News

The Center of IT Impact Studies (CITIS) is the only institution in Estonia which does quantitative assessment and modelling of the impact of public e-services and technology. CITIS trains e-state developers, but they also use the data from the e-state to develop new services.

The University of Tartu is the only university in the Baltic states which is represented in the QS World University Rankings by Subject 2016 with six subjects. Of the six UT subjects on the list, linguistics (101–150) and computer science and information systems (401–450) are new entries in high places.

Research predicts that by the year 2020, the European Union needs an additional half a million IT workers. The IT sector in Estonia and Tartu is also looking for additional workforce. On 18 March, a career day is organised at the Institute of Computer Science (Ülikooli 17) where the number of IT enterprises who will introduce their internship and career options is bigger than ever.

Students from Hokkaido University will be studying in intensive English language courses in Tartu until 19 March. The Japanese are living with host families where they can also participate in the everyday life of Estonians and practice English outside the classroom.

Driving home from work, your car informs the heating system that you will be home soon and the heating turns on, or the refrigerator recognises a missing food product and adds it to the shopping list—these are only some examples of how objects will be communicating in the future and making people’s lives more comfortable. Objects’ skill to communicate is the future direction in technology and for developing this, the University of Tartu and Telia Eesti opened Estonia’s internet of things lab.

A series of events will take place at the University of Tartu on 9-12th March, which include the opening a photo exhibition, the presentation of the novel “My name is Marytė”, a public lecture, screenings of prizewinning films and also a workshop of making the famous Lithuanian national dish cepelinai.

Representatives of the University of Cambridge’s centre for mathematical studies Cambridge Mathematics will be visiting Tartu and the University of Tartu for the first time today and tomorrow, on 7 and 8 March, to learn about the Estonian school system and the computer based statistics project led by the University of Tartu Centre for School Mathematics and Informatics.

Breast cancer is the most common cause of cancer-related deaths worldwide, affecting one in eight women. There are different types of breast cancer, but one type in particular accounts for almost three quarters of all breast tumors. These tumors feature a receptor for estrogen, and very often become resistant to hormone therapy. Despite their high frequency, these “estrogen receptor-positive” tumors have been difficult to research because the animals we test drugs on are often not relevant to the clinic.

Language technology researchers at UT Institute of Computer Science started cooperation in machine translation with translation agency Grata. The aim of the cooperation is to create a machine translation solution for automatic translation from German and English into Estonian that takes into consideration the needs of the specific translation agency.

A panel exhibition introducing the history of the university main building was put up in the main building in time for the anniversary of the independence of Estonia. The exhibition is displayed in the foyer of the main building, on the former information boards, and tells the story of the UT main building, starting from St Mary’s Church that used to be in its place until modern day.

On Friday, 4 March an entrepreneurship lab (E-Lab) starts operating in the University of Tartu Narva College. The Entrepreneurship Lab is opened by Lecturer at Uppsala University Mikael Schedrin (PhD). The lab was initiated in cooperation of Narva College, Ida-Viru County Government, Narva Business Advisory Services and the Embassy of Sweden.

In 2015, UT continuing education courses had 37 160 learners, which is nearly 15% more than in the previous year. One reason for the increasing number of participants is free online courses or MOOCs, which the university offers for free.

Icosagen Cell Factory, a spin-off company from the University of Tartu, received a prestigious SME grant within the framework of Horizon 2020, the EU Framework Programme for Research and Innovation, in which the European Commission hand-picks businesses to invest in and support. A total of 30 projects out of 1090 submitted proposals under Phase 2 were selected in the last call, with the cut-off date being 25 November 2015.

On 29 February, University of Tartu Rector Volli Kalm and Sven Nuutmann, Chairman of the Management Board of Eesti Meedia, signed a cooperation agreement. The parties’ mutual interest is to promote the University of Tartu’s research and development activity, studies, continuing education of Eesti Meedia personnel and to contribute to Eesti Meedia channels with content and ideas.

On February 29, the e-classes offered by the online course “EU-Russia Relations: Between the Vilnius and Riga Eastern Partnership Summits” will officially start.

Among the 780 teams that participated in the renowned artificial intelligence competition, the team of the University of Tartu returned with fourth place by creating a programme which passes the American 8th grade exam. University of Tartu and Estonia was represented in the Kaggle Allen AI Science Challenge with an 80 000 dollar award fund by doctoral student of computer science Tambet Matiisen and employee of the Institute of Computer Science Tanel Pärnamaa.

Researchers of the University of Tartu (UT) and Tallinn University of Technology (TUT), together with international partners, received a 5.28 million euro support from the European Union for project GRACE. The aim of the project is to develop a strategic expert system and a decision support system to respond to oil spills in arctic conditions and ice–covered seas.

On 23 February, on the eve of the 98th anniversary of the Republic of Estonia, President Toomas Hendrik Ilves will bestow state decorations to 99 people for their services to the country. Four UT people are among those to receive the award. "The purpose of decorations is to acknowledge Estonian people and our supporters in foreign countries for their determination in their activities and loyalty to principles that modern Estonia relies upon – openness, democracy, knowledge, innovation," wrote President Ilves in the introduction to his resolution.

The leading media group in the Baltic countries Eesti Meedia will sign a 5-year cooperation agreement with the University of Tartu Academic Sports Club to become the new name sponsor of the university’s basketball team. Saku Brewery will continue to be a major sponsor of the team.

The cooperation of Tartu and Swedish researchers will soon shed light on the first dialogue between the embryo and mother that leads to embryo implantation in the inner lining of the uterus. An understanding of the biological mechanisms of the beginning of life enables to use more exact and effective methods to increase the success rate of infertility treatment.