Technische Universität Berlin

Technische Universität Berlin

Motto	Wir haben die Ideen für die Zukunft. Zum Nutzen der Gesellschaft.
Motto in English	We've got the brains for the future. For the benefit of society.
Type	Public
Established	1770(1770)(Königliche Bergakademie zu Berlin) 1799 (Königliche Bauakademie zu Berlin) 1879 (Königlich Technische Hochschule zu Berlin) 1946 as Technische Universität Berlin
Affiliation	TIME,TU9,EUA,CESAER,DFG,SEFI,PEGASUS,German Excellence Universities,Berlin University Alliance
Budget	€659.3 million (2022)
President	Geraldine Rauch(since 2022)
Academic staff	3,120
Administrative staff	2,258
Students	35,570
Location	Berlin , Germany 52°30′43″N13°19′35″E
Campus	Urban
Website	tu.berlin

Technische Universität Berlin(TU Berlin;also known asBerlin Institute of TechnologyandTechnical University of Berlin,although officially the name should not be translated) is apublicresearch universitylocated inBerlin,Germany.It was the first German university to adopt the name "Technische Universität" (university of technology).

The university alumni and staff includes severalUS National Academies members,twoNational Medal of Sciencelaureates,the creator of the first fully functional programmable (electromechanical) computer,Konrad Zuse,and ten Nobel Prize laureates.

TU Berlin is a member ofTU9,an incorporated society of the largest and most notable German institutes of technology and of theTop International Managers in Engineeringnetwork,which allows for student exchanges between leading engineering schools. It belongs to theConference of European Schools for Advanced Engineering Education and Research.The TU Berlin is home of two innovation centers designated by theEuropean Institute of Innovation and Technology.The university is labeled as "The Entrepreneurial University" ( "Die Gründerhochschule" ) by the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy.

The university is notable for having been the first to offer a degree inIndustrial Engineering and Management(Wirtschaftsingenieurwesen). The university designed the degree in response to requests by industrialists for graduates with the technical and management training to run a company. First offered in winter term 1926/27, it is one of the oldest programmes of its kind.

TU Berlin has one of the highest proportions of international students in Germany, almost 27% in 2019.In addition, TU Berlin is part of theBerlin University Alliance,has been conferred the title of "University of Excellence" under and receiving funding from theGerman Universities Excellence Initiative.

History

TheBauakademie,founded in 1799, a forerunner of the Technische Universität Berlin

1899 earlyArt NouveauMedalTechnische Hochschule Berlin, 100th Anniversary, obverse

The reverse of this medal

Northern front of the Königlich Technische Hochschule zu Berlin (Royal Technical Academy of Berlin) in 1895

TheTechnische HochschuleinCharlottenburg,Berlin

On 1 April 1879, theKöniglichTechnische Hochschulezu Berlin(en: "Royal Technical Academy of Berlin" )came into being in 1879 through a merger of theKönigliche Gewerbeakademie zu Berlin(en: "Royal Trade Academy", founded in 1827) andKönigliche Bauakademiezu Berlin(en: "Royal Building Academy", founded in 1799), two predecessor institutions of the Prussian State.

In 1899, the Königlich Technische Hochschule zu Berlin was the firstpolytechnicin Germany to awarddoctorates,as a standard degree for the graduates, in addition todiplomas,thanks to professorAlois RiedlerandAdolf Slaby,chairman of theAssociation of German Engineers(VDI) and theAssociation for Electrical, Electronic and Information Technologies(VDE).

In 1916 the long-standingKönigliche Bergakademie zu Berlin,the Prussianminingacademy created by the geologist Carl Abraham Gerhard in 1770 at the behest of KingFrederick the Great,was incorporated into the Königlich Technische Hochschule as the "Department of Mining". Beforehand, the mining college had been, however, for several decades under the auspices of theFrederick William University(nowHumboldt University of Berlin), before it was spun out again in 1860.

After Charlottenburg's absorption intoGreater Berlinin 1920 and Germany becoming theWeimar Republic,theKöniglich Technische Hochschule zu Berlinwas renamed "Technische Hochschule zu Berlin" ( "TH Berlin" ).In 1927, the Department of Geodesy of theAgricultural College of Berlinwas incorporated into theTH Berlin.During the 1930s, the redevelopment and expansion of the campus along the "East-West axis" were part of theNaziplans of aWelthauptstadt Germania,including a new faculty of defense technology under GeneralKarl Becker,built as a part of the greater academic town (Hochschulstadt) in the adjacent west-wiseGrunewaldforest. The shell construction remained unfinished after the outbreak ofWorld War IIand after Becker's suicide in 1940, it is today covered by the large-scaleTeufelsbergrubble hill.

