The Technical University of Darmstadt (Technische Universität Darmstadt), founded in 1877, is Germany's oldest technical university, the only industrial (TU) university in Hesse, formerly known as the Grand Ducal Hessian Institute of Technology. It is located in Darmstadt, the city of science in Germany, in the Frankfurt/Rein-Main metropolitan area. In 1882, the world's first electrical engineering department was founded, and Germany's nine universities of excellence (TU9) members, and twice selected for the German University Excellence Program (Exzellenzinitiative). The Technical University of Darmstadt focuses on research in the fields of engineering and natural sciences, and is the most popular German university in the field of engineering among outstanding foreign scholars, and has a high reputation in the German business community. Since its founding, it has contributed to changing the world through pioneering teaching and research and a number of internationally recognized scholars.