Topic: research

Twelve interdisciplinary doctoral positions will be created at the University of Tartu to explore potential applications of artificial intelligence, including, for example, addressing mental health issues, reducing food waste, assessing the overall impact of spatial planning, and facilitating sign language interpreting.

This autumn, doctoral researchers of the University of Tartu will again have the opportunity to participate in the three-minute thesis competition. The competition will be held on 21 October in the conference hall of the University of Tartu Library.

The call for applications for the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) Postdoctoral Fellowships is open until 9 September 2026. In April and May, the Estonian Research Council (ETAG) will host info sessions to help prospective applicants prepare their applications.

Speaker application is open until April 1 for TEDxUniversity of Tartu.

In the recent call for the European Research Council (ERC) Consolidator Grants, University of Tartu researchers received funding for three projects: to study the climate impact of air pollution particles, the formation of cell patterns in plant leaves, and women’s hormonal sensitivity. Each grant amounts to nearly two million euros, and the projects last for five years.

As part of a European Research Council (ERC) Synergy Grant project, archaeologist Mari Tõrv from the University of Tartu will study how hunter-gatherers across the Northern hemisphere achieved significant population growth and social complexity long before agriculture and cattle farming became the dominating way of life. Tõrv’s research team will contribute to the project with material analysis from the Baltic region.

Estonia, under the lead of the University of Tartu, has become the first member state of the consortium developing the European Spallation Source to deliver all in-kind contributions for ESS construction.

The three-minute thesis competition for doctoral researchers, held at the University of Tartu Library on 22 October, featured 13 popular-science short lectures in Estonian and 14 in English.

The doctoral thesis defended at the Institute of Chemistry studied the distribution of organic solutes in a gas-ionic liquid environment using cheminformatics and machine learning methods.

A recent overview published by the Estonian Research Council (ETAG) reveals that Estonia has performed exceptionally well in the European Union’s framework programme for research and innovation, Horizon Europe (2021–2027). Among Estonian institutions, the University of Tartu has been the most successful participant in the programme, receiving almost €90 million in funding.