Main building of TU Berlin in 2010

The north section of the main building of the university was destroyed during a bombing raid in November 1943.Due to thestreet fightingat the end of the Second World War, the operations at theTH Berlinwere suspended as of 20 April 1945. Planning for the re-opening of the school began on 2 June 1945, once the acting rectorship led byGustav Ludwig HertzandMax Volmerwas appointed. As both Hertz and Volmer remained in exile in theSoviet Unionfor some time to come, the college was not re-inaugurated until 9 April 1946, now bearing the name "Technische Universität Berlin".

Since 2009 the TU Berlin has housed two Knowledge and Innovation Communities (KIC) designated by theEuropean Institute of Innovation and Technology.

Name

The official policy of the university is that only the German name, Technische Universität Berlin (TU Berlin), should be used abroad in order to promote corporate identity and that its name is not to be translated into English.

Campus

The TU Berlin covers 604,000 square metres (6.5 million square feet), distributed over various locations in Berlin. The main campus is located in theboroughofCharlottenburg-Wilmersdorf.The seven schools of the university have some 33,933 students enrolled in 90 subjects (October 2015).

From 2012 to 2022, TU Berlin operated a satellite campus in Egypt, theEl Gounacampus, to act as a scientific and academic field office. The nonprofitpublic–private partnership(PPP) aimed to offer services provided by Technische Universität Berlin at the campus in El Gouna on the Red Sea.

The university also has a franchise of its Global Production Engineering course – called Global Production Engineering and Management at the Vietnamese-German University in Ho Chi Minh City.

Organization

Telefunken-Highrise, the tallest building on campus

Since 2002,the TU Berlin has consisted of the following faculties and institutes:

• Faculty I –HumanitiesandEducational Sciences(Geistes- und Bildungswissenschaften)
  • Institute ofHistoryandPhilosophyofScience,Technology,andLiterature
  • Institute forArt Historyand HistoricalUrbanism
  • Institute ofEducation
  • Institute ofLanguageandCommunication
  • Institute ofVocational Educationand Work Studies
  • Center for Research on Antisemitism(ZfA)
  • Center forInterdisciplinaryWomen's andGender Studies(ZIFG)
  • Center forCultural StudiesonScienceandTechnologyinChina(CCST)
• Faculty II –MathematicsandNatural Sciences(Mathematik und Naturwissenschaften)
  • Center forAstronomyandAstrophysics
  • Institute ofChemistry
  • Institute ofSolid-State Physics
  • Institute ofMathematics
  • Institute ofOpticsandAtomic Physics
  • Institute ofTheoretical Physics
• Faculty III –Process Sciences(Prozesswissenschaften)
  • Institute ofBiotechnology
  • Institute ofEnergy Technology
  • Institute ofFood TechnologyandFood Chemistry
  • Institute ofChemicalandProcess Engineering
  • Institute ofEnvironmental Technology
  • Institute ofMaterial SciencesandTechnology
• Faculty IV –Electrical EngineeringandComputer Science(Elektrotechnik und Informatik)
  • Institute ofEnergyandAutomation Technology
  • Institute of High-Frequency andSemiconductorSystem Technologies
  • Institute ofTelecommunicationSystems
  • Institute ofComputer EngineeringandMicroelectronics
  • Institute ofSoftware EngineeringandTheoretical Computer Science
  • Institute of CommercialInformation TechnologyandQuantitative Methods
• Faculty V –Mechanical EngineeringandTransport Systems(Verkehrs- und Maschinensysteme)
  • Institute ofFluid Mechanicsand TechnicalAacoustics
  • Institute ofPsychologyandErgonomics(Arbeitswissenschaft)
  • Institute ofLandandSea Transport Systems
  • Institute ofAeronauticsandAstronautics
  • Institute of Engineering Design, and Micro and Medical Technology
  • Institute of Machine Tools and Factory Management
  • Institute ofMechanics
• Faculty VI – Planning Building Environment(Planen Bauen Umwelt)
  • Institute ofArchitecture
  • Institute ofCivil Engineering
  • Institute of AppliedGeosciences
  • Institute ofGeodesyandGeoinformation Science
  • Institute ofLandscape ArchitectureandEnvironmental Planning
  • Institute ofEcology
  • Institute ofSociology
  • Institute ofUrban and Regional Planning
• Faculty VII – Economics and Management(Wirtschaft und Management)
  • Institute forTechnologyandManagement(ITM)
  • Institute ofBusiness Administration(IBWL)
  • Institute ofEconomicsandLaw(IVWR)
• School of Education (SETUB)
• Central Institute El Gouna(Zentralinstitut El Gouna)

