NKUA ranked 53rd in the world for Cardiac and Cardiovascular Systems and 250th on the overall table in the 2022-23 US News Best Global Universities Rankings

https://www.usnews.com/education/best-global-universities/greece

US News & World Report Media Company has recently published the results of its Best Global Universities Rankings for 2022-23. Best Global Universities is in the top 7 of rankings internationally. In this 9^th consecutive annual edition of the US News Best Global Universities Rankings, the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens ranked 250^th out of the 2,000 Universities included in the table. NKUA has climbed 10 places from last year to the highest place ever achieved by a Greek Higher Educational Institution in all 9 editions of the US News Best Global Universities Rankings. At the same time, NKUA ranked 1^st among the 10 Greek Universities included in the table (see Table 1). In addition, the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens ranked 53^rd in the world for Cardiac and Cardiovascular Systems while, among the 608 European Universities in the overall table, NKUA ranked 104^th.

The first step in producing these rankings was to create a pool of 2,011 Universities from which to rank the top 2,000. Clarivate provided data for the rankings. It is noteworthy that the final table encompassed Institutions from 95 different countries.

To create the pool, US News first included the top 250 Universities in the results of Clarivate’s global reputation survey. Next, US News added the Institutions with the most papers published in the last 5 years, as long as those were cited or reproduced by the top 200 Universities of the above reputation survey. Papers were limited to the ones published between 2016 and 2020. Only Institutions that met the minimum threshold of at least 1,250 papers (articles, chapters in collective volumes, etc.) published from 2016 to 2020 were rated.

Table 1: Rank and performance of the 10 Greek Universities included in the table of the 2,000 best Universities in the world according to the US News Best Global Universities Rankings 2022-23

Institution name	World rank 2022-23	Country rank 2022-23	Global score
National and Kapodistrian University of Athens	250	1	60,6
Aristotle University of Thessaloniki	363	2	55,6
National Technical University of Athens	441	3	53,4
University of Crete	605	4	48,2
University of Ioannina	693	5	45,9
University of Patras	869	6	41,8
University of Thessaly	964	7	39,6
University of the Aegean	1022	8	38,3
Agricultural University of Athens	1158	9	35,1
Democritus University of Thrace	1455	10	287

US News calculated the rankings using the following wide range of indicators and weights:

1. Global research reputation (12.5%)
2. Regional research reputation (12.5%)
3. Publications (10%)
4. Books (2.5%)
5. Conferences (2.5%)
6. Normalized citation impact (10%)
7. Total citations (7.5%)
8. Number of publications that are among the 10% most cited (12.5%)
9. Percentage of total publications that are among the 10% most cited (10%)
10. International collaboration – relative to country (5%)
11. International collaboration (5%)
12. Number of highly cited papers that are among the top 1% most cited in their respective field (5%)
13. Percentage of total publications that are among the top 1% most highly cited papers (5%)

Table 2: NKUA’s world rank for the period 2015-2023 according to the US News Best Global Universities Rankings
Year	World rank
2022-2023	250/2000
2021-2022	260/1750
2020-2021	257/1500
2019-2020	262/1500
2018-2019	279/1250
2017-2018	286/1250
2016-2017	291/1000
2015-2016	292/500

The Universities’ profile pages on https://www.usnews.com/education/best-global-universities/rankings list their overall global scores as well as numerical ranks for each one of the 13 indicators. Table 3 presents NKUA’s performance in the 13 indicators over the last 6 years.

Table 3: NKUA’s performance in the 13 indicators of the US News Best Global Universities Rankings

Indicator	2023	2022	2021	2020	2019	2018
Global research reputation (12.5%)	603	645	635	621	610	708
Regional research reputation (12.5%)	148	176	201	216	202	232
Publications (10%)	240	236	223	217	199	183
Books (2.5%)	281	337	351	344	377	316
Conferences (2.5%)	506	490	458	399	416	380
Normalized citation impact (10%)	384	422	421	453	457	458
Total citations (7.5%)	220	220	212	215	208	196
Number of publications that are among the 10% most cited (12.5%)	240	239	224	215	220	199
Percentage of total publications that are among the 10% most cited (10%)	582	525	458	435	462	463
International collaboration – relative to country (5%)	497	478	436	393	344	352
International collaboration (5%)	294	254	248	225	221	262
Number of highly cited papers that are among the top 1% most cited in their respective field (5%)	186	179	163	163	170	167
Percentage of total publications that are among the top 1% most highly cited papers (5%)	235	223	203	205	251	272

This performance demonstrates the increasing recognition of NKUA as a significant research Institution globally. At this point, we should mention that in the latest edition of the Best Global Universities Rankings, NKUA placed high globally in 22 subjects, up from 20 in 2021, 16 in 2020, and 12 in 2019. More specifically, in Cardiac & Cardiovascular Systems, Infectious Diseases, and Gastroenterology & Hepatology, our University entered the top 100 worldwide.

The 22 subjects in which NKUA achieved significant distinctions in the 2022-23 Ranking are as follows:

1. Cardiac and Cardiovascular Systems (#53)
2. Infectious Diseases (#59)
3. Gastroenterology and Hepatology (#93)
4. Pharmacology and Toxicology (#108)
5. Immunology (#112)
6. Public, Environmental, and Occupational Health (#116)
7. Oncology (#120)
8. Surgery (#122)
9. Clinical Medicine (#122)
10. Neuroscience and Behaviour (#138)
11. Endocrinology and Metabolism (#156)
12. Radiology, Nuclear Medicine, and Medical Imaging (#206)
13. Cell Biology (#226)
14. Physics (#244)
15. Molecular Biology and Genetics (#274)
16. Geosciences (#285)
17. Psychiatry/Psychology (#332)
18. Social Sciences and Public Health (#335)
19. Biology and Biochemistry (#376)
20. Computer Science (#448)
21. Engineering (#593)
22. Chemistry (#651)

The United States of America and the United Kingdom dominate the top 10 of the Ranking, with 8 and 2 Universities, respectively. Harvard University ranks 1^st worldwide, followed by another 2 American Universities, namely MIT and Stanford. In Europe, the highest-ranking Institutions are the University of Oxford (5^th place worldwide) and the University of Cambridge (8^th place worldwide). The University of Toronto in Canada ranks 18^th worldwide. In Australia, the highest-ranking Institution is the University of Melbourne (27^th place worldwide), while the Chinese Tsinghua University (23^rd place worldwide) is the highest-ranking Institution in all of Asia. Africa is represented by 62 Universities, with the University of Cape Town (125^th place worldwide) at the top of the regional table.

In closing, I would like to thank once again all members of our academic community; every day and under difficult circumstances, they do their best to maintain the high quality of teaching and research at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. This present distinction, like all the others achieved and announced in the past, is rightfully theirs. We pledge to continue our collaborative efforts to promote our University’s teaching, research, and social work on an international scale.

Thanos Dimopoulos
Rector of NKUA