Established in 2000, UoP serves the demand for higher education in the Greek mainland’s south-western peninsula, through a network of nine schools distributed across its six main cities.
UoP incorporates two earlier institutions, the Technical Education Institute of Western Greece and the Technical College of the Peleponnese. Established initially in the Greek city of Tripoli, where the former home of the poet Kostas Koryotakis serves as the rectorate, it admitted its first students in 2002.
Its declared aim is a "creative contribution to the development of higher education in the Greek region, with high quality standards corresponding to the content of studies, research and teaching in the requirements of a modern university with national, economic and international scope".
Tripoli remains the flagship, hosting the university’s central services, its management and two of the nine schools: economics and technology, and health sciences. Human and cultural studies, agriculture and food, and management are based at Kalamata. Fine arts is located in Nafplio; social and political science in Corinth and human movement and quality of life sciences are based at Sparta; and engineering is located in Patras. In additio,n the Research Institute for Byzantine Culture, founded in 2007, operates from Mystras, near Sparta.
Around 25,000 students are enrolled in 22 departments. The cultural significance of the region and its attractions as a location have led to the creation of numerous summer courses. Six regular UoP English-language summer schools include the Epidaurus Lyceum, offering ancient drama studies. And the annual School of Greek Language and Culture, in Kalamata, offers a four-week programme to 40 US and Canadian students of Greek descent.
