The National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, usually referred to simply as the University of Athens (UoA), is a public university in Zografou, Athens, Greece. It has been in continuous operation since its establishment in 1837 and is the oldest higher education institution of the modern Greek state and the first contemporary university in the Eastern Mediterranean. Today it is one of the largest universities by enrollment in Europe, with over 100,000 registered students.Research in the University of Athens includes almost all research interests. Such research in the university is associated with that conducted by the hospitals and research institutes of the metropolitan area, including the National Research Center for Physical Sciences Demokritos, the National Research Foundation (EIE), the National Observatory of Athens, the Hellenic Pasteur Institute, the Alexander Fleming Biomedical Sciences Research Center, the Athens High Performance Computing Laboratory, the National Centre for Marine Research (NCMR) and the Foundation for Biomedical Research of the Academy of Athens (BRFAA).Research conducted in the institutes of the metropolitan area of Athens accounted for more than 50% of the ISI-indexed scientific publications coming from Greece. The Department of Informatics and Telecommunications has been ranked continuously among the 100 most important research institutes in the field of Computer Science, according to Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU).Throughout its history, a sizeable number of University of Athens alumni have become notable in many varied fields, both academic and otherwise. Moreover, 2 Nobel prize-winners have studied or taught at Athens, with both their prizes being in Literature. Fifteen Greek prime ministers and three Greek presidents have studied at the University of Athens.