Aix-Marseille Université

Aix-Marseille University (AMU) is the largest French-speaking multidisciplinary university, with 80,000 students and nearly 8,000 staff on five large campuses of international standards. Owner of 90% of its property, the university is present in 9 cities, in 4 departments of the Southern Region.
Its A*Midex University Foundation, which is the bearer of the IDEX, contributes to the development of a world-class interdisciplinary higher education and research cluster. Known as a "research-intensive university", it houses 122 research structures linked to the major national research organizations.

Aix-Marseille University is committed to interdisciplinarity, which is at the heart of its development strategy, and has recently created 15 institutional institutes to guarantee links between research and training and a broad international outlook. Partnership projects integrated into the regions, such as the Cité de l'Innovation et des Savoirs Aix-Marseille (CISAM), the territorial innovation clusters (PIT) and the technological platforms in conjunction with the CNRS and ISNERM, bear witness to AMU's commitment to innovation and its contribution to the creation of wealth for society.
The teaching of quality courses, backed up by major research teams, accompanied by measures to encourage student entrepreneurship and the possibility for economic players to access these resources are all levers for territorial development and its influence.
As a responsible university, Aix-Marseille University makes "living well together" a priority. The affirmation of its commitment to sustainable development in all its dimensions - human, environmental and heritage - is embodied in numerous actions and measures: travel plan, waste management plan, student awareness of the climate emergency and introduction of a sustainable development bonus, creation of the AMU Climate Council, but also a system for combating sexual, sexist and homophobic harassment, application of a master plan for disabilities, a system for combating racism and anti-Semitism, and numerous sports and festive events on campus. With 10,000 international students and more than 40 diplomas in international partnership, AMU has been awarded the European Commission's call for projects to build "CIVIS, a European Civic University" with its 7 European partners, contributing to major societal challenges, particularly in Africa and the Mediterranean.

Presentation

Created on January 1, 2012, Aix-Marseille University (AMU) can legitimately consider, at the end of an initial period 2012-2017 largely devoted to the structuring of the single university, that it has met the major challenge it had set itself: to successfully merge the three universities in the region and give birth to a major university of world-class status.

AMU is thus a research-intensive university that has forged partnerships throughout the world, that has asserted its territorial roots and integration, and that ranks among the top French universities in the Shanghai ranking. AMU is a multidisciplinary university structured around five disciplinary sectors spread over 17 components (faculties, schools, institutes) and one multidisciplinary sector (including the ESPE and the IUT):

  • Arts, Letters, Languages and Humanities
  • Law and Political Science
  • Economics and Management
  • Health
  • Science and Technology

It is present in four departments and 9 cities. It has a real estate portfolio spread over 58 sites representing more than 830,000 m². AMU has been awarded the "Opération Campus", which, in conjunction with the CPER (State-Region Plan Contract), enables it to renovate and modernise its campuses in order to meet the best international standards. AMU is now a recognized and identified partner, which has been able to establish its identity and assert itself as a key player in its region, to whose development and influence it actively contributes.

Since 2012, AMU has developed and structured a rationalized and legible training offer. This work was further developed in the framework of the master plan for the training offer that it drew up in 2016 and 2017, the result of internal consultation but also of exchanges with socio-economic partners and local authorities. In terms of research and innovation, AMU has developed a strategy co-constructed on a site-wide scale in conjunction with the main research organizations (CNRS, Inserm, IRD, CEA...) and structured around its many research units and federations and its five intersectoral and interdisciplinary research clusters (PR2I):

  • Energy
  • Environment
  • Humanities
  • Health & Life Sciences
  • Advanced Sciences & Technologies

Some key figures

  • nearly 80,000 students, including 10,000 international students, and 1,100 diplomas
  • 12 doctoral schools
  • 120 student associations
  • 8,000 staff members
  • 17 faculties and schools
  • 15 interdisciplinary institutes
  • 5 large campuses
  • 1 European civic university CIVIS in cooperation with 7 universities
  • 1 perpetuated IDEX
  • 1 Cité de l'Innovation et des Savoirs Aix-Marseille (CISAM)
  • 122 research structures including 113 research units and 9 federative structures

