University rankings

University Rankings can be useful in seeing how the University compares with other Universities nationally and internationally. As there is no single ‘gold standard’, there are significant differences in the methodologies used by ranking agencies that can give rise to variation in results for the same University in different rankings.

The 2022 Times Higher Education (THE) Impact Rankings is the fourth in this series  of global performance tables that assess universities against the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), using calibrated indicators  for comparison across the four broad areas of  research, stewardship, outreach and teaching.

Participating for the first time in 2022 edition, University of Crete (UoC) is ranked overall 401-600 out of 1,524 universities from 110 countries and regions. UoC, together with the National & Kapodistrian University of Athens, heads the list of the 11 Greek Universities included in the 2022 ranking.  The UoC is particularly proud of the efforts of staff and students in their best practice contributions to SDG4 Quality Education, with UoC recognized as being among the top 100 institutions globally.

For more information on sustainability at University of Crete see  https://sdgs.uoc.gr/

University of Crete is ranked among the top 500 universities worldwide in the 2023 Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings. In the largest ranking ever, including 1799 institutions, University of Crete is ranked 401-500 and shares first place in Greece with the National & Kapodistrian University of Athens. The THE World University Rankings, now in its 19th year, focus on a selected frame of the world’s research intensive universities, rather than the total global ‘pool’ of over 20,000 Higher Education Institutions. 13 indicators are used to measure University performance in teaching, research output and impact, knowledge transfer, and international outlook. In one particular area, citations, used as an indicator of research impact and influence, the UoC continues to punch above its weight – ranking #279 worldwide. 

Reflecting in particular its research strengths, University of Crete is ranked 88th in the 2022 THE Young University Rankings .  This is the eleventh year running that the University of Crete has been included among the top 100 best research-intensive universities under 50 years old.

Ranked =78, the University is also in the top 100 of the THE Emerging Economies University Rankings 2022. In terms of research influence, as measured by citations, University of Crete is in a leading position at #36 among the 906 universities included in the 2022 ranking.

In the US News 2022 Best Global Universities Rankings of 1750 research-intensive universities powered by Clarivate Analytics (up from 1500 last year), the University is ranked #541 worldwide, #226 in Europe and #4 of the 11 Universities ranked in Greece.  In terms of research impact, as indicated by ‘Normalized Citation Impact’, the University ranks #267 worldwide.  It is also notable, given the significance of international collaborative papers as a marker of quality, that the UoC ranks #127 worldwide on this performance indicator. 

The CWTS Leiden Ranking 2021 includes University of Crete among the 1225 Universities from 69 countries worldwide that have produced at least 800 Web of Science indexed ‘core publications’ in the period 2016–2019 (using fractional counting).  According to the 2021 results, at 10.6% the University of Crete has the highest proportion of its publications belonging to the top 10% of their field (PP top 10%) of the eight Greek HEIs included and, overall, ranks #164 on this size-related research indicator among the total 423 European Universities listed.  

Nature Index  also shows the University among the leading research producing organizations, at #230 by publication share in 2020 among the 505 European Academic Institutions listed in the 2021 Nature Index tables.

The University of Crete takes part in the QS World University Rankings  and was listed  591-600 overall out of the 1422 universities ranked by QS in 2023 (up from 1300 last year), and #2 of the 6 Greek HEIs included in this ranking.  Citations per faculty, at 191 globally, is the strongest indicator for UoC and underlines the impact of UoC research.

The University also participates in U-MULTIRANK. The latter is open to all types of higher education institutions and compares and grades HEI performance across five broad dimensions (teaching and learning, regional engagement, knowledge transfer, international orientation and research). The Ready Made Rankings tool again shows that the University’s primary strengths are in research and research linkages.