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Mihkel Kangur, director of the Institute of Ecology and Sirje Vaask, Project manager of health behaviour sciences at the Management Support Office discuss the reasons behind choosing healthy and sustainable lifestyle as one of the new focus fields of Tallinn University.

If we track back to ten years in the past, the main goals in Estonia had to do with money, economy and safety. Yet, during the last decade, being healthy and sustaining a viable natural environment has risen as an important subject with citizens, science and politicians.

This is understandable: if our basic needs – food, accommodation, safety – are taken care of, worldviews and self-accomplishment become more important. In addition to well-known healthy options, such as good food and working out, we try to find nourishment in clean nature and mental enlightenment.

According to statistics, our life expectancy has risen, our sense of well-being has increased and the Estonian natural environment is cleaner than yesterday. There is an increasing understanding that services using the ecosystem to offer well-being are not just schemes for a quick profit that abuse natural resources. The latest researches in sociology turn our attention to inner foliation and inequality within communities (societies?) Even Estonia has to deal with drug abuse, individualism, loneliness and depression. At the same time, in global statistics, Estonia is seen as a highly developed smart and rich country with clean nature. These are the perquisites that allow us to become a sustainable community that others can use as an example.

The physical, mental, emotional, psychological, economic and social well-being of a human being is essential to us.The  healthy and sustainable lifestyle focus field joins the knowledge from natural sciences and ecology to those from health sciences and psychology. Innovation focusing on machines and technology must be paired with innovation focusing on the human being and ecology, which includes the adaption of lifestyles and thought patterns with the changing environment.

The physical, mental, emotional, psychological, economic and social well-being of a human being is essential to us. All this can be achieved by a caring contact with pure nature. The integration of various research fields is what will bring this field the additional value. For example, joining natural sciences and behavioural research we can receive new knowledge about the adaptability and psychological well-being of a person.

As a practical output, joining the fields can bring along human- and environment-friendly cityscape projects or sustainable solutions for recreational areas. Additional value will come from intra- and international cooperation between scientists and experts.

Exercise, working capacity, well-being and sustainability should be integrated into all fields of study. We can help achieve that by offering academic knowledge from the whole university into the education and societal systems as well as to the experts in humanities and governance.

The theoretical approach to natural sciences must correlate with the skills and abilities to implementing them – to do this, we need attractive study methods and digital technologies. This helps us grow a new generation who value their health and the environment with support from all levels, but especially from the educational system.

There are close to 10,000 students at Tallinn University and we have nearly 1,000 employees. We can do many small things each day to help the healthy and sustainable lifestyle become a part of our everyday work and teaching methods.