It was founded on June 15, 1956 by the Dutch government. It was the second institution of its kind in the Netherlands, only to be preceded by the Delft University of Technology. Originally, it was called a Technische hogeschool.
It is located on its own campus in the centre of Eindhoven, just north of the central station. It is currently home to about 300 professors, 6000 students, 450 Ph.D. students, 200 post-doc students and 3000 regular employees. It also support 100 student associations and 15 alumni associations.
A famous professor from this university is Edsger Dijkstra who was well known for his articles on structured programming.