Greece’s often uncelebrated higher education system received a welcome fillip last month with the release of a paper by a team of Stanford researchers ranking no fewer than 37 professors and lecturers from the Technical University of Crete as among the top 2% of scientists worldwide.

The article, which has yet to be peer reviewed, is entitled “Updated science-wide author databases of standardized citation indicators including retraction data”. Its lead author is the Greek-American academic John P.A. Ioannidis, with Angelo Maria Pezzullo, Antonio Cristiano, Stefania Boccia and Jeroen Baas also contributing.

According to the authors, their emphasis is on “highly-cited scientists,” or as they note, the “top-2% in each scientific subfield according to a composite citation indicator.”

The university, known locally as a polytechnic, was founded quite recently, in 1977, in the port city of Chania (Hania) on the large island of Crete and consists of five engineering schools, including electrical and computer engineering.