Technical University of Munich

The new building of the Polytechnische Schule München in 1869

In 1868, King Ludwig II of Bavaria founded the Polytechnische Schule München with Karl Maximilian von Bauernfeind as founding director. The new university had its premises at Arcisstraße, where it is still located today. At that time, around 350 students were supervised by 24 professors and 21 lecturers. The college was divided into six departments: The "General Department" (mathematics, natural sciences, humanities, law and economics), the "Engineering Department" (civil engineering and surveying), the "Building Construction Department" (architecture), the "Mechanical-Technical Department" (mechanical engineering), the "Chemical-Technical Department" (chemistry), and the "Agricultural Department".

In 1877, the Polytechnische Schule München became the Technische Hochschule München (TH München), and in 1901 it was granted the right to award doctorates. With an average of 2,600 to 2,800 students, the TH München was now Germany's largest technical university for a time, ahead of the TH Berlin.

The main building of the Technische Hochschule München in 1909

Lecture hall in the former Institute of Chemistry in 1909. An early version of the periodic table can be seen on the wall.

In 1906, Anna Boyksen became the first female student to enroll in electrical engineering, after the Bavarian government had allowed women to study at technical universities in the German Empire.

In 1913, Jonathan Zenneck became director of the newly created Physics Institute.

During the Weimar Republic, the TH München had to manage with scarce resources and was drawn into radical political struggles in the years of the November Revolution, the Great Depression, and Adolf Hitler's rise to power. In the winter semester of 1930/31, the National Socialist German Students' League became the strongest faction in the General Students' Committee (AStA) for the first time.

In Nazi Germany, the Führerprinzip was also imposed on the universities. The autonomy of the TH München was substantially restricted. In 1933, the newly passed Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service removed "non-Aryan" staff or those married to "non-Aryans" from their positions, together with politically "undesirable" professors. Jewish students no longer had equal rights and were not allowed to be enrolled after 1938.

During World War II, the TH München conducted large scale armaments research in support of the war effort. Notable professors during this time include aircraft designer Willy Messerschmitt and Walther Meissner. Basic research continued to be conducted at a high level in many institutes, as individual professors, staff members and students dared disobedience and obstruction. Nobel prize laureate Hans Fischer protected Jewish students from Nazi prosecution. He committed suicide shortly before the end of the war.[4]

The research reactor FRM I, nicknamed the atomic egg, has become a landmark of the city of Garching, even being featured in its coat of arms.

During the war, 80 percent of the university's facilities in Munich had been destroyed. Under these difficult conditions, teaching resumed in April 1946.

In 1956, the construction of a research reactor in Garching was the beginning of the Garching campus. In 1969, the physics department building was opened there, followed in 1977 by new buildings for the chemistry, biology and geoscience departments.

In 1967, a Faculty of Medicine was founded with campuses in Haidhausen (Rechts der Isar Hospital) and Schwabing. By 1968, the TH München comprised six faculties, 8,400 students, and 5,700 staff. In 1972, the Zentrale Hochschulsportanlage, a 45-hectare sports center, was built on the grounds of the 1972 Summer Olympics.

In 1970, the TH München was renamed to its present name Technische Universität München. When the Bavarian Higher Education Act came into force in 1974, the six faculties were replaced by eleven departments. In 1992, the field of computer science was established as an independent Department of Informatics, having previously been part of the Department of Mathematics since 1967.

The TUM campus in Garching with the Department of Mechanical Engineering to right

In 2002, TUM Asia was founded in Singapore, in cooperation with the Nanyang Technological University and the National University of Singapore. It was the first time that a German university had established a subsidiary abroad.

The Department of Sport and Health Sciences and the School of Management were established in 2002. The Weihenstephan departments were combined into the "Weihenstephan Centre of Life and Food Sciences" (WZW), which would later become the School of Life Sciences. With the establishment of the School of Education in 2009, the School of Governance in 2016 and the Department of Aerospace and Geodesy in 2018, the university comprises 15 schools and departments.

Since the inception of the German Universities Excellence Initiative in 2006, TUM has won every round of evaluation and the title University of Excellence.[2]

Aerial view of the main building (dark brown) in downtown Munich (2007)

The historic Main Campus (Stammgelände) in located in Maxvorstadt, the central borough of Munich. Today, the departments of Architecture, Civil, Geo and Environmental Engineering, Electrical and Computer Engineering and the Schools of Management, Governance, Education are located here.

The TUM School of Medicine is located at the site of its university hospital, the Rechts der Isar Hospital, in the district of Haidhausen.

The TUM Department of Sport and Health Sciences is located in the Olympiapark, the former site of the 1972 Summer Olympics.

