Best Global University Rankings 2020 was published for the 6th consecutive year by U.S. News, one of the seven most important world rankings. The National and Kapodistrian University of Athens is ranked 262 out of the 1500 universities included in the rankings, and in the first place among the twelve (12) Greek Foundations located there. Indeed, compared to last year’s rankings, the NCFA improved its position in the ranking by 17 positions. It should be noted that compared to 2017, the ESDP has climbed 29 positions (from 291 to 262).

U.S. News’ ranking of the Best Universities in the World was created to provide a picture of how universities can compare worldwide. Of the total universities operating worldwide, the final overall ranking of the 1500 best universities covers a range of 81 countries. The first step in producing these rankings, powered by Thomson Reuters, involves the creation of a first team of top universities used in a second phase to rank the top 1500.

To include a University in the 1500, it must first be among the top 250 universities in the results of Thomson Reuters’ global reputation research. Next, an institution must be among those that has had the largest number of publications in the last five years and these articles are cited or reproduced from the top 200 of the aforementioned reputation research. The 2019 ranking took into account the publications of all the Institutions for the period 2013-2017. To be eligible for inclusion a University must have published at least 1,500 research papers (articles, chapters, etc.) within that time frame.

The U.S. News & World Report rates the 1500 Best Institutes using a wide range of 13 different criteria:

1. Global Research Fame (12.5%)
2. Regional Research Fame (12.5%)
3. Publications (10%)
4. Colleges (2.5%)
5. Conferences (2.5%)
6. Weighted Impact of citations (10%)
7. Total citations (7.5%)
8. Number of publications among the 10% most cited publications (12.5%)
9. Percentage of total publications found among the 10% most cited publications (10%)
10. International Collaboration (5%) )
11. Percentage of publications with international plus work on all the posts (5%)
12. Number of articles with large number of petitions that are in top 1% (5%)
13. Percentage of total publications that are between 1% of articles with the most reports (5%)

The newly published data of the “U.S. News & World Report” shows the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens holding the 262nd position in the world by 2020 and is the 1st among the twelve (12) Greek Universities listed in this ranking. 

In European level, it ranks 118th out of the 560 Universities included in the evaluation.

It should be noted that in this ranking, the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens appears in high positions worldwide in the following sixteen (16) individual scientific fields and objects. In particular, it should be noted that in three of these disciplines, the N.T.U.A. is ranked in the top 100 of Universities worldwide (Oncology, Pharmacology and Toxicology and Cardiology) while the Department of Humanities is in a very high position (225th worldwide), well above the Institute’s overall position. This finding is particularly important because in Humanities research activity is reflected in publications not included in known bibliometric databases. In addition, there is no laboratory research that produces a large number of publications and reports.

The sixteen scientific fields included in this year’s rankings (compared to twelve in 2019) are:

1. In Oncology in 93rd place
2. In “Pharmacology and Toxicology” in 96th place.
3. In “Cardiac” and “Cardiovascular Systems” in 100th place
4. In “Immunology” in 115th place.
5. In the field of “Surgery” in 148th place.
6. In the field of “Clinical Medicine” in 163rd place.
7. In the Sector of “Humanities” (Arts & Humanities) in 225th place
8. In the Sector of “Physics” in 228th place.
9. In “Social Sciences and Public Health” in 221st place.
10. In the field of Neuroscience and Behavior in 269th place.
11. In the field of Environment & Ecology 319th.
12. In the field of Molecular Biology and Genetics in the 300 th place.
13. In the section “Biology and Biochemistry” in 413th place
14. In “Engineering” in 428th place.
15. In “Chemistry” in 445th place.
16. In “Phytology and Zoology” in the 480th place

In the Top 10 of the Ranking are eight Universities from the United States of America and two from the United Kingdom. Harvard University ranks first, followed by two other US Universities, MIT and Stanford. In fifth place we find the first European University, Oxford. 18th is the University of Toronto, Canada. At 26th place is the first University from Australia, the Melbourne one, while the first Asian University is Singapore at 34th. The African continent is represented by 52 Universities, the first of which is the University of Cape Town which is in 121st place.