First analytical chemistry Winter School brings European experts to supervise students in Estonia

From 25 to 29 January 2016, the first Winter School for the Erasmus Mundus master’s programme Excellence in Analytical Chemistry (EACH) takes place in Pühajärve, where under the supervision of leading European specialists, students practice team work, which is a crucial part of analytical chemistry. Winter School also fills an important role in creating links between analytical chemistry and other fields of research.

UT Professor of Analytical Chemistry Ivo Leito said that the Winter School as a form of study enables to conduct entirely different studies and teaching, therefore, it was planned as part of the EACH programme from the beginning.

“Students can work on specific topics intensively for several days, for example, as teams they need to measure the concentration of oxygen in the same water. If the measured values differ, the teams need to analyse the reasons and find out what was wrong. The format of the Winter School also enables to bring highly qualified international lecturers to Estonia for a week,” said Leito.

Altogether 24 students from 17 countries participate in the Winter School. Most of them are students in the EACH programme but international students from other programmes  have also been invited.

The master’s programme EACH provides high-level education in analytical chemistry and it is composed on the basis of the needs of the labour market. The studies are funded from the European Union Erasmus+ Joint Master Degrees measure. Studies begin at the University of Tartu and in the second year, students specialise in one of the three top universities in France, Finland or Sweden.

This is the first Erasmus Mundus joint programme which is coordinated by an Estonian university. The joint curriculum is operated in cooperation of four European universities.

Analytical chemists are irreplaceable in oil, chemical, pharmaceutical, material, energy, environmental, health care, and food industries. For example, they work as process inspectors and optimisers, whose task is to ensure that industrial processes contaminate less and produce more efficiently, that there is more of the necessary substance and less waste, and that the produced substance is cleaner and with better properties.

More information about the programme and the Winter School is available at http://www.ut.ee/EACH/.

Additional information: Ivo Leito, UT Professor of Analytical Chemistry, tel. 737 5259, 518 4176, e-mail: ivo.leito@ut.ee.