Ionian University

The Ionian University was founded in 1984, the same year as the University of Thessaly and the University of the Aegean and is located in Corfu. The number of Departments, as well as the fields covered, indicate that the Ionian University has chosen to operate on a narrow and therefore controllable base. The teacher to student ratio (approximately 1:10) illustrates this fact. Moreover, the dispersion of the Departments’ facilities in different parts of the urban complex of the city of Corfu, a city with a population of 40,000 residents, declares the University’s will to find its place in the structure of a city with a rich historic and architectural heritage. From the 12th century an on, Corfu and the Ionian Islands in general have followed a different historical path in relation to the rest of Greece. Having experienced Venetian, French and English rule, the Ionian Islands differ historically from most Greek provinces, which after the fall of the Byzantine Empire in the 15th century became part of the Ottoman Empire until the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th, when these territories gradually gained their freedom and joined the newly established Greek state.