Kuidas sündis Physicum

How the Physicum was established

Abstract

 In the second half of the previous century there were two physics
institutions in Tartu: the Institute of Physics of the Estonian Academy
of Sciences and the physics department of the University of
Tartu. Although the former was engaged with teaching on the Master’s
and doctoral level and the latter carried out research in addition
to teaching, they belonged to separate administrative systems with
separate command lines leading to Moscow. After the Estonian republic
regained independence in 1991, it was necessary to join the
Academy’s research institutes with the appropriate departments
of Estonian universities. The paper explores how such a difficult
process was completed in view of the field of physics in Tartu. There
were a lot of administrative, legal, psychological, cultural, etc. issues
that needed to be resolved. The process came to a successful end in
2014, when all physicists in Tartu moved into a new building called
Physicum.