New Distinction for NKUA in the Center for World University Rankings (CWUR) 2019-2020
7 Aug. 2019
The Center for World University Rankings (CWUR) has published its 2019-2020 list of the world’s top 2,000 universities.
This marks the first time in the ranking’s eight-year history that the list includes 2,000 universities, compared to the 1,000 universities it covered until 2018.
NKUA’s Global and Regional Rankings
The 2019-2020 ranking brought another significant distinction for the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (NKUA):
- 297th globally among the top 2,000 universities.
- 1st in the Balkans.
- 1st in Greece among the 14 Greek universities included in the ranking.
Countries Leading the CWUR Rankings
- United States: 358 universities, including 8 in the top 10.
- China: 349 universities.
- Japan: 130 universities.
- France: 95 universities.
- United Kingdom: 94 universities in the top 2,000.
About CWUR
The CWUR is a leading organization providing advisory services to governments, public organizations, and universities to improve their educational and research outcomes.
Its global rankings are known for their objectivity, transparency, and consistency, making them trusted by students, academics, university administrators, and government officials worldwide.
Unlike other rankings, the CWUR evaluates universities based on quality of education, faculty prestige, and research performance, without relying on surveys, questionnaires, interviews, or submissions from the universities themselves.
Unique Objectivity and Methodology
Several features highlight the objectivity and impartiality of CWUR’s methodology:
- Unlike ARWU (Shanghai Ranking), which focuses on Nobel Prize and Fields Medal winners while ignoring other significant awards, CWUR includes a broad range of awards such as:
Abel Prize, Breakthrough Prize, Fields Medal, Kyoto Prize, Templeton Prize, Turing Award, and more. - Rankings like QS heavily rely on reputation surveys (50% of the evaluation), which favor large, historic universities that heavily advertise. CWUR avoids this bias.
- Some rankings exclude publications in Humanities and Arts, while CWUR includes them.
CWUR Ranking Indicators (2019/20)
The CWUR methodology for ranking the top 2,000 universities worldwide includes seven indicators:
- Quality of Education (25%): Measured by the number of alumni who have won major international awards, prizes, and medals relative to the university’s size.
- Alumni Employment (25%): Measured by the number of alumni holding CEO positions in the world’s top companies relative to the university’s size.
- Quality of Faculty (10%): Measured by the number of faculty members who have won major international awards, prizes, and medals.
- Research Output (10%): Total number of research publications.
- Quality of Publications (10%): Measured by the number of research articles in top-tier journals.
- Research Influence (10%): Number of research papers appearing in high-impact journals.
- Citations (10%): Number of highly cited research articles.
NKUA’s inclusion in the top 300 universities globally and its 1st place in Greece and the Balkans highlight its academic and research excellence on an international scale.