Faculty and staff

As of 2015, 8,455 people work at the university: 338 professors, 2,598 postgraduateresearchers,and 2,131 personnel work in administration, the workshops, the library, and the central facilities. In addition, there are 2,651 student assistants and 126 trainees.International student mobility is available through theERASMUS programmeor through theTop Industrial Managers for Europe(TIME) network.

Library

Entrance of the main library of Technische Universität Berlin and of theBerlin University of the Arts

The new common main library of Technische Universität Berlin and of theBerlin University of the Artswas opened in 2004and holds about 2.9 million volumes (2007).The library building was sponsored partially (estimated 10% of the building costs) byVolkswagenand is named officially "University Library of the TU Berlin and UdK (in the Volkswagen building)".

Some of the former 17 libraries of Technische Universität Berlin and of the nearby University of the Arts were merged into the new library, but several departments still retain libraries of their own. In particular, the school of 'Economics and Management' maintains a library with 340,000 volumes in the university's main building (Die Bibliothek – Wirtschaft & Management/ "The Library" – Economics and Management) and the 'Department of Mathematics' maintains a library with 60,000 volumes in the Mathematics building (Mathematische Fachbibliothek/ "Mathematics Library" ).

Notable alumni and professors

See also the categoriesTechnische Universität Berlin alumniandAcademic staff of Technische Universität Berlin

Wernher von Braun(1912–1977),engineer,designer of the firstballistic missileandNASArockets

Fritz Haber,Nobel Prize in Chemistry, 1918

Eugene Paul Wigner(1902–1995),Nobel Prize in Physics,1963

Carl Bosch(1874–1940),Nobel Prize in Chemistry,1931

Karl Friedrich Schinkel(1781–1841), graduate of theBauakademie,architect

Konrad Zuse(1910–1995), designed thefirst modern computerandfirst high-level programming language

(Including those of the Academies mentioned in the History section)

