Four Turkish Universities Ranked Among World's Best 200

Four Turkish universities have found a place among the top 200 universities in the world in the latest World University Rankings (WUR) published by Times Higher Education (THE) magazine.

There are a total of six Turkish universities on the top 400 list of the world's best universities. “Outstanding performance for Turkey, as three universities rocket into the elite world top 200 group, taking Turkey's total top 200 representatives to four,” Times Higher Education said in a report that includes highlights from the WUR 2014-15.

Turkey's four universities in the top 200 are Middle East Technical University (ODTÜ), ranked 85, having moved up from the 201-225 group ranking in last year's report; Boğaziçi University, ranked 139 (up from 199 last year), Istanbul Technical University (İTÜ), ranked 165 (up from the 201-225 range last year) and Sabancı University, a newcomer to the WUR list, is ranked as the 182nd best university in the world.

Bilkent University, which has made it to the top 400, is currently ranked in the 201-225 group, moving up from its ranking in the 226-250 range last year. Koç University is also in the top 400, ranked in the 301-350th group, having moved down slightly from its ranking last year in the 276-300 range.

In addition to improvements in five of its universities rankings, Turkey has made scientific and academic progress in other areas.

Phil Baty, the editor of Times Higher Education World University Rankings, said: “This has been a truly outstanding year for Turkey, which has experienced some of the most dramatic rises in the rankings, thanks largely to excellent scores for research impact, as measured by journal article citations. Part of this success can be explained by work by the rankings' data supplier, Thomson Reuters, to ensure that Turkish universities' research papers are properly attributed, but the rise in the rankings is about much more than that. The strong involvement of TUBITAK [Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey] and TAEK [Turkish Atomic Energy Authority] in research on the Large Hadron Collider at CERN [the European Organization for Nuclear Research], which led to the discovery of the Higgs boson particle in 2012, as well as the increasing general investment in research and development in Turkey also helped boost Turkish institutions' research impact. Improvements in Turkey's scores in the annual reputation survey also helped.”

Other highlights from WUR

California Institute of Technology held on to the world number one spot for the fourth consecutive year, ahead of Harvard University in second place and the University of Oxford in third. The UK lost three universities from the prestigious top 200 list. The report also showed that leading Asian institutions continued to rise this year. “Asia now has 24 universities in the world top 200, up from 20 last year. Two Asian universities now make the world top 25 and six make the top 50,” the report authors noted. This has been a strong year for Germany in higher education, and the country has managed to send two new entrants to the top 200 list. THE also pointed to “worrying evidence of decline in North America, with significant losses for both the US and Canada.”

The Times Higher Education World University Rankings, supported by the Thomson Reuters media company, are regarded as the world's most comprehensive global league tables. The rankings use 13 separate performance indicators to examine a university's strengths against all its core missions -- research, knowledge transfer, international outlook and, uniquely among global rankings, the teaching environment.

E. Barış Altıntaş (Cihan/Today's Zaman)