The university's main areas of research are the natural sciences, engineering, pedagogy/teacher training in a wide spectrum of subjects, special education, and journalism.

The university's robot soccer team, the Dortmund Droids, became vice world champion in the RoboWorld Cup 2002 and finished third in 2003.

[3] On 4 April 2019, Ursula Gather, Rector of TU Dortmund University abolished the institutes for German Language and Literature as well as English and American Studies.

[4][5][6] Following the Zeitgeist of the late 1960s in Germany, the university was built "on the meadows" (auf der grünen Wiese) about 2 miles (3.2 km) outside of downtown Dortmund.

[9] To this day, the university has registered the domain udo.edu[10] (udo being short for Universität Dortmund), although the .edu-domain is today restricted to United States-affiliated institutions.

[14] The university is highly ranked in terms of its research performance in the areas of physics, electrical engineering, chemistry and economics.