• Bruno Ahrends(1878–1948), architect
• Steffen Ahrends(1907–1992), architect
• Zora Arkus-Duntov(1909–1996), Russian and American engineer and racing car driver
• Stancho Belkovski(1891–1962), Bulgarian architect, head of Higher Technical School in Sofia and the department of public buildings.
• August Borsig(1804–1854), businessman
• Carl Bosch(1874–1940), chemist,Nobel prizewinner 1931
• Franz Breisig(1868–1934), mathematician, inventor of the calibration wire and father of the term quadripole network inelectrical engineering.
• Wilhelm Cauer(1900–1945), mathematician, essential contributions to thedesignoffilters.
• Henri Marie Coandă(1886–1972), Romanian aircraft designer; discovered theCoandă Effect.
• Lotte Cohn(1893-1983), German-Israeli architect
• Jan Czochralski(1885–1953), Polish chemist
• Carl Dahlhaus(1928–1989), musicologist.
• Kurt Daluege(1897–1946), SS official, chief of Ordnungspolizei (Order Police) of Nazi Germany from 1936 to 1943, hanged as a war criminal
• Walter Dornberger(1895–1980), Major-General, developer of the Air Force-NASAX-20Dyna-Soarproject.
• Ottmar Edenhofer(born 1961), economist
• Krafft Arnold Ehricke(1917–1984),rocket-propulsion engineer, worked for theNASA,chief designer of theCentaur
• Gerhard Ertl(born 10 October 1936 in Stuttgart) Physicist and Surface Chemist, Hon. Prof. andNobel prizewinner 2007
• Ladislaus Farkas(1904–1948), Austro-Hungarian/Israeli chemist
• Gottfried Feder(1883–1941), economist and key member of the National Socialist Party
• Wigbert Fehse(born 1937) German engineer and researcher in the area of automatic space navigation, guidance, control and docking/berthing.
• Ursula Franklin(1921–2016), Canadian physicist (archaeometry) and theorist on the political and social effects of technology, Pearson Medal of Peace winner 2001
• Dennis Gabor(1900–1971), Hungarian-British physicist (holography), Nobel prize winner 1971
• Hans Geiger(1882–1945), physicist, co-inventor of the detector component of the Geiger counter
• Elsa Gidoni(1901–1978), German-American architect and interior designer.
• Thomas Gil(born 1954], Professor of Practical Philosophy.
• Fritz Gosslau(1898–1965), German engineer, known for his work at theV-1 flying bomb.
• Fritz Haber(1868–1934), chemist who received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1918
• Gustav Ludwig Hertz(1887–1975), physicist, Nobel prize winner 1925
• Ernst Herzfeld(1879–1948), archaeologist and Iranologist
• Franz Hillinger(1895–1973), architect of theNeues Bauen(New Objectivity)movement in Berlin and in Turkey.
• Fritz Houtermans(1903–1966) Dutch-Austrian-German atomic and nuclear physicist
• Hugo Junkers(1859–1935), former ofJunkers& Co, a major German aircraft manufacturer.
• Anatol Kagan(1913–2009), Russian-born Australian architect.
• Helmut Kallmeyer(1910–2006), chemist and Action T4 perpetrator
• Walter Kaufmann(1871–1947), physicist, well known for his first experimental proof of the velocity dependence of mass.
• Diébédo Francis Kéré(born 1965), Burnikabe architect
• Nicolas Kitsikis(1887–1978), Greek civil engineer, rector of the Athens Polytechnic School, senator and member of the Greek Parliament, doctorhonoris causaof the Technische Universität Berlin.
• Heinz-Hermann Koelle(born 1925) former director of theArmy Ballistic Missile Agency,member of the launch crew onExplorer Iand later directed theNASA'sMarshall Space Flight Center's involvement inProject Apollo.
• Abdul Qadeer Khan(born 1936),Pakistaninuclear physicistandmetallurgical engineer,who founded theuranium enrichmentprogram for Pakistan'satomic bomb project.
• Arthur Korn(1870–1945), physicist, mathematician, and inventor of the fax machine.
• Franz Kruckenberg(1882–1965), designer of the firstaerodynamic high-speed train1931
• Karl Küpfmüller(1897–1977),electrical engineer,essential contributions to system theory
• Konrad Kwiet(born 1941), historian and scholar of the Holocaust.
• Edward Lasker(1885–1981), German-American chess player
• Wassili Luckhardt(1889–1972), architect
• Georg Hans Madelung(1889–1972), academic andaeronauticalengineer.
• Herbert Franz Mataré(1912–2011), physicist andTransistor-pioneer
• Alexander Meissner(1883–1958), Austrianelectrical engineer
• Otto Metzger,German-British engineer
• Joachim Milberg(born 1943), FormerCEOofBMW AG.
• Erwin Wilhelm Müller(1911–1977), physicist (field emission microscope,field ion microscope,atom probe)
• Klaus-Robert Müller(born 1964), computer scientist and physicist, a leading researcher inmachine learning
• Hans-Georg Münzberg(1916–2000), engineer, airplane turbines
• Gustav Niemann(1899–1982), mechanical engineer
• Ida Noddack(1896–1978), nominated three times forNobel Prize in Chemistry.
• Egon Orowan(1902–1989), Hungarian-British physicist, metallurgist, and academic
• Jakob Karol Parnas(1884–1949), Polish-Soviet biochemist,Embden-Meyerhof-Parnaspathway
• Wolfgang Paul(1913–1993), physicist, Nobel prize winner 1989
• Hans Reissner(1874–1967), aeronautical engineer whose avocation was mathematical physics
• Franz Reuleaux(1829–1905), mechanical engineer, often called the father ofkinematics
• Klaus Riedel(1907–1944), Germanrocketpioneer, worked on theV-2 missileprogramme atPeenemünde.
• Alois Riedler(1850–1936), Austrian inventor of theLeavitt-Riedler Pumping Engine;proponent of practically oriented engineering education.
• Hermann Rietschel (1847–1914), inventor of modernHVAC(heating, ventilation, and air conditioning).
• Arthur Rudolph(1906–1996) worked for the U.S. Army andNASA,developer ofPershing missileand theSaturn VMoonrocket.
• Ernst Ruska(1906–1988), physicist (electron microscope), Nobel prize winner 1986
• Karl Friedrich Schinkel(1781–1841), architect (at the predecessor Berlin Building Academy)
• Bernhard Schölkopf(born 1968), computer scientist
• Fritz Sennheiser(1912–2010), founder ofSennheiser
• Adolf Slaby(1849–1913), Germanwirelesspioneer
• Albert Speer(1905–1981), architect, politician, Minister for Armaments during the Third Reich, was sentenced to 20 years prison in theNuremberg trials
• Ernst Steinitz(1871–1928), mathematician.
• Edmund Stinnes(1896–1980), German-American industrialist, professor, and heir
• Ivan Stranski(1897–1979), Bulgarian chemist, considered the father ofcrystal growthresearch
• Zdenko Strižić(1902–1990), Croatian architect
• Ernst Stuhlinger(1913–2008), German-American member of theArmy Ballistic Missile Agency,director of the space science lab atNASA'sMarshall Space Flight Center.
• Kurt Tank(1893–1983), head of design department ofFocke-Wulf,designed theFw 190
• Willibald Trinks(1874–1966), head of the Department of Mechanical of Engineering of theCarnegie Institute of Technology
• Hermann W. Vogel,(1834–1898) photo-chemist
• Wernher von Braun(1912–1977), German-American head of Nazi Germany'sV-2 rocketprogram, saved from prosecution at theNuremberg TrialsbyOperation Paperclip,first director of the United StatesNational Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA)Marshall Space Flight Center,called the father of the U.S. space program.
• Elisabeth von Knobelsdorff(1877–1959), engineer and architect
• Chaim Weizmann,first President ofIsrael
• Wilhelm Heinrich Westphal(1882–1978), physicist
• Eugene Wigner(1902–1995), Hungarian-American physicist, discovered the Wigner-Ville-distribution, Nobel prize winner 1963
• Ludwig Wittgenstein(1889–1951), Austrian philosopher
• Martin C. Wittig(born 1964), Former CEO of the management consultant firmRoland Berger Strategy Consultants.
• Constantin Zablovschi(1882–1967), Romanian pioneer radio engineer in Romania
• Elisa Leonida Zamfirescu(1887–1973) chemist, graduated 1912, female engineering pioneer.
• Günter M. Ziegler(born 1963),Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize(2001)
• Konrad Zuse(1910–1995), computer pioneer

