Projects

The project aims to shed light on the differences in the national regulation of children’s autonomous decisions. There are still considerable differences as to the regulatory approaches and preconditions for autonomous decisions of minors in Europe. The approaches largely foresee autonomy of minors based either on an individual assessment of their capacity to understand or on their age, with context-related differences. In order to understand national approaches, renowned national experts from 11 selected countries will contribute to the project, in addition to the project leaders, by reporting on the legal situation in their respective legal orders. The results will be discussed during the project and made available to the research community.

This project aims at enhancing expert workforce and digitalization in the field of fault diagnosis, condition- based maintenance of wind turbines and related components in the partner institutions by bringing innovation in higher education teaching and learning methods in wind energy and applied artificial intelligence for maintenance decisions, increasing its relevance for the labour market and the society as a whole. The project will help partners in Vietnam and Thailand to produce in-house human resources in the field of condition-based maintenance of wind energy, making both the countries independent of external consultants. The main objective of the project is to implement real problem-based teaching and learning methods in the curriculum of higher education institutions (HEIs) of the partner countries. The expertise and know- how of the EU partner universities and their long- term teaching and research in this field would make this project objective achievable. Moreover, this project will build the capacity to produce graduates with independent, global insight, interdisciplinary expertise, competence in wind energy, and intercultural expertise. The project will also help the EU partners to renew their education in renewable energy and build a sustainable flow of students in both directions.

The project aims to redesign the current RAPID sensors to make them more fault-tolerant. This makes the testing of underwater sensor devices faster, easier, and more reliable. These sensors help researchers understand the physical conditions fish experience in hydropower plants. Currently, testing the sensors is slow and requires expert knowledge. This project will create a simple computer program that allows anyone to check the sensor's condition in just a few seconds. The results will help make future sensor systems more robust and easier to use in the field.

While there exist ways to observe the sea surface, the underwater environment requires extended research. Filling this knowledge gap is in line with EU Mission Starfish 2030. Any movement in fluid creates a pressure change. The source of such changes can be natural phenomena like waves, currents, or iceberg calving. These pressure changes also include man-made dynamics, like moving vessels or wastewater release, and can be detected and monitored using pressure sensors. These sensors are non-invasive, energy-efficient, and work submerged. The sensitivity to weak signals may suffer in presence of strong sources like waves or currents. Separation of different sources can be treated as a ”cocktail party problem.” The main purpose of this proposal is to address this challenge and contribute to underwater sea monitoring. We aim at creation of algorithms for source separation, detection and localization to work on low-cost platforms, and validate performance in real deployments.

A Digital Product Passport (DPP) is a structured digital collection of product-related information, including data on sustainability and circularity performance. DPPs are an essential tool to support European policies towards the twin, Green and Digital, transitions. Built on the results of the CIRPASS project, CIRPASS-2 will support 13 pilot deployments of DPP-enabled circular use cases, across multiple complex value chains in the textiles, electronics, tires and construction sectors. DPP system interoperability will be demonstrated for all pilots and confirm viable cross-sectoral, large-scale deployment of the DPP in real-life settings. The DPP Information System deployed will be aligned to European harmonized standards and regulatory requirements. The project will assess the information understanding and satisfaction of consumers, end-users and authorities in using the DPP. The environmental, economic and policy impacts of the DPP, as well as its benefits and challenges for all stakeholders, will be assessed.

MARTA addresses agronomically and economically important traits in plant breeding to support sustainable and self-sufficient food production in Estonia. We will create novel breeding knowledge together with a toolbox of modern breeding tools (including novel genetic markers, genomic selection and genome editing). Target traits for breeding include climate-resilience, disease resistance, product quality, production sustainability and high yield. We have chosen 7 strategically important crop species for Estonia as prime targets for application of modern breeding tools. Wheat, barley and potato are important in ensuring energy and protein supply as food crops. Nitrogen fixing capability and high protein content (29% of seed dry matter) of faba bean make it a strategically important crop in Estonia’s protein self-sufficiency. Apple and blackcurrant are important horticultural crops ensuring a healthy diet and providing a local supply of vitamin- and antioxidant-rich resources for the industry. Bridging the gap between fundamental and applied plant biology will allow faster translation of research results into breeding. The research questions (Q) addressed in the project range from broad phenotypic and genotypic screening to application of precision breeding and creation of novel genetic markers. The establishment of a pipeline for using genomics and transcriptomics results will speed up and create new possibilities for breeding climate-resilient future crops. Q1 aims to create specific scientific knowledge, data and results for input to Q2 and Q3, which serve to develop modern tools for breeding (e.g. novel genetic markers for disease resistance, pre-breeding material from precision breeding). MARTA will generate and validate a modern breeding toolbox for flexible and sustainable plant breeding in Estonia to ensure food security.

The general goal of the project is to foster the transition to a fully carbon-neutral economy. The objective is to find new effective and low-cost amine-based protic ionic liquids (IL) for latent heat thermal energy storage (LHTES). ILs can be considered potential “green” phase change materials (PCM) which have received little attention despite their excellent properties, like high enthalpy of fusion, high density, stability, and the potential for utilizing renewable feedstocks for their production. The project uses both computational and experimental methods for finding the most likely ILs for LHTES applications. Consequently, the study will provide broad fundamental knowledge on the applicability of ILs considering their physicochemical properties as well as toxicity, corrosivity, and stability along with the impact of nanoparticles on their performance.

The aim of the financial competence development project led by TalTech is to provide, in collaboration with various institutions and researchers, the necessary scientific expert group to solve various problems related to improving financial literacy and to conduct measurements and experiments during the project. The project will carry out the analysis described in the initial task, answer the research questions, and additionally propose activities and measures to improve financial literacy. Researchers from TalTech, the University of Tartu, Tallinn University, Estonian Business School, and Mainor Business School will participate in the project, along with external partners from Aalto University (Finland), Trier University (Germany), and Otto Beisheim School of Management (Germany).

TThe EuroTeQ 2030 is the next stage in the European Universities Alliance to deepen, expand and intensify the existing cooperation. Eight partners propose an unprecedented approach to collaborative education that not only brings together various countries but also a broad coalition of stakeholders in industry, society, and both academic and non-academic education. With our partnership, we will enhance today’s engineering study programmes with new core competencies, transversal skills, design methodologies, and structured links to relevant stakeholders. New ideas will occur from merging different perspectives, and new groups of learners will enrich the diversity in the classroom, which leads to innovation. Participating in EuroTeQ initiatives shall train learners to find answers to societal challenges, human needs, and real-world questions in a collaborative and responsible approach. We strongly believe that this European network will foster and strengthen European values by enabling young citizens to meet their peers and inviting the entire university family to make connections across Europe

The FINEST Twins project will build a multidisciplinary smart-city Center of Excellence that will match the leading smart city research centres globally and focus on all five key domains of clean and sustainable smart city development: mobility, energy and built environment glued together by governance and urban analytics & data management (research streams). The FINEST Twins will have a globally unique focus on developing user-driven clean and sustainable smart city solutions that are “cross-border-by-default” in the context of emerging twin city between Tallinn and Helsinki

The aim of the project is to assess the partner universities' IT curricula from the point of view of industries' and digital services end-users' needs, and to develop and pilot additional modules by universities.

The aim of the project is to assess the partner universities' IT curricula from the point of view of industries' and digital services end-users' needs, and to develop and pilot additional modules by universities.