Technische Universität Berlin (TU Berlin; also known as Berlin Institute of Technology and Technical University of Berlin, although officially the name should not be translated) is a publicresearch university located in Berlin, Germany.[5] It was the first German university to adopt the name『Technische Universität』(university of technology).[6]
The university is notable for having been the first to offer a degree in Industrial 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.[19]
TU Berlin has one of the highest proportions of international students in Germany, almost 27% in 2019.[20] In addition, TU Berlin is part of the Berlin University Alliance, has been conferred the title of "University of Excellence" under and receiving funding from the German Universities Excellence Initiative.[21]
The Bauakademie, founded in 1799, a forerunner of the Technische Universität Berlin1899 early Art NouveauMedal Technische Hochschule Berlin, 100th Anniversary, obverseThe reverse of this medalNorthern front of the Königlich Technische Hochschule zu Berlin (Royal Technical Academy of Berlin) in 1895The Technische HochschuleinCharlottenburg, Berlin
On 1 April 1879, the KöniglichTechnische Hochschule zu Berlin ("Royal Technical Academy of Berlin")[22] came into being in 1879 through a merger of the Royal Trade Academy (Königliche Gewerbeakademie zu Berlin, founded in 1827) and Royal Building Academy (Königliche Bauakademie zu Berlin, founded in 1799), two predecessor institutions of the Prussian State.[23]
In 1916 the long-standing Königliche Bergakademie zu Berlin, the Prussian mining academy created by the geologist Carl Abraham Gerhard in 1770 at the behest of King Frederick 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 the Frederick William University (now Humboldt University of Berlin), before it was spun out again in 1860.[citation needed]
After Charlottenburg's absorption into Greater Berlin in 1920 and Germany becoming the Weimar Republic, the Königlich Technische Hochschule zu Berlin was renamed "Technische Hochschule zu Berlin" ("TH Berlin").[22] In 1927, the Department of Geodesy of the Agricultural College of Berlin was incorporated into the TH Berlin. During the 1930s, the redevelopment and expansion of the campus along the "East-West axis" were part of the Nazi plans of a Welthauptstadt Germania, including a new faculty of defense technology under General Karl Becker, built as a part of the greater academic town (Hochschulstadt) in the adjacent west-wise Grunewald forest. The shell construction remained unfinished after the outbreak of World War II and after Becker's suicide in 1940, it is today covered by the large-scale Teufelsberg rubble hill.[citation needed]
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.[24] Due to the street fighting at the end of the Second World War, the operations at the TH Berlin were suspended as of 20 April 1945. Planning for the re-opening of the school began on 2 June 1945, once the acting rectorship led by Gustav Ludwig Hertz and Max Volmer was appointed. As both Hertz and Volmer remained in exile in the Soviet Union for some time to come, the college was not re-inaugurated until 9 April 1946, now bearing the name "Technische Universität Berlin".[citation needed]
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.[26][27]
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 the boroughofCharlottenburg-Wilmersdorf. The seven schools of the university have some 33,933 students enrolled in 90 subjects (October 2015).[28]
From 2012 to 2022, TU Berlin operated a satellite campus in Egypt, the El Gouna campus, to act as a scientific and academic field office. The nonprofit public–private partnership (PPP) aimed to offer services provided by Technische Universität Berlin at the campus in El Gouna on the Red Sea.[29]
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.[30][31]
As of 2015, 8,455 people work at the university: 338 professors, 2,598 postgraduate researchers, 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.[40] International student mobility is available through the ERASMUS programme or through the Top Industrial Managers for Europe (TIME) network.[citation needed]
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").[citation needed]
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.
Nicolas Kitsikis (1887–1978), Greek civil engineer, rector of the Athens Polytechnic School, senator and member of the Greek Parliament, doctor honoris causa of the Technische Universität Berlin.
Albert Speer (1905–1981), architect, politician, Minister for Armaments during the Third Reich, was sentenced to 20 years prison in the Nuremberg trials
Measured by the number of top managers in the German economy, TU Berlin ranked 11th in 2019.[48]
According to the research report of the German Research Foundation (DFG) from 2018, TU Berlin ranked 24th absolute among German universities across all scientific disciplines. Thereby TU Berlin ranked 9th absolute in natural sciences and engineering. The TU Berlin took 14th place absolute in computer science and 5th place absolute in electrical engineering.[49] 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.[50]
In the 2017 Times Higher Education World University Rankings, the TU Berlin ranked 40th in the field of Engineering & Technology (3rd in Germany) and 36th in Computer science discipline (4th in Germany), making it one of the top 100 universities worldwide in all three measures.[51]
As of 2016, TU Berlin was ranked 35th in the field of Engineering & Technology according to the British QS World University Rankings. It was one of Germany's highest ranked universities in statistics and operations research and in Mathematics according to QS.[52]
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