Rankings

University rankings
Overall – Global & National
QSWorld2025 =147 8 THEWorld2024 =136 12–13 ARWUWorld2023 201–300 10–19 QSEurope QSEmployability THEEmployability

According to theQS World University Rankings2025, TU Berlin was ranked 147th globally, making it the 8th best university in the country.In theTimes Higher Education World University Rankingsfor 2023, the institution was ranked 136th globally and within the 12–13th range nationally.TheAcademic Ranking of World Universitiesfor 2023 positions TU Berlin within the 201–300 range globally and the 10–19 range within Germany.

Measured by the number of top managers in the German economy, TU Berlin ranked 11th in 2019.

According to the research report of theGerman Research Foundation(DFG) from 2018, TU Berlin ranked 24th absolute among German universities across all scientific disciplines. Thereby TU Berlin ranked 9th absolute innatural sciencesandengineering.The TU Berlin took 14th place absolute incomputer scienceand 5th place absolute inelectrical engineering.In a competitive selection process, the DFG selects the best research projects from researchers at universities and research institutes and finances them. The ranking is thus regarded as an indicator of the quality of research.

In the 2017Times Higher Education World University Rankings,the TU Berlin ranked 40th in the field of Engineering & Technology (3rd in Germany) and 36th inComputer sciencediscipline (4th in Germany), making it one of the top 100 universities worldwide in all three measures.

As of 2016, TU Berlin was ranked 35th in the field of Engineering & Technology according to the BritishQS World University Rankings.It was one of Germany's highest ranked universities in statistics and operations research and in Mathematics according to QS.

See also

• Universities and research institutions in Berlin
• European Institute of Innovation and Technology
• Free University of Berlin
• Humboldt University of Berlin
• Berlin University of the Arts

External links

• Official website
• TU Berlin: International partner universities
• Website of the Student's Council and Government
• TU Berlin: Campus Map