A significant distinction lay in store for the School of Theology of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. According to the QS World University Rankings by Subject, published on March 22, 2023, NKUA ranked—for the first time—among the top 140 globally in Theology, Divinity, and Religious Studies. Nationwide, it ranked joint first with the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki.
What makes this success even more important is that, despite having to deal with all the issues that plague Greek Higher Education (inadequate funding, staffing, etc.), the School of Theology (Department of Theology and Department of Social Theology and the Study of Religion), which offers the subject in question, has shown a remarkable improvement in its academic and employer reputation as well as in the impact of its research.
This improvement led to NKUA’s inclusion, for the first time in the history of global University rankings, in the list of the world’s top 140 Universities for Theology, Divinity, and Religious Studies (see Table 1).
Table 1: The rank and score of NKUA over four indicators for Theology, Divinity, and Religious Studies according to QS World University Rankings by Subject (2021-2023)
| Year | Global Rank | Academic Reputation | Employer Reputation | Citations per Paper | H-index | Overall Score |
| 2023 | 101-140 | 66.8 | 42.7 | 50.6 | 41.6 | 60.3 |
| 2022 | – | 57.9 | 52.9 | 49.2 | 48.8 | 55.6 |
| 2021 | – | – | – | – | – | – |
Source: QS Website and Reports
Table 1 presents the rank and score of NKUA for Theology, Divinity, and Religious Studies, from 2021 to 2023, according to QS World University Rankings by Subject. It is worth noting that the NKUA’s performance on the academic reputation indicator increased by 15% between 2021-2022, resulting in a significant improvement in its global rank, given that this indicator accounts for 70% of the overall score.
QS rankings use peer review data from researchers, academics, and employers. They also consider the number of citations and the impact of the published work of each School’s or Department’s members of faculty and researchers. More specifically, QS scores four indicators, each having a different weighting applied. These indicators and their weightings are as follows:
- Academic Reputation (70%). This indicator draws from the survey responses of academics from various specialties. Respondents name up to 30 Universities in their area of expertise, their affiliated Institutions excluded. Between 2018 and 2022, QS collected votes from over 130,000 academics worldwide.
- Employer Reputation (10%). This indicator, like the preceding one, is based on survey responses, but the respondents, in this case, are the employers of University graduates. Over 75,000 global employers’ responses were collected between 2018 and 2022, giving QS access to rich hiring levels data. Employers from every sector of the economy have participated in the poll, including Facebook, Google, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, and others.
- Citations per Paper (10%). The total number of citations received by papers on the subject in question over the past five years divided by the total number of faculty members and researchers who published those papers yields the score for this indicator. Elsevier’s Scopus is the source of all citation data.
- H-index (10%).The H-index measures both the productivity and impact of the work published by a scientist or scholar. The set of the academic’s most cited papers and the number of citations they have received in others’ publications form the basis of this indicator.
At the top of the ranking globally for Theology, Divinity, and Religious Studies is the University of Notre Dame (USA), with the University of Oxford (UK) and Harvard University (USA) following. The University of Cambridge (UK) and KU Leuven (Belgium) round out the top 5.
We wish to congratulate the Administrations of the School of Theology and its two Departments, as well as their faculty members and researchers. We are confident that this distinction, proof of the excellent and multi-faceted work at the School of Theology of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, will pave the way for even more significant ones.
Thanos Dimopoulos
Rector of NKUA
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