Founded in 1956, Middle East Technical University (METU), a state funded institution, is Turkey's premier international research university with English as the medium of instruction in all programs and at all levels. METU is consistently ranked as one of the best in the country and known as a pioneering university with numerous firsts in its history (e.g. first internet provider of Turkey, first campus abroad, first Faculty Development Program). METU's five faculties, five graduate schools and several other departments offer a great variety of undergraduate, graduate and doctoral programs to the university's 27,000 students – 6% of which are international students from 94 countries. With an average of only 15 students per lecturer, METU's student-teacher ratio is a lot lower than the Turkish average, providing students with the best possible support from their professors. Upon graduating, METU students will join the large network of 140,000 alumni, who are organized under 40 alumni associations around the globe. METU's facilities are spread across three campuses: the vast main campus in Ankara, the Erdemli Campus in Mersin that houses the Institute of Marine Sciences, and a campus in Northern Cyprus. To learn more about the university, watch this short video.
Middle East Technical University (METU)
#1METU ranks 1st in both the 2021 TÜBİTAK Entrepreneur and Innovative University index, and the 2022 QS Emerging Europe & Central Asia University Rankings
800+METU has over 800 bilateral exchange and cooperation agreements worldwide
147METU's students can choose between 104 student cultural groups and 43 sport teams to join
Research
METU is an international research intensive university. As only one of 10 universities in Turkey, METU has been given the special status as a research university by the Turkish Council of Higher Education (YÖK) in 2016. Since 2017, METU has consecutively ranked 1st among them in the annual evaluation of the universities' performance in research. Its leading position is also reflected in the number of international scientific publications and the university's share of research funds from national scientific research funding agencies (primarily TÜBİTAK) and European programs (primarily Horizon2020). METU is also among the leading universities in Turkey in terms of depth and breadth of international research projects and the amount of funds generated from research activities. Research revenues account for 20-25% on average of annual METU expenditures, including all payroll costs.
METU houses 40 research centers and 108 research and training labs. Every 8 days, another patent application is submitted at METU. As part of its research and development vision, METU gives priority to graduate education and consequently, graduates around 200 Ph.D. candidates every year. METU has a world-class faculty with Ph.D. degrees earned from many prominent universities, the majority (70%) from institutions abroad. METU strives to improve its research activities by increasing collaboration between national and international research organizations, setting up close links with the industry, encouraging multidisciplinary work and continuously restructuring its organization to create a research environment that fosters innovation. The university’s research priority areas are defense and space, information technology, renewable energy, ecosystems and sustainability, advanced materials and biomaterials, and biotechnology, risk, disasters, and security.
Engagement with IU
Indiana University and Middle East Technical University have been formal partners since 2014. There has been a faculty exchange agreement between the Faculty of Education at METU and the School of Education at Indiana University since 2015. The two universities also have an Erasmus+ inter-institutional agreement in place since 2018.
