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.

University of Crete is ranked among the top 500 universities worldwide in the 2022 Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings. The University is now ranked  401-500 out of 1,662 institutions worldwide and shares second place in Greece with the National & Kapodistrian University of Athens.

The THE  World University Rankings, now in its 18th 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 #185 worldwide.

In terms of scientific fields, the University’s School of Medicine ranks first in Greece and 201-250 worldwide  in the Clinical and Health subject tables of  the  THE World University Rankings 2021 by Subject.

Reflecting in particular its research strengths, University of Crete is ranked 79th in the 2021 THE Young University Rankings.  This is the tenth year running that the University of Crete has been included among the top 100 best research-intensive universities under 50 years old.

Ranked =68, the University is also in the top 100 of the THE Emerging Economies University Rankings 2021. In terms of research influence, as measured by citations, University of Crete is in a leading position at #17 among the 606 universities included in the 2021 ranking.

In the US News 2021 Best Global Universities Rankings of 1500 research-intensive universities powered by Clarivate Analytics, the University is ranked #547 worldwide, #235 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 #212 worldwide.  It is also notable, given the significance of international collaborative papers as a marker of quality, that the UoC ranks #99 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  651-700 overall for 2022. In terms of QS WUR ranking by subject areas, the University was ranked #51-70 for Classics and Ancient History. 

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.