Aerial view of the TUM campus in Garching (2011)

Interior of the faculty building for the Departments of Mathematics and Informatics

The campus in Garching, located around 10 km north of Munich, has grown to become the largest TUM campus. In the last decades, the departments of Physics, Chemistry, Mechanical Engineering, Informatics and Mathematics have all relocated from their former buildings in the Main Campus. They have since been joined by numerous research institutes, including the Max Planck Institutes for Plasma Physics, Astrophysics, Extraterrestrial Physics and Quantum Optics, the Forschungsreaktor München II (FRM II), the headquarters of the European Southern Observatory (ESO), and the Leibniz Supercomputing Centre, one of the fastest supercomputers in Europe.[5]

A landmark of the Garching campus is the Oskar von Miller Tower, a meteorological measurement tower with a height of 62 m. The Garching campus is connected to Munich by the Autobahn and the Munich U-Bahn. It has its own fire department.

The third TUM campus is located 35 km north of Munich in Weihenstephan, Freising. It hosts the School of Life Sciences.

Additional TUM facilities are located in Ottobrunn (Department of Aerospace and Geodesy),[6] Straubing,[7] Heilbronn,[8] and Singapore.

TUM operates a subsidiary in Singapore. In 2001, the German Institute of Science and Technology (GIST) – TUM Asia was founded in partnership with the National University of Singapore and the Nanyang Technological University, offering a range of Master's programs. In 2010, TUM Asia started offering Bachelor's degrees in collaboration with the Singapore Institute of Technology.

In 2010, TUM and the Nanyang Technological University founded TUMCREATE, a research platform for the improvement of Singapore's public transportation.[9]

As a technical university, the university specializes in engineering, technology, medicine, and the applied and natural sciences. Compared to a Volluniversität (a universal university), it lacks the Geisteswissenschaften, including law and many branches of the social sciences.

As of 2020, the Technical University of Munich is organized into 15 schools and departments:[10]

	School/department	Discipline	Location	Students[1]	♀%
	Department of Aerospace and Geodesy (LRG)	Aerospace engineering, geodesy	Ottobrunn	941	24%
	Department of Architecture (AR)	Architecture	Munich	1,504	57%
	Department of Civil, Geo and Environmental Engineering (BGU)	Civil engineering, environmental engineering, earth science	Munich	3,731	37%
	Department of Chemistry (CH)	Chemistry	Garching	1,978	44%
	Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (EI)	Electrical engineering, computer engineering	Munich	4,160	20%
	Department of Informatics (IN)	Computer science	Garching	7,347	21%
	Department of Mechanical Engineering (MW)	Mechanical engineering	Garching	4,208	16%
	Department of Mathematics (MA)	Mathematics	Garching	1,357	34%
	School of Medicine (MED)	Medicine	Munich	2,180	63%
	Department of Physics (PH)	Physics	Garching	1,993	25%
	Department of Sport and Health Sciences (SG)	Sports science, health sciences	Munich	2,228	66%
	School of Education (EDU)	Teacher training, educational research	Munich	1,422	58%
	School of Governance (GOV)	Governance	Munich	723	49%
	School of Management (WI)	Business	Munich	5,806	39%
	School of Life Sciences (SoLS)	Life sciences	Freising	4,329	56%

Other institutions include the Rechts der Isar Hospital, the TUM Graduate School and the Bavarian School of Public Policy.

TUM has operated two research reactors on its Garching campus, the egg-shaped FRM I from 1957–2000 and the FRM II (with the curved roof) since 2004.

The Technical University of Munich is one of the most research-focused universities in Europe. This claim is supported by relevant rankings, such as the funding ranking of the German Research Foundation and the research ranking of the Centre for Higher Education.[11]

Under the German Universities Excellence Initiative, TUM has obtained funding for multiple research clusters, including e-conversion (energy technology), MCQST (quantum mechanics), ORIGINS (astrophysics, biophysics and particle physics), and SYNERGY (neurology).[12]

In addition to the schools and departments, TUM has set up numerous research centers with external cooperation partners.[13]

Integrative research centers (IRCs) combine research with teaching.[13] They include the TUM Institute for Advanced Study (TUM-IAS), the Munich Center for Technology in Society (MCTS), the Munich Data Science Institute (MDSI), the Munich School of Engineering (MSE), the Munich School of BioEngineering (MSB), and the Munich School of Robotics and Machine Intelligence (MSRM).

Corporate research centers (CRCs) carry out research independently of the schools and departments, cooperating with industry partners for application-driven research.[13] They include the research reactor FRM II, the Center for Functional Protein Assemblies (CPA), the Catalysis Research Center (CRC), the Center for translational Cancer Research (TranslaTUM), the Walter Schottky Institute (WSI), the Hans Eisenmann-Zentrum for Agricultural Science, and the Institute for Food & Health (ZIEL).

