The
Technische Universität Dresden (usually translated from German as
Dresden University of Technology and abbreviated
TU Dresden or
TUD) is a
German elite 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 . 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).