Darmstadt’s jazz institute hosts Europe’s largest public jazz collection. Information on the history and current developments in jazz can be found in its archives. The vaulted cellar under the institute is the venue for jazz concerts. The jazz institute tries to build a bridge between science and practice, between services for the jazz scene and the documentation of musical developments from yesterday and today, between regional culture and international discourse.

The scientific foundation for testing and evaluation of safety-relevant components such as car wheels, truck axles and rail vehicle bodies was laid in Darmstadt in the 1930s. Today, 500 staff from different disciplines work together on the campus of the Fraunhofer Institute for Structural Durability and System Reliability (LBF) in four buildings in Bartningstrasse. Industrial contracts and research projects are carried out. Test rigs are available for complete vehicles or ships' motors.

The department of adaptronics develops active components such as sensors for monitoring of aircraft, for vibration control of mechanical structures and for noise reduction. In the LOEWE centre AdRIA, funded by the State of Hessen, the research staff work closely with the Technical University of Darmstadt.

The newest department of the institute is the Centre for System Reliability with emphasis on electromobility. Under the motto "light and electric", concepts for the mobility of the future are under development.

In 1995, the Messel pit was the first German natural monument in the list of the UNESCO World Heritage sites. It provides a unique insight into the early evolution of mammals and documents the development of the Earth 48 million years ago when, after the end of the dinosaur age, explosive changes determined the animal and plant world.

Several 10,000 fossils from the Eocene period have been excavated in the Maarvulkan Lake which was created 48 million years ago, and about 3,000 new finds are added annually. In addition to the high number and diversity of animal and plant fossils, their unique preservation of whole body skeletons, skin and coat shadows, feathers and stomach contents is particularly in the Messel pit.

Guided tours are held every day and invite visitors to discover this unique place. Anyone who visits this place will be amazed by the diversity of topics, which is also reflected in the permanent exhibition "Zeit und Messel Welten" (visitor centre). Here, industrial history, landscape, volcanism, rainforest and evolution are explained. The treasure chamber with several original finds also exerts a great fascination.

In order to preserve their historic electric trams, HEAG mobilo built this depot on the occasion of their 100th anniversary in 2012. The collection of HEAG trams numbers about a dozen vehicles and can be visited on prior registration.

The IT security specialists of the Fraunhofer Institute for Secure Information Technology (SIT) in Darmstadt and Sankt Augustin develop ready-to-use solutions fully tailored to the needs of their customers.

The researchers address questions of data protection, digital identification and protection of equipment and buildings, an example being secure communication between the cars of the future.

The headquarters of the Merck Group, the Darmstadt chemical, pharmaceutical and life science company, are in the northerly Frankfurter Strasse. The roots of the company go back to 1668, making it one of the oldest companies of its type in the world. Today its biggest division, Merck Serono, is one of the largest biopharmaceutical companies in Europe. Liquid crystal is the most prominent of Merck's chemical products. Merck is the biggest employer in Darmstadt.

The FTZ - the “Fernmeldetechnisches Zentralamt der Bundespost” (central telecommunications office of the Federal Post Office) was located in Darmstadt from 1949. Until the end of the 1980s, its purpose was the development and control of new communications equipment and systems. In 1989 the FTZ became part of the newly formed Telekom. Part of the FTZ, the technology centre, worked on topics such as multimedia and fibreglass communications. From 2002 to 2005, on the site of the former FTZ, "Telekom-City" was built with several Telekom facilities, among them the internet subsidiary T-Online.

By 2014, the Technology Centre (TZ) Rhein Main had become an open, modern fifty acre office park with 25 highly modern building projects. With many green areas and a comprehensive service offer for tenants, ranging from a medical centre and kindergartens to recreation areas, it promises to support a healthy work-life balance.

In 1908, the aviation pioneer August Euler established Germany's first officially recognised airfield on the "Griesheimer Sand". The US army used the airfield for their helicopters between 1945 and 1992.

A large part of the site has been a nature reserve since 1996. Together with the Technical University of Darmstadt, the Hessian Society for Ornithology and Nature Conservation has set up a permanent exhibition here.

The remainder of the site is used by the university. Lighting engineers, for example, test to what extent newly developed LED rear lights dazzle. Aerodynamic engineers test on two motor gliders how different factors impact the air flow around the aircraft under realistic conditions. Geodesists use the site to develop new applications for satellite navigation systems.

Next door to the airfield, the university owns with the wind tunnel, built in 1936 on the site of the German Research Centre for Glider Flight, a test centre for aerodynamic research for the Institute of Fluid Mechanics and Aerodynamics.

In 1969, six young staff from the Institute of Applied Information Processing founded the company Software AG. Today the company has its headquarters in Darmstadt-Eberstadt and is one of the global leaders in the area of business software technology. The Darmstadt company employs around five thousand three hundred staff based in over seventy locations worldwide.

The Higher Vocational School, founded in 1836, became the Technical High School in 1877 and is, since 1997, a Technical University (TU). The first professorship world-wide for electrical engineering was established in Darmstadt in 1882. Today the TU Darmstadt has around twenty-five thousand students and is the first autonomous, self-governing German university. It belongs to the 100 best universities in the world.

Since 2002, various research institutions in Darmstadt have combined their diverse IT security activities. The result is the Center for Research in Security and Privacy, CRISP, in which the TU Darmstadt with its profile area for IT security research CYSEC, the University of Darmstadt and the Fraunhofer Institute for Secure Information Technology SIT and the Fraunhofer Institute for Computer Graphics Research IGD Europe's largest alliance of cybersecurity research organizations. The approximately 450 scientists deal with core questions of cybersecurity in society, economy and administration. They regularly advise business and public administration, provide assistance to company founders and provide expert opinions for politics and business.

The institute for housing and environment is a non-profit institute which carries out basic and applied research in areas such as housing and energy efficiency as a contribution to societal development. Besides the institutional funding by the shareholders, the institute acquires third-party funding from municipal to European level.