Republished from the main website of NTUA

In the Shanghai Ranking of 2021, the NTUA scored major distinctions, most prominently in the subject of Civil Engineering. Specifically, the NTUA is ranked in this subject 4th in the world and 2nd in Europe.

It is noted that in the field of Civil Engineering, the NTUA has always been high in the international rankings, ranked 7th in the Shanghai Ranking for the previous three years and was in the top 50 for many years in the QS ranking. But it is the first time it appears in the world's top five.

The Rector of the NTUA, Prof. Andreas Boudouvis, says: "This is an important achievement of the NTUA and a global promotion of the country, since for the first time in the history of worldwide assessments and rankings of universities, a university from Greece ranks in the top five. The NTUA aspires and has the potential to reach very high. With a commitment to extroversion, with hard work and persistent effort to tackle hardship and regression, with our pursuit of excellence and its recognition, and with an agenda of dynamic presence at the cutting edge of international scientific developments, the creative forces of the NTUA will achieve exceptional goals."

The Dean of the School of Civil Engineering, Prof. Nikos Lagaros, notes: "We are thrilled by this result, which gives us courage to continue our efforts for high quality teaching and research, and for meritocracy in a context of democratic function and transparency. And it comes at a time when we need an international moral reward, since our country not only does not reward us, but the measures it has taken over the last decade have hurt the School of Civil Engineering more than any other. Our teaching staff has been halved and our budget has been cut to one tenth!".

The 2021 Shanghai Ranking contains rankings of universities in 54 subjects across Natural Sciences, Engineering, Life Sciences, Medical Sciences, and Social Sciences. More than 1800 out of 4000 universities across 93 countries and regions are finally listed in the rankings. To quantify the performance of universities around the world, Shanghai Ranking used five academic indicators, namely those of research output (Q1), research influence (CNCI), international collaboration (IC), research quality (TOP), and international academic awards (AWARD).

Eleven Greek Universities are included in the ranking, as shown in the first table, with the NTUA holding the lead.

In addition to the subject of Civil Engineering, the NTUA appears in 14 other subjects, as shown in the second table, which includes a comparison with four other Greek universities that deal with corresponding areas.

The four best rankings, after that in the field of Civil Engineering, are marine technology, water resources, transport technology, and automation and control. These subjects are interdepartmental, but it is characteristic that the two of them (Water Resources, Transportation Science & Technology) are primarily dealt with in the School of Civil Engineering, which participates in another of the four (Marine/Ocean Engineering, primarily served by the School of Naval Architecture & Marine Engineering).

It is also interesting that the NTUA is also distinguished in subjects which do not belong to the main body of its scientific areas, such as atmospheric and economic science.

Notably, the NTUA does not appear in a similar rank when assessed as a whole, without reference to a particular subject. The reason is that it is a small university with selected (technological) coverage of the whole area of sciences and with only 9 Departments (Mono-departmental Schools). On the contrary, the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and the University of Athens have multiple departments and subjects each. It is therefore expected that the NTUA would rank below these two, when each is assessed as a whole, and this also happens in the Shanghai Ranking. NTUA’s strength and quality are highlighted when examined by subject, as shown in the above data.

Nevertheless, in other rankings it is found to be the first university in the country, as in the very recent QS ranking for the year 2022. Not only is the NTUA ranked first in Greece, but it is also the only Greek university in the top 500 in the world, as shown in the picture below.

The School of Civil Engineering has turned all courses into distance learning based on the current timetable.

For each individual course, students enrolled in "mycourses" in the particular course receive an email from the previous day containing a link. Following the link, students are able to enter the virtual classroom at the time of each lesson. Teaching is interactive and students are able to ask or answer questions, or even present their work (sharing their computer screen).

Participation requires a device (desktop, laptop, tablet) with microphone and camera. Students will have their microphone and camera turned off while watching, and they will turn on when they speak themselves. The system to use is https://www.webex.com/.

