Kristjan Vassil to become education ministry deputy secretary general

Kristjan Vassil will take up the role of deputy secretary general for research and development, and higher and adult education policy at Estonia’s Ministry of Education and Research on November 2, ERR reported.

Vassil said the role brings together areas he has worked on for much of his career. He said the ministry should make greater use of data, analytics and artificial intelligence to assess the potential effects of policy choices before decisions are made and to monitor their impact after implementation.

Estonia’s digital capabilities offer a unique opportunity to do this, Vassil said. He also called for less detailed management of the sector and greater trust in partners, with more freedom to make decisions and greater responsibility for results.

Vassil was vice rector for research at the University of Tartu from 2017 to 2023 and has been a professor of applied technology studies there since 2024. He is also chair of the University of Tartu Hospital’s supervisory board. He previously served on the European Institute of Innovation and Technology’s health board and was a visiting researcher at Harvard University.

He holds a doctorate in social sciences from the European University Institute in Florence.