1. REGULAR EVALUATION OF ESTONIAN RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT
Seminar
REGULAR EVALUATION OF ESTONIAN RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT
September
Medical and Health Sciences
Boye L. Jensen
Institute for Molecular Medicine
University of Southern Denmark
Odense

2. Who am I 1992 M.D. 1995 PhD, Univ. of Copenhagen
1997 Post doc, Regensburg Germany
2001 Dr. med. Univ. Southern Denmark
2011 Professor
Evalution panel member Norwegian Clinical Research 11-12
Evaluate applications for the Danish Heart Association and Swedish Research Council and ad hoc for UK, Dutch, Israeli, swedish funding bodies

3. Tasks University of Tartu NICPB NIHD TTU Protobios
…..to assess the level of research and development in medical and health sciences at different R&D institutions according to internationally recognized criteria.
University of Tartu
NICPB
NIHD
TTU
Protobios
The competence center for cancer research
Prof Ronald Maughn Loughbororugh, UK
Prof Ole J. Bjerrum
Copenhagen, DK

4. Institutions visited National Institute for Health Development-NIHD
Tartu University – Faculty of Medicine
Tallinn University of Technology
Protobios
National Institute of Chemical Physics and Biophysics NICPB

5. Infrastructure Very impressive! New and restructured older buildings
Technical equipment excellent
Ample space
Animal housing and facilities
Biobanks
At several places very open atmosphere with sharing of research infrastructure
At other places, groups were in non-biological environments

6. Collaborative efforts
Societal needs were not clearly incorporated in research strategies at some institutions
Lack of explicit strategies to integrate with existing facilities/groups in other areas in Estonian R&D
Start-up shared facilities, teaching and employees with university - less ”silo” thinking!
Several groups and institutions had extensive EU and international networks
Short distance from basic to applied and back again

7. New, exciting and forefront
A translational institute – ”from bench to bedside - and back again” great initiative!
Genome center
Start-up enterprise with significant connection to basic university research (projects, PhD candidates)
Strong environmental medicine/ecotoxicology
Incorporation of animal housing with modern experimental facilities in one unit
Automated language recognition and translation platforms

8. Education of researchers - PhD
Result of separate meetings at 3 institutions
Enthusiastic , devoted, loyal
Recruited after open calls
Worked independently with influence on projects
Impression was that a non-hierarchical organization predominated
Access to instrumention was good - although more collaboration and sharing was mentioned
Greater recruitment from overseas should be a goal

9. Education of researchers - PhD
Career is hampered by +5 years completion time
Better granting for exchange and travel to conferences
Non-competitive salary for 5 years……
Soften the demand on NUMBER of publications
Master student graduation times protracted……
Make incentives for MDs to obtain a PhD – more PhD candidates will promote clinical reasearch

10. Tech transfer and start ups
Collaboration and integration between hospitals and technical university
Very active biomedical start-up with excellent infrastructure and collaboration in both directions
Split positions reseach/clinic?
Little pharma industry for drug development and clinical testing – what is done?
We heard very little about patenting and entrepreneurship- is it integrated in health science curricula?

11. Publication activity
Very diverse across and within institutions – uneven distribution of productivity
Excellence at highest level present –
Young researchers bringing knowledge and skills back from leading institutions in tenure track positions

12. Thanks for great hospitality and a well organized evaluation