disciplines and areas, certain regression is inevitable. It is important to monitor whether the structural changes meet our expectations and needs. Since population dynamics is a process with a considerable time lag, changes take years, and proactive steps must be taken early enough.

I would illustrate this with the example of the academic population of the University of Tartu (see the attached figure). The population of all academic members of the university – from students to professors – is clearly progressive in nature: there are several times more younger individuals (students) than academically older ones. The population of academic staff is also progressive – there are far more doctoral students and research fellows than associate professors and professors. The age structure of the professor population is more or less balanced. When we examine the gender distribution within these populations, we notice that women dominate at the younger levels, while men prevail in the higher ones.

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Although at first glance, the university’s academic population appears to be in good shape (progressive), a closer look reveals its weakness: the number of doctoral students accounts for only 25% of the number of master’s students. This may be just about sufficient to reproduce the university’s academic staff population, but it is clearly not enough to ensure that specialists with the highest academic qualifications – people holding doctoral degrees – are available beyond the university. This is why we must begin joint efforts now to significantly increase the number of doctoral degrees conferred by the University of Tartu.

In nature, species differ in their plasticity. Some cannot tolerate even minor environmental changes. High-plasticity species, on the contrary, are able to adapt – their ecological niche is broad, and their degree of specialisation is therefore lower. Such species ensure ecosystem stability in a changing external environment.

In the context of an academic career, plasticity means the ability to engage in interdisciplinary collaboration and think outside the box. An academic career can be very narrow – for example, when a researcher spends the entire career working on the same issues they addressed in their bachelor’s thesis. In some cases, this may even be effective.

Nevertheless, the system must have opportunities for adaptation, change of direction, joining or branching out. One step in this direction was taken with the Bologna Declaration regarding the transition between bachelor’s and master’s studies.

In fact, the possibility for reprofiling is needed throughout the entire academic career model – and not only there. The most critical and difficult-to-organise transition is between the academic career and the business or private sector, especially in a way that would allow a return to the academic career later. Currently, the prevailing understanding – unfortunately, supported by practice – is that once you leave academia, there is almost no way back.

Functional diversity and balance ensure the fertility of the university ecosystem, while the optimal structure of populations guarantees internal stability. Plasticity – the academic adaptability – contributes to innovation and timeliness. If our university functions as a well-balanced ecosystem, the University of Tartu is also a university for Estonia and the world.