Facts and figures

Web https://www.univ-amu.fr/fr
Year Established 2012
Total Number of Staff 8000
Number of Academic Staff 4400
Number of Students 80000
Focus Areas

The excellence of the site's research has been recognized in particular by its success in several national calls for projects (labex, equipex, Convergence Institutes, RHU, EUR, etc.) or European calls for projects such as H2020 (AMU is the third largest French institution to collect funds under this program). The accreditation of the A*Midex project, led by Aix-Marseille University and its partners (AMU, CNRS, Inserm, IRD, CEA, Assistance Publique-Hôpitaux de Marseille, Institut d'Etudes Politiques d'Aix-en-Provence and Ecole Central de Marseille), has also had a tremendous structuring and stimulating effect on the institution. It has created a real dynamic around the five priority themes and strategic objectives identified in 2012:

  • Excellence in training and research
  • Partnerships with the socio-economic world
  • Internationalization of the site's areas of excellence
  • Ambitious human resources policy
  • Attractiveness of the site

A*Midex thus functions as an accelerator, through calls for projects or proactive actions, so that Aix-Marseille University and its partners can quickly achieve their ambitions. The perpetuation of A*Midex in 2016 reflects both the recognition of the work accomplished by AMU and the opportunity to have a formidable tool to support the university's strategy.

At the end of a period that saw the energies of our entire university community mobilized to build a new institution, it is on the strength of this collective dynamic that AMU is now projecting itself into the future by carrying out a project that is both ambitious and unifying for the period 2018-2022. Thus, while the first five-year contract for 2012-2017 naturally aimed to establish and structure the merged university, the 2018-2022 contract will be placed under the auspices of the new institution. The 2018-2022 contract will be placed under the triple seal of innovation for all the university's fields of activity, the strengthening of the training-research link and the quality approach as the guiding principles for always aiming for excellence, particularly with the support of A*Midex.

Web link for international students https://www.univ-amu.fr/fr/public/dri-direction-des-relations-internationales
Fields of Study Offered Basic/broad, general programmes
Teacher training and education science (broad programmes)
Teaching and training
Education science
Training for pre-school teachers
Training for teachers at basic levels
Training for teachers with subject specialisation
Training for teachers of vocational subjects
Teacher training and education science (others)
Arts (broad programmes)
Fine arts
Music and performing arts
Audio-visual techniques and media production
Design
Craft skills
Arts (others)
Humanities (broad programmes)
Religion
Foreign languages
Mother tongue
History and archaeology
Philosophy and ethics
Humanities (others)
Social and behavioural science (broad programmes)
Psychology
Sociology and cultural studies
Political science and civics
Economics
Social and behavioural science (others)
Journalism and reporting
Library, information, archive
Journalism and information (broad programmes)
Business and administration (broad programmes)
Wholesale and retail sales
Marketing and advertising
Finance, banking, insurance
Accounting and taxation
Management and administration
Secretarial and office work
Working life
Business and administration (others)
Law (broad programmes)
Biology and biochemistry
Environmental science
Life science (broad programmes)
Physical science (broad programmes)
Physics
Chemistry
Earth science
Physical science (others)
Mathematics
Statistics
Mathematics and statistics (broad programmes)
Computer science
Computer use
Computing (broad programmes)
Engineering and engineering trades (broad programmes)
Architecture and town planning
Building and civil engineering
Architecture and building (broad programmes)
Veterinary (broad programmes)
Health (broad programmes)
Medicine
Nursing and caring
Dental studies
Medical diagnostic and treatment technology
Therapy and rehabilitation
Pharmacy
Health (others)
Child care and youth services
Social work and counselling
Social services (broad programmes)
Travel, tourism and leisure
Sports
Transport services (broad programmes)
Environmental protection (broad programmes)
Environmental protection technology
Natural environments and wildlife
Community sanitation services
Environmental protection (others)