From 2019

Two years after its foundation, the CET was awarded the rating "excellent": At the beginning of 2019, it was awarded the status of Excellence Start-up Center (ESC) by the NRW Ministry of Economic Affairs. The associated funding of 14.2 million euros over a period of five years creates ideal conditions to further expand our activities.

The investment from the state government will enable us to scale our expertise and initiate more research- and technology-based start-ups. Our goal is to ignite a new start-up and transfer dynamic together with our partners in Dortmund, the Westphalian Ruhr region and South Westphalia. By 2024, we want to be among Europe's leading ecosystems for entrepreneurship, startup promotion and knowledge transfer and the driving innovation engine in NRW. Together, we are paving the way for a new era of founders and inventors!

2022

A jury of experts from the state government has certified the Excellence Start-up Center at TU Dortmund University as having "outstanding performance" and recommended a continuation of the current funding until the end of 2024. In the first two years, 250 teams interested in founding a company were supported by us; 33 start-ups of corporations have already emerged from this. The focus is on technology-based start-ups, for example in the fields of information technology, biomedicine or construction planning. We have been able to further expand our network: it currently comprises more than 100 partners, including neighboring universities of applied sciences as well as local SMEs. A particularly important role in the network is played by the 95 mentors and coaches, who provide personal advice to people wanting to start up a business.

Since its founding 50 years ago, TU Dortmund University has been a major player and driver of structural change in our region. With its distinctive profile in the natural and engineering sciences as well as social and cultural sciences, it has played a decisive role in the reorientation of the Westphalian Ruhr region from a coal and steel to a high-tech location.

The founding phase

Until 2012

The topics of start-up, transfer and entrepreneurship have always played a key role at TU Dortmund University. Whether it was the co-initiation of the Technology Center (TZDo), founded in 1985, the successful coordination of the network "Start-ups from Science in Dortmund and the Region" (G-DUR) or the establishment of a start-up chair in 2005 - the university has been very active in this regard from the very beginning. For a long time, all start-up and transfer activities were managed by the Research Promotion and Knowledge Transfer department, as is customary at most universities.

2012

The foundation for today's start-up support structures at TU Dortmund University was laid in 2012: At that time, we acquired the funding program "EXIST-Gründungskultur: Die Gründerhochschule" from the German government. With this initial funding, we built up the start-up initiative "tu>startup" and systematically anchored start-up support in the university structures. Together with other milestones such as the Entrepreneurship School at the Faculty of Business and Economics, a tangible startup culture subsequently developed on campus.

2017

Another decisive step on our path to excellence was the establishment of the Center for Entrepreneurship & Transfer (CET). With this unique university-wide institution, we laid the foundation in 2017 for successful long-term start-up support. Since then, the CET has bundled and managed all of the university's start-up and transfer activities - combining science, service and administration under one roof.