INDUSTRY

The freshly printed German Research Foundation (DFG) Funding Atlas landed on the desk of TU Dresden’s Rector on July 5^th. As a group, the top ten universities have remained relatively stable since the 2015 edition of the DFG Funding Atlas, but TU Dresden has improved significantly – it has moved up four positions from 10^th to 6^th. The Rector, Prof. Hans Müller-Steinhagen, sees this as an impressive achievement: “When third-party funding is successfully acquired after a demanding and competitive selection process entailing multiple rounds, this is an important indication of the strength of a university’s scientific achievements. This is why TU Dresden‘s superb position in the current DFG ranking is such wonderful news: It once again demonstrates our outstanding research record. Besides achieving 6^th place in the DFG Funding Atlas, it is equally remarkable that our university has been steadily improving since 1997. These promising developments and this trend towards further success have been and continue to be made possible by our scientists, who conduct state-of-the-art research, but also by setting a clear strategic direction and making goal-oriented decisions.“

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Between 2014 and 2016, the DFG granted TUD scientists a total of almost €260m for their research projects. This marks a 35% increase in comparison to the analysis period examined in the 2015 DFG Funding Atlas. TU Dresden, which began in 35^th place in 1997, has once again been able to improve and uphold its positive momentum in this important comparison of achievements. 

In comparison to other technical universities, TU Dresden has improved by one position and is currently 3^rd behind RWTH Aachen and TU Munich.

TU Dresden has traditionally been top-notch in the engineering sciences and TUD’s engineering sciences have secured the 3^rd highest funding amounts in Germany. For the first time, the university has become a frontrunner in the areas of computer science, electrical engineering and systems technology. TU Dresden has also managed to attain outstanding positions in other fields of research, for example 1^st place in medicine and psychology.

The Funding Atlas also provides information on the regional distribution of research funding granted by the DFG, the federal government and the EU. The “spatial development region” consisting of the districts of Dresden, Meißen and Sächsische Schweiz-Osterzgebirge also scored well in the current DFG Funding Atlas, acquiring a total of €866.8m in funding. The research area in and around Dresden attained the 5^th position of 56 ranked research regions Germany-wide. “In Dresden, collaborations between universities, non-university research institutions and the business sector are extremely fruitful“, says the Rector, Prof. Hans Müller-Steinhagen. “This proves how successful and essential co-operations within our DRESDEN-concept research alliance are for making this science hub stronger and even more visible.”