The history of Aix-Marseille University is above all the history of a conviction. The certainty that it is by joining forces, our knowledge and our energies that we can create the best in education, research and societal utility. And there was only one way to take up this ambitious challenge: to bring us together, to bring us together, to trust each other.
This vision of progress was translated into action in 2012, when the three universities in the region were able to come together and join forces.
The history of Aix-Marseille University accelerated very quickly, by giving concrete expression to the wealth of its knowledge and its exceptional potential by obtaining the Idex label.
The newly created university, soon to be endowed with world-class research and higher education, would thus finally enable, as expected, the promotion of exchanges of disciplinary cultures! In 2019, the creation of institutional institutes, at the crossroads of research and education, will effectively translate this decompartmentalisation and embody innovation within the university.
And if the road to get there has been long and sometimes winding, it is clear today that it was worth it. Aix-Marseille University has become a major institution in the region, and far beyond. It is even taking its full place on the international scene.
How many people in France imagined that we would succeed? Probably not many.
Today, let us remember that this university of 80,000 students is taken as an example. CIVIS has brought Aix-Marseille University to a European recognition of which we can be proud. The AMU brand is respected today: there is no doubt that it will be respected in the long term.

In 10 years, Aix-Marseille University, via its A*Midex foundation, has largely strengthened its links with numerous partners around societal issues related to global change, including climate change. By creating the Mediterranean Institute for Environmental Transition around flagship units in ecology and environmental sciences on the site, by creating its mission for interdisciplinarity, by working around unique infrastructures such as the man-environment observatories Bassin minier de Provence and Littoral méditerranéen, research programmes that are completely original and of international renown have enabled the development of some of the pillars of sustainability science in France. Through A*midex, AMU is playing an important role in the implementation of a committed science, allowing to enlighten decision-makers in the resolution of environmental crises. This transition from knowledge to action in the context of global change is a key step in the processes of struggle, adaptation and resilience that our societies will have to adopt. Aix-Marseille University has been working hard on this for a decade!

10 years already… 10 years which have seen the concretisation of real synergies between Aix-Marseille-University and the Aix-Marseille-Provence Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce and Industry to make the territory and its capacity for innovation shine for the benefit of all companies and socio-economic players!

From co-innovation to technology transfer, from societal issues to artificial intelligence, from the quality of student life to entrepreneurship, from openness to the world to integration… so many subjects that testify to the vitality of the links that unite us and to a shared desire to decompartmentalise the academic and business worlds.

Together, we launched the AMU Enterprise Week, a bold gamble of which we can be proud. Three years ago, together with the Grand Port de Marseille, we founded the Smart Port to invent the port of tomorrow.

Together, we have built up cycles of IA Days conferences to encourage the appropriation by companies of innovations resulting from research.

Together, we will respond to and win, I am sure, calls for projects that will make our territory, our university community and our companies grow even more.

Aix-Marseille University is celebrating its 10th anniversary and we in Arles are delighted to have been able to host part of the largest French-speaking university in the world for a long time. It is an opportunity for our city. An opportunity for the young people of Arles to be able to study at home. But it is also an opportunity for our city, rich with more than 2000 years of history, which welcomes new faces every year at the beginning of the school year in September, who participate in the effervescence that is so particular to Arles. It is in our city that they build themselves intellectually and professionally, that they meet each other, that they have fun, that they get involved… And this is what drives us to envisage an ambitious future, in partnership with AMU, to attract even more training courses, and therefore students, to our magnificent territory. Long live this beautiful University, from Aix to Marseille, via Arles!

Innovation, one of the key issues essential to the growth and competitiveness of companies, large and small, has long been at the heart of the L’Occitane Group’s development strategy.

