Innovative chemical and bioengineering technologies characterize Dortmund's new industrial and research landscape, in which the department is embedded. In a uniquely close interlocking of natural sciences and engineering, researchers in the department produce excellent research results in numerous projects and collaborations, including international ones. The department maintains close cooperation with local non-university research institutions such as the Leibniz Institute for Analytical Sciences ISAS e.V., the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Physiology, the CALEDO (Center for Advanced Liquid-Phase Engineering Dortmund) and other institutions in the Dortmund Technology Park.

ISAS scientists develop and optimize complementary, coordinated analytical methods - such as (imaging) mass spectrometry and microscopy, including light sheet fluorescence microscopy - for integrated, cross-scale multiparameter analysis including strategies for data interpretation. Biologists, chemists, computer scientists, immunologists, pharmacologists, physicians and physicists, among others, work together on projects in various research programs. 

CALEDO is a TU Dortmund University research building that opened in October 2025 and is the second location of the RESOLV Cluster of Excellence. CALEDO provides a workplace for over 100 scientists in the field of solvation. The research focus is on three application areas in which liquid phases play a decisive role: Reactions, separation processes and formulations. Three research groups from our department are active in RESOLV: the Chair of Thermodynamics (Prof. Gabriele Sadowski, one of the three RESOLV main speakers), the Chair of Computational Bioengineering (Prof. Elsa Sanchez Garcia) and the Chair of Reaction Engineering and Catalysis (Prof. Hannsjörg Freund).