The Technical University of Munich was founded in 1868 as Polytechnic School. Its legal notice describes it as a corporation under public law and a state institution under the Bavarian Higher Education Innovation Act, supervised by the Bavarian State Ministry of Science and the Arts. Besides Munich it has sites in Garching, Weihenstephan, Straubing and Heilbronn. TUM says its teaching campus TUM Asia in Singapore, founded in 2002, was the first campus of a German university abroad.
Seven schools form its academic structure: Computation, Information and Technology; Engineering and Design; Natural Sciences; Life Sciences; Medicine and Health; Management; and Social Sciences and Technology. TUM reports 51,954 students in winter semester 2025/26, 45% of them international, and 700 professors and 12,850 employees across TUM and its University Hospital as of 1 December 2025. Thomas F. Hofmann is president.