The focus areas chosen by the university have facilitated a lot of interdisciplinarity, close cooperation among our scientists. This has contributed to new and exciting ideas and solutions getting to the society. Clearly us being very international, collaborating with universities in Estonia and abroad, is also important.
I would like to highlight that we have a well-established organisational culture that supports our students, staff and cooperation partners. The university has been committed to staff self-enhancement, offering excellent support and the best trainings.
I have always appreciated the fact that we have been given the opportunity to develop ourselves in various roles. Being a researcher, I have had the opportunity to also teach, but also to engage in the development of learning and teaching i.e., as a project manager for a doctoral school. My colleagues, for example, have managed various study programmes.
TalTech is very open to new approaches, ideas, but also learning and teaching methods. I would like to give an example from among my courses – a virtual practical lab tutorial, which allows the students to perform experiments in a virtual environment and use the same environment for tackling problems. At the same time, they can internalize the theory they have already covered during prior classes. Students have enjoyed this novel approach very much.
At TalTech research and learning and teaching are very tightly linked. Our students are taught by outstanding researchers. Students can present their ideas and put these into practice in our research labs. Students can thus access top research, top researchers and specialists from outside the university can help them in implementing these ideas.