| University of the Aegean | |
|---|---|
| Πανεπιστήμιο Αιγαίου | |
Seal of the University of the Aegean (The Ancient Sphinx) |
|
| Motto | Για την ανάπτυξη νέων γνωστικών αντικειμένων (For the development of knowledge) |
| Established | 1920 (Ionian University, Smyrna) 1984 (re-established as University of the Aegean) |
| Type | Public |
| Chancellor | Professor Paris Tsartas |
| Vice-Chancellor | Professor Nikos Soulakellis Professor Angelique Dimitracopoulou Professor Ioannis Kallas |
| Undergraduates | 9,688 |
| Postgraduates | 1,615 |
| Doctoral students | 656 |
| Location | Mytilene (Main Campus), Greece |
| Campus | Multi-campus |
| Colors | White and blue |
| Affiliations | European University Association (EUA) |
| Website | www.aegean.gr |
The University of the Aegean (Greek: Πανεπιστήμιο Αιγαίου) is a state, multi-campus university located in Mytilene, Greece. The university was officially founded in 1984, although its historical roots date back to the early 1920s.[1] The University of the Aegean is the continuation of the Ionian University, which was founded in 1920 by the Greek mathematician Constantin Carathéodory and briefly operated in Izmir(Greek: Σμύρνη), yet had to seize its operations due to the Great Fire of Smyrna.[2][3] The University of the Aegean is currently one of the largest in size[3] of the 24 state supervised and funded universities in Greece. It is an institution mandated to provide inspiring, innovative, socially committed studies. As of 2011, more than 12,000 students are studying at the university, which comprises of five schools and seventeen departments with campuses in various locations across the Aegean Archipelago (Aegean Sea). The large majority of the University's campuses is situated in the historical birthplaces of ancient and contemporary Greek philosophers and mathematicians such as Pythagoras, Theophrastus.
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The foundations of the University of the Aegean date back to October 1918 when Greece had expanded its geographic borders to the wider Smyrna area after the World War I. At the time, Athens was the only major educational centre in the wider area and had limited capacity to sufficiently satisfy the growing educational need of the eastern part of the Aegean Sea and the Balkans. Professor Constantin Carathéodory and who was a Professor at the University of Berlin at the time - proposed the establishment of a new University. Despite the political turbulence of the era over the city of Smyrna, the famous mathematician constructed a "plan for the creation of a new University in Greece", named “Ionian University” on 20 October 1919.[4] The city of Smyrna was the ancient center of the Ionian civilization along with the islands of Samos and Chios and had the distinct cultural heritage from great Greek philosophers and mathematicians such as Herodotus and Pythagoras, who was born in Samos.
Consequently, the Greek Government decided to materialize Carathéodory's vision and establish the Ionian University, based in Smyrna (today's city of İzmir, Turkey) on the 1st of December 1920. Constantin Carathéodory was the first dean of the university. His intellectual brilliance as well as his ability to unite many of the great academics of that time, resulted in the creation of a University which was comparable with some of Europe's oldest Universities. However, the Ionian University stopped its operations due to the Great Fire of Smyrna in 1922 and was later re-established as the University of the Aegean.
As described in its mandate, the University of the Aegean is an "international research oriented university".[5] It is a university which embodies a unique structure which combines campuses across six islands (recently the island of Lemnos entered the University's network) of the Aegean Sea. It is a University globally known for its research which spans across a number of disciplines.
The university has an excellent reputation in the field of Computer Science, Mathematics, Statistics and Actuarial Science and it is considered one of the pioneers in Greece for offering innovative, "non-traditional" courses. The university is associated with the Hellenic Actuarial Society as well as the Groupe Consultatif Actuariel Européen[6][7] and is globally recognized for its research on the field of actuarial mathematics. The university forms part of the 30 higher education institutions in Greece. In 2007, a research survey ranked the university as 9th -and 5th amongst the largest institutions- in research citations per (permanent) academic capita in Greece,for the period of 2002-2007.[8] It was also ranked 6th overall in Greece (and 769th in the world) by CSIC, a public research body in Spain.[9] The University’s curricula have been developed to meet the requirements of the global academia, modern business and EU’s educational standards. Students are awarded degrees which fully comply with the ECTS standard, which enables them to undertake international study programmes. The school is linked with a number of world’s leading partner institutions and it has well-developed teacher and student mobility programs. During a recent (2005) evaluation of the university by the European University Association, it was acknowledged that the university had an "impressive" research output.[10] In the same evaluation, emphasis has been put on the fact that the Greek government should further invest in the creation of discernible institutional research strategy for the institution to further leverage the already "impressive" research output per academic capita.[11] Academic staff combine their work with professional commitments in the Greek mainland, which promotes research and collaboration beyond the barriers of the university island network.[12]
| Institution | Position |
|---|---|
| European Research Ranking [13] | 4th in Greece
6th in Greece |
The University is currently expanding its operations across its island network with the addition of the University of the Aegean, Medical School which has already been proposed to the Greek Senate.[14] In 2009, the Department of Food & Nutrition Science opened its doors to students for the first time since its establishment in 2007.[15]
The University of the Aegean has organised and implemented 90 research laboratories with activities into the following research areas: Information and Communication Technologies; Agriculture, Nutrition; Energy; Transport, Shipping; Sustainable Development and Environment; Tourism, Culture; Education; Health; Financial; Economic and Social Sciences.[16] [17] Notably the International Conference on Advances in Applied Financial Economics[18] has been traditionally co-organized by the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, the University of the Aegean (Department of Statistics & Actuarial-Financial Mathematics), the University of Piraeus, and the Research and Training Institute of the East Aegean (INEAG).[19] The University is also very active in the space of Summer Schools. In June 2010 (29/6-2/7/2010) the Summer School “Enterprise Risk Management for Actuaries” was co-organized by the Department of Statistics and Actuarial – Financial Mathematics of the University of the Aegean, the Hellenic Actuarial Society and the Groupe Consultative Actuarial Européen.[20] Recently (2009) the University of the Aegean (School of Humanities) was awarded from the European Foundation for Quality in e-Learning (UNIQUE) with the award of "Excellence" in the use of new technologies.[21] The University’s lecturers actively participate in the work of international research networks and groups, as well as European and Global research projects. They also deliver guest lectures at universities abroad.
