ITU is among the Best in the World

Despite more than sixfold increase in the number of universities evaluated in the last decade and changing academic ranking criteria, ITU continues to rise among the best in the evaluations made by worldwide organizations such as QS and THE.

Istanbul Technical University is strengthening its position among the best day by day, despite the great increase in the number of universities evaluated by globally respected academic rating agencies in the 2014-2024 period and the changes in method. Having declared 2024 as the “Year of Global Impact,” ITU aims to make new breakthroughs with its international achievements in the near future. 

The number of universities eligible for evaluation increased from 400 to 2500 

In the evaluations made by worldwide prestigious academic rating agencies such as QS and THE, more than sixfold increase was observed in the number of universities that were eligible for evaluation, especially between 2014 and 2024. With this increase, the position of some universities in the rankings changed, while at the same time percentiles gained more importance in the evaluation method due to the changing methodology. 

Many high-ranking universities around the world experienced decline as a result of the changes in the evaluation criteria of academic rating agencies. However, despite this general decline, Istanbul Technical University managed to maintain its rise and steadiness, especially in the last 3 years. 

The increase in the number of universities applying to rating agencies such as QS and THE from 400 to over 2500, paying attention to the total number of citations instead of the number of citations per publication, and database changes made by the system were the main conditions that affected the rating. 

In 2023, more than 3000 universities were evaluated and 1500 universities were included in the ranking by QS. In THE, nearly 4000 universities were evaluated and 2671 universities were included in the ranking. 

Success in percentile rankings despite increasing number of universities 

According to QS 2024 Sustainability overall rankings, ITU ranked 221st among 1403 higher education institutions in the world. While it ranked 148th in the world in the “Environmental Impact” category, it maintained its position as the leading university in Türkiye. In addition, ITU ranked 153rd in the “Governance” category and 400th in the “Social Impact” category. Although the number of universities evaluated for QS 2024 Sustainability doubled compared to last year, ITU managed to continue rising in percentiles. 

The decisiveness of methodological changes 

The use of total citations instead of the number of citations per publication and taking the ratio of the total number of citations to the total number of academics were also effective in the changes in the rankings.

In addition, the exclusion of more than 500 articles with multiple authors from our country in fields such as CERN and medicine from the rankings, methodology updates and the increase in the influence of reputation surveys constituted the decisive conditions in the rankings.

ITU continues to rise in QS and THE despite the new ranking criteria 

ITU is in an important position in our country and in the world, despite many changing terms and conditions in the rating. ITU rose to the 501-600 range in 2024 in THE World University Rankings, while it was in the 801-1000 range in 2021.