In a world marked by ever-increasing competition, it seemed obvious to decompartmentalise the knowledge of the world of research and industry in order to allow these two poles to meet, exchange and establish a close collaboration allowing for innovation and invention. The mutual effort, forged by both the L’Occitane Group and Aix-Marseille University, to participate in the transformation of science into innovation, has resulted today in a true « win/win » relationship. It is no coincidence that the L’Occitane Group has chosen to set up Obratori, its investment and support structure for start-ups, within the Aix-Marseille City of Innovation and Knowledge. Bringing together entrepreneurs, researchers and research centres has encouraged the pooling of know-how that has contributed to the emergence of successful innovations.

AMU has always been a facilitator and played a major role in setting up Obratori in Marseille when we were hesitating with other European cities. Its President, Mr Eric Berton, has always been able to find the best solutions for AMU, Aix-Marseille, the Region and Obratori, with great responsiveness.  A successful « win/win » partnership!

Since 1409, Aix en Provence has been a university town. Since the creation of the university by Louis d’Anjou, Count of Provence, 613 years ago, Aix has remained attentive to its students and has always been at the side of the university to accompany it in its evolution. The university is preparing for the future by training our young people and by supporting research and innovation. To achieve this, it is adapting and changing. Its latest evolution is its transformation into « Aix Marseille University », 10 years ago. Aix welcomes more than 30,000 students enrolled in AMU, mainly in economic, legal, literary and scientific disciplines. Aix financially supports the new Faculty of Economics and Management currently under construction on the Pauliane site, which was purchased by the city and then transferred to the university. Aix welcomes the majority of foreign students hosted by AMU, attracted by the city’s historical heritage and quality of life, among other things. Aix and the university are inseparable. AMU is an institution which, through its international influence, also makes the city shine.

But our links do not stop there. The city is also changing: it must innovate to prepare for the future, the future of global warming, the future of new ways of working and living, and the future of greater solidarity. In order to think about these essential changes, the city calls on university researchers and offers them its territory as a field of experimentation. The city is also home to many companies that provide employment. Here again, the proximity between AMU and the economic fabric of Aix is essential. And it is particularly intense between the environmental sciences and the start-ups housed in the Aix Technopole de l’Arbois.   

Aix en Provence and AMU are one and the same.
I wish Aix Marseille University a very happy birthday!

 In 10 years, Aix-Marseille University, the flagship of higher education, research and innovation in the region, has confirmed its status as a key player in the international university landscape. Always on the move, Aix-Marseille University is also open to all the actors of the city, be they political, associative or economic. Aix-Marseille University, through its influence and attractiveness, already has all the keys to bring out breakthrough innovations and to train our students for the professions of the future. Aix-Marseille University has therefore not missed its appointment with the history of our region through its will, its excellence and its strong commitment, all of which are virtues for serenely facing the challenges of the future.

Offering young students in the Southern Region an optimal living and learning environment is a priority.
For every need they may express, there is a system to support them and make their lives easier. From the Pass Zou! Études to travel between their home and Aix-Marseille University, or for holidays, through the E-Pass Jeunes for sport and leisure activities, to the indispensable Pass Santé, we stand by the students of Aix-Marseille University. All these schemes are available on https://www.maregionsud.fr/jeunes .  After two difficult years, between the health crisis, distance learning and precariousness, you can be sure that the Southern Region will always act in your interest, both for your daily life and for your studies. This is the South!

With more than 100,000 students, the Aix-Marseille-Provence Metropolis has made higher education and research (ESR) a strategic and exclusive competence since its creation in 2016. Aix-Marseille University, a precursor of the metropolitan construction with the merger of the three former universities in 2012, has strongly contributed to the structuring of the local higher education landscape. As a research-intensive university with an international reputation, AMU was, along with A*MIDEX, one of the very first winners of the Initiative of Excellence under the PIA1.

 Also, on behalf of the Aix-Marseille-Provence Metropolis and the Bouches-du-Rhône Departmental Council, I would like to congratulate AMU on its daily efforts, its dynamism and its successes, and the local partnerships in which it is involved to develop the capacities of the metropolitan area in terms of training and employment, social cohesion, innovation and research, and international influence. I know that I can count on Aix-Marseille University, and on our concerted action, to succeed in building, in the long term, a competitive Metropolis of the future.