Professor Puura, what are your main objectives for your new term as Vice-Rector?

The broader goal, together with other members of the Rectorate, is to strengthen TalTech’s position, visibility, and impact in the Estonian higher education and research landscape, as well as internationally. Estonia needs a strong technical university alongside its classical university!

More specifically, we must ensure that entrepreneurial activity and business cooperation are recognised in academic careers, and that the scale of cooperation grows in ways where employers and entrepreneurs feel that TalTech is their university.

How do you envision your field at TalTech in ten years’ time?

In ten years, we can expect that the university’s infrastructure will have significantly modernised, TalTech will have become an increasingly strong and respected university of technology, and a hub of innovation in Northern Europe.

Each year, around ten spin-off companies will be created, supporting both teaching and research. Many entrepreneurs will be continuously engaged in university life and in teaching activities, which will become increasingly practice-based.

What has been the most exciting discovery, greatest challenge, or biggest surprise in your role as Vice-Rector for Entrepreneurship so far?

Perhaps not a surprise, but rather a joy of recognition: after 40 years connected with the University of Tartu, I sense a special and strong spirit at TalTech, with its foundation in logical and open engineering thinking. Having been a doctoral student and defended my PhD at the KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, I feel a close connection with this particular spirit.

How can the university’s link with society be strengthened?

To strengthen ties with society, we need more dialogue. This is certainly the task of Rectorate members, but every academic staff member should feel both the need and even the obligation to talk about their work and its importance, and to contribute their expertise.

Unfortunately, public appearances can also bring malicious attacks, and for this reason the university must provide central support to its people.

Open communication not only fulfils the mission of serving society but also increases visibility and the scale of business cooperation.

What inspires you most in your professional life? And in your free time?

I am entirely results-oriented and feel inspired when efforts lead to tangible outcomes. This is also linked to one of my hobbies—mushroom foraging. Our forests provide a great and renewable resource, and when the harvest outweighs the cost of going to the forest, the joy is even greater. Mushrooms have brought happiness to many people who themselves cannot go to the forest. And one can even deduct the calories spent on sports.

I also enjoy playing chess. Each game is unique, and a beautiful combination matters even more than victory or defeat. Depending on the length of the game, chess is also mental training: the ability to make 60 decent moves in a minute encourages rapid-fire thinking and acting, while in long games one must carefully consider different combinations.

Since the world around us is changing rapidly, the main lesson of chess is this: one must make new moves based on the position and timeframe on the board and clock. Relying on strategies made ten moves earlier, or thinking and acting too slowly, very often leads to certain defeat.