The TU Dresden has gained its excellent reputation above through achievements in engineering and the natural sciences. But the university offers a wide spectrum of studies not only in those scientific fields, but also in the humanities, the social sciences and in medicine. In the first round of the Excellence Iniative in 2006 the TU-Dresden was successful with the "Dresden International Graduate School for Biomedicine and Bioengineering" and the Cluster of Excellence "From cells to Tissues to Therapies". These projects have a lasting effect to the first point of the following five Research Priority Areas (RPAs) of the TU Dresden:

• Health Sciences, Biomedicine and Bioengineering
• Information Technologies and Microelectronics
• Smart Materials and Structures
• Culture and Knowledge
• Energy and Environment

The excellence of the research at the TU Dresden is also underlined by the positively evaluated projects of the "State Excellence Initiatve", "The Leading-Edge Cluster Competition" and "The Centres for Innovation Competence". In addition, the TU Dresden continuously proves its research competence in numerous other outside-funded research projects initiated by the public and the private sector.

The essential basis for future-oriented and effective university teaching lies in innovative research. The research done at the TU Dresden can be characterised by:

• High quality
• Interdisciplinarity
• Internationality
• A close relationship between basic and application-oriented research
• Focused research areas