Technische Universität Berlin

Technische Universität Berlin, often called TU Berlin, is a public research university in Berlin, Germany, and was the first German university to take the name Technische Universität. It traces its origin to the merger on 1 April 1879 of the Royal Trade Academy, founded in 1827, and the Royal Building Academy, founded in 1799, into the Royal Technical Academy of Berlin. In 1899 it became the first polytechnic in Germany to award doctorates as a standard degree. It was also the first university to offer a degree in industrial engineering and management, first taught in the winter term of 1926 to 1927 at the request of industrialists who wanted graduates with both technical and management training. Its alumni and staff include Konrad Zuse, who built the first fully functional programmable electromechanical computer, and ten Nobel Prize laureates. It belongs to the TU9 group of the largest German institutes of technology, and it has a high share of international students.