The university has established academic relationships with external research institutions and organizations.[22] The university also participates in the Erasmus EU Student Exchange Programme, in agreement with 150 universities across Europe.[23]
The University of Aegean library was founded in 1984 and it has ever since experienced modernization and ample development of its IT infrastructure, partly financed by EU programmes. Today it covers all aspects of automation, including OPAC, SDI, acquisitions, bar-code-based lending, etc., and uses the integrated library automation system Equilibrium-Libreto. The library comprises more than 100,000 book titles, and more than 1,000 printed academic journal titles covering areas of Economics, International and European Economic Studies, Business Administration, Management Science and Marketing, Informatics, Statistics, Accounting and Finance, and Management and Technology.
The library also offers the majority of Official Academic Journals in full text, bibliographical databases of the Official Publications of the EU, statistical data on the imports and exports of the member-states of the EU.
The library offers daily business magazines and journals in the areas of economics and business. The library subscribes over 1,000 electronic journals through all the major electronic search engines (EBSCO, Elsevier's Sciencedirect, Springer's Link, JSTOR, MCB, WilsonWeb, Blackwell publishing, Oxford University Press, Wiley InterScience, Cambridge Journals Online).
Electronic access to the subscribed journals can be performed from any computer connected to the University intranet or irrespective of location, through dial-up, which is available 24 hours a day 7 days a week. What is more, the library offers access to local data as well as the OECD database including data, analyses and forecasts.
The University of the Aegean consists of five schools and seventeen departments that, together with the technical and administration offices, form the five University Units based on five islands in the Aegean Sea, an ancient cradle of knowledge. Students study the core subject of the Department in which they get admitted at, after the successful completion of the Panhellenic Examinations (Apolytirion). Bachelor of Science (Ptychion) courses range from 4 to 5 years and Master of Science courses range from 1 to 2 years.
| Departments | |
|---|---|
| School of Social Sciences | Dept. of Social Anthropology and History
Dept. of Sociology Dept. of Cultural Technology and Communication Dept. of Geography |
| School of the Environment | Dept. of Environmental Studies
Dept. of Marine Sciences |
| School of Business | Dept. of Business Administration
Dept. of Shipping, Trade and Transport Dept. of Financial and Management Engineering Dept. of Economics and Tourism Management |
| School of Sciences | Dept. of Mathematics
Dept. of Statistics and Actuarial-Financial Mathematics Dept. of Information and Communication Systems Engineering |
| School of Humanities | Dept. of Primary Education
Dept. of Preschool Education and Educational Design Dept. of Mediterranean Studies |
| School of Engineering | Dept. of Product and Systems Design Engineering |
"MyAegean" is a student initiative, originated in 2002 when a group of students from the Department of Product & Systems Design Engineering, in Syros created a network portal for the whole of the Aegean University community. It came to act as a springboard for collaboration and exchange of ideas. It acts as a intra-network of students across the 5 islands where the University is situated. The effort is to make strong relations and connections between the local student teams as well as the rest of the university stuff and local citizens on the islands. People try to develop events, to communicate and collaborate on two different ways: both locally (on every department-university unit/ island) and globally (as part of the entire University). There are 5 local sub-groups, for Syros,Lesvos,Samos,Chios and Rhodes.
There are several other Groups that collaborate with MyAegean in all islands/university units. At the present, there are AIESEC Local Group on Aegean Uni (based in Chios), Student Team of Blood Donation on Aegean Uni (based on Lesvos), Student Team of Astronomy on Aegean Uni (based on Samos). A joined effort of the administration of the institution came up on 2008 with a small printed "Survival Guide" with detailed information for every first year student on all university units / islands. "MyAegean" has an online presence at: http://my.aegean.gr/web/student-teams.html
"MyAegean" also collaborates with other student groups in volunteering initiatives in order to discover new ways in interaction and information exchange between students, professors, and individuals. The ”MyAegean” initiative has also been referred by Greek press and several other sources[34]