Institute of Digital Games beats Google and NYU to fifth place in technical games research ranking

The Institute of Digital Games - University of Malta continues to hold its ground among elite research institutes, securing 5th place in the top institutions active in technical games research compiled by American scientist, Prof. Mark J. Nelson and updated in August 2026. 

Prof. Nelson’s ranking is a reflection of how active the institutions were over the past 10 years in publishing at conferences and journals dedicated to the technical side of games research including research in areas like Artificial Intelligence, Human-Computer Interaction, graphics optimisation.

Northeastern University was the top-ranking research institution in 2026 taking over the top spot from the University of California Santa Cruz. The Institute of Digital Games at the University of Malta first entered the list in 2018 in ninth place and have ranked in the top ten consistently. University of Malta has cemented their 5th-place ranking (1st place in continental Europe)  for the second year in a row now, a particularly impressive feat considering the relatively small group of researchers at the University of Malta, with Prof. Antonios Liapis, Prof. Georgios N. Yannakakis, Dr Ahmed Khalifa, and Ph.D. student Roberto Gallotta leading the contributions this year.

"We are immensely proud of what our relatively small research team at the University of Malta has achieved over the years," said Rector Prof. Frank Bezzina. "Research sits at the core of the University's mission—a vital foundation as we look ahead to address current needs and seize new opportunities." 

Prof. Yannakakis, who has led AI and Games research at the University since 2012, highlighted the field’s evolution: "AI and games have a long history of co-development. Algorithm boundaries were pushed through chess and checkers in the 1950s and '60s, and more recently through Go, StarCraft, and Dota 2. We are very proud of the innovative work done at the University of Malta by our researchers and brilliant students over the years." 

Nemanja Rasajski and Chintan Trivedi, Ph.D. students at the Institute of Digital Games, have recently won the best paper award at the European Conference on Computer Vision (ECCV). The RECLAIM project which included the UM team of Prof. Antonios Liapis, Prof. Georgios N. Yannakakis, Dr Iro Voulgari and PhD students Konstantinos Sfikas and Nemanja Rasajski was awarded Best Transnational Collaboration and Prof. Stefano Gualeni was invited to keynote for iGGi, the leading games research school, which is a collaboration between industry and academia led by Queen Mary University who is ranked one spot above the University of Malta.

Beyond serving as an impressive metric, the standings underscore a rich network of international partnerships. Prof. Julian Togelius from New York University routinely co-authors papers with UM academics, and Prof. Casper Harteveld of first-placed Northeastern University collaborated with the Institute to study toxicity detection within Ubisoft’s For Honor.

The Institute of Digital Games offers the Master of Science in Digital Games and Doctoral Degrees in the areas of Game AI, Game Design, and Game Studies at the University of Malta. Information about their research, education, and events are available on their website. For more information about research and interviews, please send an email.