ITU in the Top 100 Worldwide across THE Interdisciplinary Science Rankings 2025

ITU ranked 76th globally and 1st among public universities in Türkiye in the newly announced THE Interdisciplinary Science Rankings (ISR), which were revealed to the public for the first time for interdisciplinary scientific research conducted.

Istanbul Technical University (ITU) achieved significant success by being among the top 100 universities worldwide in the Times Higher Education (THE) Interdisciplinary Science Rankings 2025, the first ranking aimed at measuring the contributions and commitments of universities to interdisciplinary science.

According to THE Interdisciplinary Science Rankings (ISR) 2025 results, ITU ranked 76th globally and 1st among public universities in our country, which is considered a testament to the success of interdisciplinary research conducted by ITU academics and students. ITU ranked 3rd among all universities in Türkiye in ISR 2025.

Recently, ITU has been drawing attention with its high-tech interdisciplinary studies. Two platforms at ITU can be cited as examples of interdisciplinary studies. The Environmentally Compatible Sustainable Advanced Vehicle Technologies Platform, established to be part of the innovative technological developments and transformation in the automotive industry, has defined various outputs in social, economic, and ecological themes, in addition to high-tech readiness level outputs within the scope of the TÜBİTAK 1004 project. The Türkiye Sustainable Aviation Platform aims to advance the decarbonisation journey and sustainability transformation of the Turkish aviation sector, facilitate collaborations for sustainable aviation, and develop joint projects. It aims to increase knowledge and awareness in this field through educational programs and social activities. Numerous Interdisciplinary Research Projects (DAP) are also conducted under the Scientific Research Projects Coordination Unit (BAP) at ITU. The communities of the EELISA European University, of which ITU is a founding member, also encourage our students and faculty members to engage in interdisciplinary studies.

Methodology of the Rankings

The THE Interdisciplinary Science Rankings (ISR) is the first academic ranking aimed to measure universities' contributions and commitments to interdisciplinary science. The ISR methodology includes 11 calibrated performance indicators designed to evaluate institutions in three key areas, each representing a stage in the life cycle of research projects. These indicators are inputs (funding), processes (success criteria, facilities, administrative support, and promotion), and outputs (publications, research quality, and reputation).

To be included in ISR 2025, universities must meet certain basic criteria, such as having at least 100 interdisciplinary research publications by their academics between 2019 and 2023 and submitting the necessary data for the THE World University Rankings (WUR). Additionally, only interdisciplinary studies in the fields of computer science, engineering, life sciences, and physical sciences were considered in ISR 2025. A total of 749 universities worldwide and 45 universities from Türkiye met all these criteria and were included in the rankings.

The data required for ISR 2025 were obtained from universities' WUR ranking data, bibliometric data from the Scopus database, and survey data collected from researchers. In this context, 157 million citations, 18 million research publications, and survey responses from over 20,000 academics worldwide were evaluated.