Fachhochschule Dortmund has made it official: its partnership with the French Université de Picardie de Jules Verne (UPJV) in Amiens has been put on a new footing with a Memorandum of Understanding. This benefits students, lecturers and researchers alike.
Amiens is not only the city of Fachhochschule Dortmund's oldest city partnership, but also the university's longest-running international partnership. "You have all lived this partnership over the past decades, even without an official signature," said Prof. Dr. Tamara Appel, Rector of Fachhochschule Dortmund, praising the representatives of both universities at a joint ceremony on 25 November 2025 at Fachhochschule Dortmund. The first contacts with the Université de Picardie de Jules Verne (UPJV) were established shortly after the UAS was founded. Since the 1990s, there has been a lively exchange between the engineers in the Faculties of Mechanical Engineering in particular. Prof. Laurent Lahoche, Director of the Amiens Institute of Technology (IUT), emphasized that this is "targeted and concrete and supported by many lecturers who enjoy working together".
With the Memorandum of Understanding, the cooperation with the UPJV in Amiens and Fachhochschule Dortmund will become a strategic partnership and the exchange will be extended to other faculties. "We want to facilitate even more cooperation in teaching and research and actively support this on the part of the Rectorate," emphasized Prof. Dr. Stephan Weyers, Vice-Rector for Teaching, Studies and Internationalization at Fachhochschule Dortmund. The exchange is already being intensified among economists, computer scientists and architects.
In addition to representatives of the UPJV, Alain Gest, Deputy Mayor of Amiens and President of the Amiens Metropolitan Region, also took part in the ceremony. He expressed his confidence that the strategic partnership would have an impact both at the University of Amiens and in the metropolitan region.
Mayor honors university cooperation
The previous evening, Dortmund's Lord Mayor Alexander Kalouti had already praised the cooperation between the two universities as exemplary at the official anniversary "65 years of town twinning between Amiens and Dortmund": more than 20 years of student exchanges, joint laboratories and company visits, joint technical projects and seminars, meetings in Amiens in spring and in Dortmund in autumn - "this is not just a program. This is Europe in action. And it is anything but a matter of course," said Alexander Kalouti. The memorandum extends far beyond the universities. "It further strengthens the connection between our cities," said the Lord Mayor.
In addition to the exchange programs, double degrees from both universities will also be possible in the future. "However, the success of our cooperation will not only be measured by the number of double degrees, but rather by the number of students, lecturers and administrative staff who have had the opportunity to get to know the other university and the partner city briefly or in detail," emphasized the coordinators Ass.-Prof. Anne-Sophie De Franceschi (UPJV) and Prof. Dr. Vincent Marciniak (Fachhochschule Dortmund).
