Dresden University of Technology

TU Dresden

Motto	Wissen schafft Brücken. (German)
Motto in English	Knowledge builds bridges
Type	Public university
Established	1828
President	Hans Müller-Steinhagen[]
Administrative staff	7,094 as of 2012 w/o medicines
Students	37,134 (As of 2013[update])
Location	Dresden, Germany
Campus	urban
Affiliations	German Universities Excellence Initiative PEGASUS TIME CESAER TU9
Website	tu-dresden.de

The TU Dresden (usually mistakenly translated from German as Dresden University of Technology and abbreviated TUD) is a public research university, the largest institute of higher education in the city of Dresden, the largest university in Saxony and one of the 10 largest universities in Germany with 37,134 students as of 2013^[update]. The name Technische Universität Dresden has only been used since 1961; the history of the university, however, goes back nearly 200 years to 1828. This makes it one of the oldest colleges of technology in Germany, and one of the country’s oldest universities, which in German today refers to institutes of higher education which cover the entire curriculum. The university is member of TU9, a consortium of the nine leading German Institutes of Technology. The university is one of the eleven German universities which succeeded in the Excellence Initiative in 2012, thus getting the title of a "University of Excellence". The TU Dresden succeeded in all three rounds of the German Universities Excellence Initiative (Future Concept, Graduate Schools, Clusters of Excellence).

In 1828, with emerging industrialization, the "Saxon Technical School" was founded to educate skilled workers in technological subjects such as mechanics, mechanical engineering and ship construction. In 1871, the year the German Empire was founded, the institute was renamed the Royal Saxon Polytechnic Institute (Königlich-Sächsisches Polytechnikum). At that time, subjects not connected with technology, such as history and languages, were introduced. By the end of the 19th century the institute had developed into a university covering all disciplines. In 1961 it was given its present name, the Dresden University of Technology (Technische Universität Dresden).

Upon German reunification in 1990, the university had already integrated the College of Forestry (Forstliche Hochschule), formerly the Royal Saxony Academy of Forestry, in the nearby small town of Tharandt. This was followed by the integration of the Dresden College of Engineering (Ingenieurshochschule Dresden), the Friedrich List College of Transport (Hochschule für Verkehrswesen) the faculty of transport science, and the “Carl-Gustav Carus” Medical Academy (Medizinische Akademie or MedAk for short), the medical faculty. Some faculties were newly founded: the faculties of Information Technology (1991), Law (1991), Education (1993) and Economics (1993).