The History of COM•DTU
COM•DTU was founded in 1998 as a merger between the Photonics Groups of the Microelectronic Center (MIC) and the Centre for Broadband Telecommunication at the Department of Electromagnetic Systems, both at DTU. The initiative for COM•DTU came from the Ministry for Research and Information Technology in collaboration with the Ministry for Education and the Technical University of Denmark. The aim was to establish COM as a world-class research organization in the area of optical communications having close collaboration with Danish industry.
In 2001 a new and greater COM•DTU became a reality through a merger of the three units: Center for Tele-Information, Department of Telecommunication and Research Center COM – all placed at DTU. The merger was driven by the ambition to combine and integrate the individually developed expertise and unify the efforts within telecom research at DTU in one powerful organization.
With the concentration of telecommunication activities gathered at COM•DTU, in 2001 DTU decided to introduce a new MSc program in telecommunication. Thus COM•DTU as a center for education was established.
In September 2005 Research Center COM changed its name to COM•DTU - Department of Communications, Optics & Materials and became at that time a full university department with direct reference to the Rector of the Technical University of Denmark, DTU.
Each year now more than 80 MSc students graduate from COM•DTU and during the years several new educational initiatives have been launched. COM•DTU considers these education initiatives to be very important steps to produce top qualified candidates for the Danish telecommunication industry.