Aix-Marseille University (AMU)

Aix-Marseille University (AMU) is the largest multidisciplinary French-speaking university in France, with 80,000 students and nearly 8,000 staff on five large campuses that meet 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 facilities linked to 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 that guarantee bridges between research and education 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, demonstrate AMU's commitment to innovation and its contribution to the creation of societal wealth.
The teaching of quality courses, backed 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 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: A travel plan, a waste management plan, raising students' awareness of the climate emergency and the introduction of a sustainable development bonus, the creation of the AMU Climate Council, as well as measures to combat sexual, sexist and homophobic harassment, the implementation of a disability master plan, measures to combat racism and anti-Semitism, and numerous sports and festive events on campus. With 10,000 international students and more than 40 diplomas in international partnerships, AMU has been a laureate of 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 set itself: to successfully merge the three universities in the region and give rise to a major university of world renown.

AMU is thus a research-intensive university that has forged partnerships throughout the world, that has affirmed 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 nine cities. It has a real estate portfolio spread over 58 sites representing more than 830,000 m². AMU has been awarded the "Opération Campus" program, which, in conjunction with the CPER (State-Region Plan Contract), enables it to renovate and modernize its campuses 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, contributing actively to its development and influence.

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 fruit 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

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.) and 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 a gas pedal, 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 with this collective momentum that AMU is now looking to the future with 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 University of Paris. The 2018-2022 contract will be placed under the triple seal of innovation for all of the university's fields of activity, the strengthening of the education-research link and the quality approach as the guiding principles for always aiming for excellence, particularly with the support of A*Midex.

Some key figures

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