Three ambassadors visited the university

Ambassador of the United Arab Emirates Amna Mahmoud Fikri visited the university at the end of February, and Ambassador of Ukraine Volodymyr Boyechko and Ambassador of Germany Jan Scheer at the beginning of March.

On 26 February, the university welcomed Amna Mahmoud Fikri, the Ambassador of the United Arab Emirates to Finland and Estonia, whose visit aimed to learn about the local research and cooperation potential and to strengthen relations with both the university and the city of Tartu.

At the university, the ambassador met with Rector Toomas Asser and engaged in discussions with Professor of Artificial Intelligence Meelis Kull, Professor of Physical Chemistry Enn Lust and Middle East Coordinator Helen Haas.

Cooperation between the University of Tartu and the United Arab Emirates is still in its early stages and has so far been mainly limited to research. Between 2021 and 2025, more than 460 joint research articles were published, primarily in the fields of genomics, plant pathology and geosciences. The Asia Centre has an Erasmus+ International Credit Mobility agreement with the University of Sharjah. The ambassador sees opportunities to expand cooperation in the fields of information technology and artificial intelligence.

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On 5 March, Ambassador of Ukraine Volodymyr Boyechko visited the university. During his visit, he spoke at a public debate held at the Johan Skytte Institute of Political Studies entitled “Fragmentation in international politics or a new world order – Ukraine, geopolitical turbulence and Estonia”, which also featured Rainer Saks, security expert and visiting professor at the Skytte institute, as well as Kaimo Kuusk, Permanent Secretary of the Estonian Ministry of Defence and Estonia’s Ambassador to Ukraine from 2019 to 2023. The discussion focused on Ukraine’s role in international politics and regional security challenges.

After the debate, the ambassador met with Rector Toomas Asser to talk about cooperation between Ukraine and the University of Tartu. The meetings emphasised the importance of strong ties between the University of Tartu and Ukrainian partners, as well as the growing significance of students and researchers in the relations between the two countries. The visit continued with a concert in support of Ukraine in the university’s assembly hall.

From 5 to 6 March, Ambassador of Germany Jan Scheer visited the university. On 5 March, he met with Rector Toomas Asser to discuss the University of Tartu’s cooperation with German partners, opportunities for developing the teaching of the German language and German studies, as well as research into Baltic German cultural heritage and the expansion of research cooperation. German is taught in almost half of Estonian schools, but due to the low number of teachers, the German Embassy is very interested in seeing more opportunities for the training of teachers of German within the university’s teacher education programmes.

On 6 March, Scheer met with students of the Johan Skytte Institute of Political Studies to discuss German foreign policy and European security.