IHU started functioning in 2008 and is based in Thermi, Thessaloniki, GREECE. Its mission and purpose is to provide higher education to Greeks and foreigners and to produce and impart innovative knowledge to the scientific disciplines concerned.
In 2019 the IHU merged with the TEIs of Thessaloniki, Central Macedonia and Eastern Macedonia and Thrace and has more than 40,000 students making it one of the largest universities in Greece. Until then, IHU was the only public university in the country
where the programs were taught exclusively in English.
Currently IHU has 9 Schools that are Economics and Management, Social Sciences, Health Sciences, Engineering, Design Sciences, Science, Geotechnical Sciences, Humanitarian Social and Economic Sciences.
The UNESCO CHAIR Con-E-Ect on the Conservation and Ecotourism of Riparian and Deltaic Ecosystems is also hosted at IHU. The University also has 9 Research Institutes:
Life Sciences, Petroleum, Tourism and Hospitality, Urban Environment, Social and Solidarity Economy, Management of Refugee Flows and Crises, Agricultural Industry, Industrial Innovation and Digital Agriculture, Sustainable Development and the Circular Economy. It also offers more than 30 MSc programs. Many of these are offered in English.
Two English-language scientific journals specifically The Journal of Engineering Science and Technology Review and The International Journal of Economics Science and Applied Research are published by IHU. IHU has and continues to be also actively involved in many international cooperative programmes such as ERASMUS, COMETT, LINGUA, PETRA, TEMPUS, EUROFORM, TEXT, EURASHE, SOCRATES. It has been also actively involved in international research projects such as Alpha, EU DG-Research Vth Framework, Interreg IIIB CADSES, Interreg III A Phare CBC Greece-Bulgaria, Interreg III B Archimed and Interreg IV-C South East.
IHU’s goal is to be a pioneer in innovative research in many different scientific disciplines.