TUM is ranked 1st in Germany in the fields of engineering and computer science, and within the top three in the natural sciences.[14][15][16]

In the 2021 QS World Rankings, TUM is worldwide ranked 25th in engineering and technology, 28th in the natural sciences, 36th in computer science, and 50th place overall. It is the highest ranked German university in those subject areas.[14]

In the 2021 Times Higher Education World University Rankings, TUM stands at 41st place worldwide and 2nd place nationwide. Worldwide, it ranks 14th in computer science, 24th in engineering and technology, and 25th in the physical sciences. It is the highest ranked German university in those subject areas.[15]

In the 2020 Academic Ranking of World Universities, TUM is ranked at 54th place in the world and 2nd place in Germany. In the subject areas of computer science & engineering and chemistry, TUM stands at 1st place in Germany.[16]

In the 2020 Global University Employability Ranking of the Times Higher Education World Rankings, TUM was ranked 12th in the world and 3rd in Europe.[17] TUM is ranked 7th overall in Reuters' 2019 European Most Innovative University ranking.[18]

The TUM School of Management is triple accredited by the European Quality Improvement System (EQUIS), the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) and the Association of MBAs (AMBA).[19][20][21]

TUM has over 160 international partnerships, ranging from joint research activities to international study programs. Partners include:[22]

• Europe: ETH Zurich, EPFL, ENSEA, École Centrale Paris, TU Eindhoven, Technical University of Denmark, Technical University of Vienna
• United States: Stanford University, Northwestern University, University of Illinois, Cornell University, University of Texas at Austin, Georgia Tech
• Asia: National University of Singapore, Multimedia University, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Tsinghua University, University of Tokyo, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, Amrita University, Sirindhorn International Institute of Technology,
• Australia: Australian National University, University of Melbourne, RMIT University.

Through the Erasmus+ program and its international student exchange program TUMexchange, all TUM students are provided by opportunities to study abroad.[23]

Various initiatives are run by students, including TEDxTUM, the TUM Speaker Series (past speakers having included Ban Ki-moon, Tony Blair, Bill Gates and Eric Schmidt),[24] and IKOM, a career fair.[25]

A notable student group is the Workgroup for Rocketry and Space Flight (WARR), which won all SpaceX Hyperloop pod competitions.[26][27][28]

The Student Council is the main body for university-wide student representation. It elects the General Student Committee (AStA), which represents the professional, economic and social interests of the students, by the Bavarian Higher Education Act. Each school or department will also have a separate Departmental Student Council.

Every year, university elections are held to elect student representatives in the Senate (the university's highest academic authority) and in the faculty councils.[29]

The Student Council organizes a number of annual festivals. TUNIX and GARNIX are week-long open air festivals held every summer. TUNIX is held at the Königsplatz near the Munich campus, while GARNIX is held at the Garching campus. GLÜHNIX is a christmas market held in front of the Department of Mechanical Engineering every December. MaiTUM is a Bavarian Maifest, held at the Main Campus in May each year.[25][30]

The Student Council also organizes numerous events, including the student-run TU Film cinema, the Hörsaal Slam, the Benefizkabarett, and the MeUP party.[30] Departmental Student Councils also organize their own events, such as Unity, esp, and the Brückenfest.

The Zentrale Hochschulsportanlage (ZHS) is the largest university sports facility in Germany, offering hundreds of different sports programs.[25]

Music ensembles at TUM include the TUM Chamber Orchestra, the TUM Jazz Band, the TUM Choir, and the Symphonisches Ensemble München, a full-size symphony orchestra.[25]

16 Nobel Prize winners have studied, taught or researched at the TUM:

• 1927 – Heinrich Otto Wieland, Chemistry (bile acids)
• 1929 – Thomas Mann, Literature (Buddenbrooks)
• 1930 – Hans Fischer, Chemistry (constitution and synthesis of haemin and chlorophyll)
• 1961 – Rudolf L. Mößbauer, Physics (Mößbauer effect)
• 1964 – Konrad Emil Bloch, Physiology or Medicine (mechanism and regulation of the cholesterol and fatty acid metabolism)
• 1973 – Ernst Otto Fischer, Chemistry (sandwich complexes)
• 1985 – Klaus von Klitzing, Physics (quantum Hall effect)
• 1986 – Ernst Ruska, Physics (electron microscope)
• 1988 – Johann Deisenhofer and Robert Huber, Chemistry (crystal structure of an integral membrane protein)
• 1989 – Wolfgang Paul, Physics (ion trap)
• 1991 – Erwin Neher, Physiology or Medicine (function of single ion channels in cells)
• 2001 – Wolfgang Ketterle, Physics (Bose-Einstein condensation in dilute gases of alkali atoms)
• 2007 – Gerhard Ertl, Chemistry (chemical processes on solid surfaces)
• 2016 – Bernard L. Feringa (TUM-IAS fellow), Chemistry (molecular machine)
• 2017 – Joachim Frank, Chemistry (cryo-electron microscopy)

• Friedrich L. Bauer, computer scientist, known for the stack data structure
• Rudolf Bayer, computer scientist, known for the B-tree and Red–black tree
• Rudolf Diesel, engineer, inventor of the Diesel engine
• Claude Dornier, airplane designer
• Emil Erlenmeyer, chemist, known for the Erlenmeyer flask
• Carl von Linde, engineer, discoverer of the refrigeration cycle
• Heinz Maier-Leibnitz, physicist
• Walther Meissner, physicist, known for the Meissner effect
• Willy Messerschmitt, aircraft designer, known for the Messerschmitt fighters
• Oskar von Miller, engineer, founder of the Deutsches Museum