[13] The university was established on 8 January 1842 by King William II as a royal academy, with the primary purpose of training civil servants for work in the Dutch East Indies.

TU Delft is a member of several university federations, including the IDEA League, CESAER, UNITECH International, ENHANCE Alliance, LDE, and 4TU.

Delft University of Technology was founded on 8 January 1842 by William II of the Netherlands as Royal Academy for the education of civilian engineers, for serving both nation and industry, and of apprentices for trade.

The newly formed school educated engineers of various fields and architects, much needed during the rapid industrialization period in the 19th century.

Studium Generale was established at all universities in the Netherlands, including TU Delft, to promote a free and accessible knowledge related to culture, technology, society and science.

In the course of further expansion, in 1987 Delft Top Tech[16] institute was established, which provided a professional master education in management for people working in technology-related companies.

On 13 May 2008, the building of the Faculty of Architecture was destroyed by fire, presumed caused by a short circuit in a coffee machine due to a ruptured water pipe.

A new university neighborhood called Mekelpark (its name commemorating TH Delft professor and WW II resistance fighter, Jan Mekel, who was executed by the Nazis on 2 May 1942 in Sachsenhausen) was opened on 5 July 2009.

Mekelpark replaced old parking structures, bike lanes and filling stations, constructed between faculty buildings of the university in the late 1950s.

[20] Technical Exhibition Center was established by a group of TU Delft professors with the aim of presenting the recent advances in technology to a wider audience.

Beijerinck en Kluyver archive hosts a collection of documents, exhibits and memorabilia of two scientists historically connected with the university.

Mineralogy-geology museum is a part of TU Delft Faculty of Civil Engineering and Geosciences and contains around 200,000 geological, mineralogical and crystallographical items divided into numerous sub-collections.

[26] Originally the Ministry of the Interior's headquarters at Schedeldoekshaven 200, the Wijnhaven Building, named after the historic Wijnhavenkwartier, was converted into Campus The Hague in 2016.

TU Delft uses the European Credit Transfer System, where each year MSc students are required to obtain 60 ECTS points.

An honours track exists for motivated MSc students, who obtained a mark of 7.5 or higher (in Dutch grading scale) and did not fail any courses.

The defense is ended by the pedel, who enters the room and says in Latin Hora est (It is time), stamping the university staff on the floor.

During an academic year the TU Delft publishes a weekly magazine: Delta,[42] which aims at the student and employee community of the university.

TU Delft is governed by the executive board (College van Bestuur),[3] controlled and advised by student council, workers council, board of professors, board of doctorates, assistant staff office, committee for the application of the allocation model, operational committee, advisory council for quality and accreditation, deans of each TU Delft faculty, and directors of TU Delft research centers, research schools and research institutes.

[47] AAG (Afdeling Actie Groepen) started as an action group of students in the 1960s, willing to have more impact on the quality of education at the then Polytechnic Institute Delft.

The Delta Works plan was, in part, a child of TU Delft graduates, including Johan Ringers and Victor de Blocq van Kuffeler.

[58] Despite many efforts of the university to change that imbalance, the number of women studying at TU Delft has stayed relatively constant over the years.

[64] The responsibility of TU Delft professors is lecturing, guiding undergraduate and graduate students, as well as performing original research in their respective fields.

In science, Heike Kamerlingh Onnes, a 1913 Nobel Laureate in physics, a discoverer of superconductivity, was a former TU Delft faculty member, working as an assistant to Johannes Bosscha.

STS-61A of the Space Shuttle Challenger crew member Wubbo Ockels was professor of Faculty of Aerospace Engineering, Delft University of Technology.

Since TU Delft is a home to a major architecture school in the Netherlands, many important architects were a faculty of the university, including Hein de Haan, founder of Traditionalist School in Architecture Marinus Jan Granpré Molière, Bent Flyvbjerg, co-founder of Mecanoo architects bureau Francine Houben, co-founder of MVRDV architects bureau Winy Maas and Nathalie de Vries, co-founder of Team 10 Jacob B. Bakema and Aldo van Eyck, as well as Herman Hertzberger and Jo Coenen.

Some notable designers were faculty of TU Delft, including Paul Mijksenaar, developer of visual information systems for JFK, LaGuardia and Schiphol airports.

Simon van der Meer was awarded Nobel Prize in physics in 1984 for his work on stochastic cooling and one has been affiliated with TU Delft, Heike Kamerlingh Onnes in 1913 for studies related to liquefaction of helium in the quest for the lowest temperature on Earth.

Famous TU Delft alumni architects include Erick van Egeraat, Herman Hertzberger and Hein de Haan.

Other interesting TU Delft alumni include Lodewijk van den Berg, Dutch-American payload specialist on STS-51B mission and Prince Friso of Orange-Nassau, member of the Dutch royal family.

[8][9][10][11][79][80][81][82][83] TU Delft has formed partnerships with leading universities across Europe for student exchange and combined degree programs.