Road Safety Research at the Department of Transportation Planning and Engineering of the School of Civil Engineering of NTUA is ranked 2nd in Europe and 6th worldwide according to a recent study published at the leading safety Scientific Journal Accident Analysis and Prevention. Moreover, NTUA Prof. George Yannis appears between the most productive scientific authors worldwide in the field of road safety. This ranking is based on a systematic analysis of all road safety studies published on Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIE) and Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI) between 2000 and 2018.

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The Basketball team of students of the School of Civil Engineering took the first place in the Basketball Championship of the National Technical University of Athens. A total of 18 teams from the NTUA’s Schools participated in the championship. The games were held in the closed gym of the Zographou campus. The event began in March 2018 and the final four was held in December of the same year. The winning was composed by the following students (in alphabetical order):

• Thodoris Agoris
• Giorgos Vitsos
• Kostas Vlachakis
• Akis Golemis
• Panayiotis Dimitriadis
• Romanos Ioannides
• Vassilis Kallimoyiannis
• Alexandros Siamopoulos
• Kostas Fakopoulides

The School congratulates the winners and wishes them success in all areas.

On September 15th-23rd, 2018, the Dean of the School of Civil Engineering, Mr. N. D. Lagaros and the Director of MSc in "Analysis and Design of Earthquake Resistant Structures" Mr. V. Koumousis visited, upon invitation, the University of Fuzhou located in the homonymous city in China as well as the Graduate School of the University of Tsinghua, located in Shenzhen, China. The purpose of the visit was to explore forms of collaboration on educational and research level with the two Chinese Universities. It should be noted that Tsinghua University ranks among the 10 best Universities of the world in Engineering Sciences in most international rankings (Shanghai, QS, USNews).

The delegation of the School of Civil Engineering visited laboratories of different departments in Fuzhou and Tsinghua Universities and met with the faculty members of these laboratories examining the possibility of collaboration. Official meetings were held with the Secretary and Chairman of the University Council, Mr. CHEN Yongzheng (Fuzhou University) and Associate Dean, Prof. YANG Rui Dong (Tsinghua University). Delegations of both Universities had visited the NTUA during June 2018. It was agreed with Mr. CHEN Yongzheng (Fuzhou University) to develop bilateral contacts aiming to:

• The establishment of International Joint Labs with subjects related to "Harbor Works" and "Protection of Monuments and Cultural Heritage".

• Co-operation at research level through submission of joint research proposals in the framework of bilateral and European programs calls. Exploration of creating joint postgraduate education programs.

• Exploration of creating joint postgraduate education programs. With Prof. YANG Rui Dong (Tsinghua University) was discussed the possibility of signing a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) at the institutional level and agreed to develop bilateral contacts aimed at:

• Τhe collaboration on Sanitary Engineering issues (with Professor GUAN Yuntao, Directorate of Environment) and Energy (with Professor JIANG Yuelu, Directorate of Marine Sciences).

• Co-operation at the research level through submission of joint research proposals in the framework of bilateral and European programs calls.

• The exchange of students and faculty members

The English version will be available here soon

In 2001, with the thesis of the then postgraduate student of the School of Civil Engineering of NTUA Evgenia Arapaki (see link below), an initiative begun to construct the small dam Damte in South-Western Ethiopia as a pilot project to deal with the intense drought problems in Ethiopia. The project was accomplished (in 2006), with full funding from Greek sources and with the participation of other students and professors of the School.

Now the graduating student of the School Ioanna Kouki is working in the frame of her diploma thesis on the assessment of the dam. Between 8/5 and 14/5/2018, a mission of the School took place in the area with the said student and the member of the Lab Teaching Staff Dr. Haris Saroglou. The mission was made possible thanks to the support and organization of the Ethiopian Honorary Consul in Greece, Terina Armenakis, who managed to find sponsors for the mission. (The School did not contribute financially). The purpose of the visit was to inspect the current situation, assess the operation of the dam and identify any problems.

This small scale irrigation dam is a characteristic example of the positive effect that Civil Engineering works can have on the living conditions of people and local societies.