Bilkent University, or Bilkent, is the first private university of Turkey, located in Ankara, with the fundamental aim of creating a center of excellence in higher education and research. The name "Bilkent" exemplifies this aim, since it is an acronym of "bilim kenti": Turkish for "city of science".Bilkent University is among the 226th to 250th best universities in the world and 1st in Turkey according to Times Higher Education World University Rankings of the world's top universities for 2012.