Professor Toomas Asser, Professor Raul Eamets and Professor Jaak Vilo are shortlisted.

The university's medical sciences council nominated Asser as candidate, while its social sciences council put up Eamets, and its natural sciences council proposed Vilo.

Professor Toomas Asser is the incumbent rector, a post he has held since 2018, and is an academician and a professor of neurosurgery.

Asser said that his first priority is the students' ability to cope in the current economic situation. 

He told AK that: "This is also a theme at all universities, including the University of Tartu, and is one which certainly needs a solution. I believe that we would definitely want to get some clear guidelines in this regard, with the new coalition," he said, referring to ongoing talks between the Reform Party, Eesti 200 and the Social Democrats.

Raul Eamets is a professor of macroeconomics and an economist and has since 2016 been the dean of social sciences.

According to Eamets, it is vital that the university be open and keep up with the changing world, otherwise it runs the risk of losing students. 

Eamets said: "Openness in the learning process also means that we will go along with those changes that are taking place in society and the economy; we will be more adaptable, and more flexible."

Jaak Vilo is an academician, professor of bioinformatics and chair of data science at the university.

Vilo said good cooperation at the university is important, adding that the university's activities need to be made more public. "It is most important that young, very effective people come here to study and to work. Creating opportunities for these people is the most important thing. Second, I think, is that society should better understand what actually takes place at the university," Vilo told AK.

The three candidates are due to meet and debate on April 4, at the university's main hall.

The board meeting to elect the new rector, for a five-year term, will take place on April 20, at the same location, though is open only to the board.

The next five-year term begins August 1 this year.

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