Uudised

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.

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.

As of autumn 2017, students of the international master’s curricula of Software Engineering and Computer Science can apply for the Cybernetica scholarship programme. The scholarship is 5000 euros per year, which is so far the highest scholarship to be paid monthly to IT students in the University of Tartu. The scholarship also involves paid summer internship in Cybernetica AS. The programme gives a unique opportunity to selected students to participate during studies in research projects in one of the leading research and development companies in Estonia.

One of the biggest gas companies in the world, the German chemistry giant Linde AG, who is represented in the Baltic and Nordic countries by its subsidiary AGA, is building an industrial pilot plant based on the prototype created by the thin film technology specialists of the University of Tartu. Linde supplies gases for industries, medicine and environmental measurements, inert gases for research laboratories, and several specific high-precision gas mixtures.

For the first time, Estonia takes part in the world’s biggest synthetic biology competition for students iGEM this year. The University of Tartu Institute of Technology has formed a team of students-researchers, who work together over the spring/summer to create cells that are able to cooperate and produce ethylene. Teams of students-researchers work together over spring/summer to solve an important local or global problem by means of synthetic biology. If everything works out, the student contest may result in a revolutionary and life-changing application.

On 24 April at 16.15 the lecture “The Era of Algorithms” will be delivered in the series of Granö lectures by the professor of computer science of the University of Helsinki Esko Ukkonen, who explores the limits and possibilities of algorithms.

From 19–20 April 2017 the Estonian Language Technology 2017 conference will be held in Tallinn. On 18 April, the day before the conference, several interesting workshops are organised. One of these is the machine translation hackathon, which tests how machines can contribute to the development of Wikipedia.

The European Commission and Europa Nostra have announced the winners of the most reputable heritage award in Europe – the European Union Prize for Cultural Heritage and Europa Nostra Award for 2017. One of the winners is the Rode altarpiece research and conservation project, to which a considerable contribution was made by the UT cultural heritage workgroup.

The University of Tartu researchers together with international specialists work on a vaccine candidate that has shown exceptionally good results on animals and may in future protect people against the dangerous Chikungunya virus.

This year, 2438 applications were submitted to the 20 international master’s curricula of the University of Tartu. The amount of applications filed by Estonian candidates increased by a fifth.

On 7 and 8 March, researchers from the universities of Estonia and other Baltic Sea countries get together in the assembly hall of the University of Tartu to discuss different spatial planning possibilities for universities at the Liveable City Forum.

The University of Tartu Student Council has asked the student body to express their ideas on what they expect of the rector. Above all, students want the university to be led by a person who is forward-looking and has a clear vision for both the society and the university.

On 21 November the opening event of the new network of European research-intensive universities GUILD took place in Brussels. The gathering of 18 leading research-intensive universities is focused on science and innovation policy issues and seizing a leading role in the middle of the economic, cultural and social changes in the society.

At a meeting on Monday, the University of Tartu and the construction company AS YIT EHITUS agreed that the contractor will complete the second stage of works on the university library by 30 November this year. Thereafter the request for getting a permit for partial use is filed, and after the request is satisfied, the university can open a part of the library for readers.

On December 9th, at the University of Tartu’s initiative, the first international business festival sTARTUp Day 2016 will be held. Over 1,000 entrepreneurs, investors, students, and scientists will come together and more than 40 speakers will discuss successful business models.

From 9 to 12 October, an international environmental conference focusing on environmental sustainability will take place in Estonia for the first time. The topics include global climate change about which Estonia needs to be forward-looking and find ways to adapt with, for example, the average temperature increase. Speakers at the international environmental conference EcoBalt2016 session on adapting to climate change include among others UT Associate Professor of Environmental Health Hans Orru who will discuss the effects of climate change and the need to adapt.

In the Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings, published yesterday evening, UT holds the highest place of all times—it placed 301–350.

Five projects have currently received funding from the Archimedes smart specialisation measure, UT is a development partner in three of these. Two projects received funding in the last round, the first studies population mobility on the basis of mobile data and the second aims to create lactic acid bacteria with specific characteristics.

Scientists of UT Institute of Physics won first place among 36 research groups in an international competition for creating super-resolution microscopy software in the 3D microscopy category. Second and third place in this category went to the teams of Harvard University. UT was represented in the competition by scientists and doctoral students of the Institute of Physics: Ardi Loot, Marko Eltermann, Andreas Valdmann, Mihkel Kree and Martti Pärs.

The new director of the Centre for Migration and Urban Studies at the UT is Professor of the University at Buffalo, State University of New York and Research Fellow of the University of Tartu Dr Daniel B. Hess. The Centre explores contemporary challenges facing urban regions including migration, residential mobility, housing and neighbourhood change, as well as the integration of immigrants and ethnic minorities across multiple life domains (such as places of residence and work, as well as intermarriages).