Projects

DigiBio project focuses on digitalisation, bioeconomy, and sustainability, scientific domains which constitute a high priority in national, regional, and EU strategies and policies. As the second large European Centre within this area, the Estonian Centre for Bioesustainability (ECB) will place Estonia in a very competitive position in European R&I. With DTU assistance, ECB will establish a major research, technology development, and innovation platform for the generation of cutting-edge bioengineering solutions focused on sustainable bio-production through biology digitalisation. This platform will accelerate lab-to-market translation of bioengineering solutions, diversifying Estonian national industry. DigiBio’s overarching objective is to establish a state-of-the-art CoE for digitalisation of biology in Estonia, through upgrading the ECB.

CERN is an international scientific centre that unites 24 member states and 10 associated states. Their mission is to conduct experiments in high and low energy particle physics and develop novel technologies and IT solutions for medicine, AI and quantum computing. Since 2023, Estonian research at CERN has been coordinated by the CERN consortium formed by the National Institute of Chemical Physics and Biophysics (KBFI), the University of Tartu (TÜ) and Tallinn University of Technology (TalTech) whose members participate in LHC CMS, WLCG, FCC, CLIC, iFast, AMBER, Cloud and CCC experiments. Cutting-edge research at CERN fosters internationalisation and advancement of Estonian science, technology and IT. CERN actively trains students, doctoral candidates, teachers and engineers, contributing to the next generation of Estonian scientists. This application presents the operational and infrastructure plan for CERN scientific infrastructure and consortium until the end of 2029.

The challenge in modern industry is to find the best ways for human-robot interaction in workplaces, enabling robots to realize optimal solutions by combining AI and human capabilities. The project's goal is to contribute to the automation of company production processes, focusing on the social and psychological aspects of human-robot collaboration to ensure that human workers in the industry feel safe and satisfied. Research directions include: - creating a collaborative robotics experimental lab - designing robotized workplaces - modelling of human-robot interaction, assessments and analysis of influencing factors and risks. Expected results are methodologies and validated human-robot interaction models, skills for their implementation, impact factors and risk assessments, a developed laboratory with hardware, software and expertise; providing user-centred design solutions services. All of this leads to safer human-robot interactions, increasing user trust in robotic systems.

Within the project, data from farms, transport, slaughterhouses, and laboratory analyses will be collected and integrated to evaluate how production conditions influence carcass lesions and pork quality. In parallel, a data-driven feedback system will be developed, enabling producers to benchmark their results and make more informed management decisions, while also providing a foundation for the further development of the Estonian pork quality scheme. The project's key value lies in its collaborative approach, bringing stakeholders together to establish a sector-wide quality framework and strengthen the market position of Estonian pork. The project is supported by expert advice from scientists from the Finnish Institute of Natural Resources (LUKE) (Liisa Keto et al.).

TAIM brings together plant biology expertise and infrastructure in Estonian R&D institutions, serving as a platform for fundamental and applied plant science and offering services in the fields of plant biology and plant valorization. TAIM supports research-based knowledge generation for plant breeding and growth practices, contributing to sustainable agriculture, plant valorization and food production. TAIM supports adoption of new breeding techniques and food quality analyses. The aims of TAIM are to 1) support local smart food production from soil and seeds to food by creating opportunities for modern plant breeding and analyses of plants, plant-related microbes and food quality; and 2) improve research-based knowledge generation for plant breeding and growth via adoption of modern phenotyping and digital analysis techniques, allowing to assess the effect of climate change on food production and contributing to smart sustainable agriculture.