The university's focuses are exploration, mining & extraction, processing, and recycling of natural resources & scrap, as well as developing new materials and researching renewable energies.

Its main purpose was the education of highly skilled miners and scientists in fields connected to mining and metallurgy.

Before the establishment of the Bergakademie (mining school), four similar institutions had been founded in other countries: Potosí, Bolivia (1757–1786); Kongsberg, Norway (1757–1814); Schemnitz, today's Slovakia (Banská Štiavnica, 1762–1919); and Prague (1762–1772).

After World War II, education of future engineers and scientists, as well as research were quickly re-established in order to (re-) build primary industry in the Soviet Occupation Zone/GDR.

Also, the student demographics changed (percentage of women increased), since the access to college was directed by central authorities.

Additionally, children of "workers & farmers", who traditionally didn't pursued tertiary education, were supported by having a college preparation institute (Arbeiter-und-Bauern-Fakultät (ABF) "Wilhelm Pieck").

In the aftermath of German reunification, the infrastructure and academic body were reorganized in order to fit the new political circumstances.

After its incorporation into the West German system of higher education, Bergakademie quickly found a prime position as "The University of Resources".

The polymath Alexander von Humboldt enrolled on 14 June 1791 and went through a rather short, but intense program, qualifying him in natural sciences and metallurgy.

Karl Heinrich Adolf Bernhard Ledebur was one of the first to study processes in metallurgy and ironwork empirically with modern scientific tools and methods.

In 1863, the chemical element indium was discovered by chemist Hieronymus Theodor Richter (1824–1898) and physicist Ferdinand Reich (1799–1882), naming it after its indigo-blue colored flame.

In 1886, chemistry professor Clemens Alexander Winkler (1838–1904) isolated the element germanium for the first time while analyzing the rather uncommon mineral argyrodite.

In the field of process engineering, Erich Rammler and Georg Bilkenroth were awarded the National Prize of the German Democratic Republic (1st class) for their work on lignite coke & coal gasification in 1951.

Environmental sciences focus on safety and conservation aspects, e.g. of drinking water, as well as on processes in the primary and energy industry.

Most investigated topics revolve around alternative methods in resource extraction, energy systems, compound materials and recycling.

Additionally, a part of the university is located above and around the "Lehr- und Forschungsbergwerk Reiche Zeche", a historical mine, operated today as a teaching and research facility.

TU Bergakademie Freiberg has an extensive network of regional and national cooperation partners in science and industry.

TUBAF is also a co-initiator of the university-based "Internationalen Hochschulinstituts Zittau" (IHI), founded in 1993 and now a subdivision of TU Dresden, and the start-up network SAXEED.

In addition to direct cooperation with individual companies and institutions, participation in international networks and associations is an essential instrument for the transfer of ideas, knowledge and technology.

Connections to non-European companies and research institutions exist, among others, to Bolivia, Chile, China, Mozambique, South Africa, Vietnam and Mongolia.

[12] In Mongolia and Kenya, for example, TU Bergakademie Freiberg is helping to establish the German Mongolian Institute for Resources and Technology (GMIT) in Ulan Bator and the Kenyan German Centre for Mining, Environmental Engineering and Resource Management (CEMEREM) at Taita Taveta University College in Voi.

It is also active in research and teaching with a wide variety of projects at universities in Russia*, South America, Asia and Africa.

In the further course, the university repeatedly received grants, which were initially primarily used to support students, and later increasingly for research infrastructure.

The following important foundations were established: From the Dr.-Erich-Krüger-Stiftung, TUBAF received an amount of several millions, the largest endowment of a state university in Germany to date.

They serve practical student education and training, complement research, and still embody enormous scientific potential today.

Since October 2008, TU Bergakademie Freiberg has also exhibited the world's largest private mineral collection in Freudenstein Castle.

In the Forum Montangeschichte one can find since 2015 digitized and in full text freely available historical essays on Saxon mining and metallurgical history, including previously unpublished works, as well as current publications.