GREECE, UNIVERSITY OF IOANNINA

The University of Ioannina was founded in 1964. In 1970 it became an independent Higher Education Institution, which grew rapidly in the following years. Today, the University of Ioannina includes 17 academic departments which account for 13,523 undergraduate students. A number of organised postgraduate study programmes are on offer that combine taught and research elements both at Master’s and Doctoral level. Approximately 1,300 students are involved in full-time study progressing to a Master’s degree, while 2,217 students are currently pursuing their studies at Doctoral level.

The University comprises the following Schools and Departments: School of Philosophy, School of Sciences, School of Education, School of Health Sciences, School of Sciences and Technologies. Independent (Non-School) Departments – School of Fine Arts, School of Natural Resources and Enterprises Management (located in Agrinio), Independent (Non-School) Department (located in Agrinio) and Department of Cultural Heritage Management and New Technologies.

The efforts to establish a University in Ioannina and in the wider region can be traced back to the last pre-revolutionary years. During that period, leading Epirot intellectuals had attempted to found higher Education Institutions in Epirus. From the early fifties and directly after the founding of the Society for Epirot Studies (1954) a strong demand was voiced for the founding of a Higher Education Institution that would reflect the cultural background of Epirus and promote Ioannina and the wider region from every aspect.

In 1962 a delegation of visionary intellectuals was set up in Athens with a single aim: “the most effective assertion and widest possible promotion of the fair Epirot request to establish a third university or an independent theoretical or technical training school in Ioannina”. In an announcement in July 1962 the Committee called on every official and unofficial body, as well as on every Epirot citizen, to take action so that the above request would be realised.

On 8 May 1964 the founding of a School of Philosophy in Ioannina was announced in the daily press, as a branch of the same School of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. Initially the Department was housed in the old building of the Zosimaia Academy. In 1966 Georgios Mylonas, undersecretary to the premier’s office at the time as well as education undersecretary, not only favoured the relocation of the School, but also commissioned the drawing up of plans for a custom built campus in the area near to Dourouti Monastery.

In 1966 the Department of Mathematics, which fell under the School of Mathematics and Physics of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, came into being. In 1970 the University of Ioannina, an independent Higher Education Institution was founded in Ioannina, which grew rapidly in the coming years to encompass today the following academic Departments:

Today, the University faculty numbers 549 Members of Academic Staff, while teaching in all the Departments is further supplemented by 171 Teaching Fellows and 132 Technical Laboratory Staff. Finally, the University Administrative Services are staffed with 420 employees. Within a 42-year span the size of the University of Ioannina has almost doubled and its development prospects appear to be particularly promising. This is likely to have a continuing positive contribution to both the academic community and the region as a whole.

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