every six years and involves the central government, the region as well as the university. It is devoted to major investment projects, for instance building a new school, a new campus, a new library, etc. It is a catalogue of projects and for each of them it defines the financial burden accepted by each partner in the contract. The second process covers four years and has to be approved by the French Ministry of Education. In this process, the university sets its objectives at the pedagogical and research levels (new degrees, research projects). This planning process is very important because the university is free to define its own strategy, to be approved by the decision makers. Each process generates an important brainstorming period at all levels of the university in order to identify and build new ideas, new needs, and opportunities, to prioritise them, after an analysis of strengths and weaknesses. Other choices can be made after each process is closed, but they are more difficult to implement because other sources of funding and other ways of authorisation must be found. Academic profile Aix-Marseille University enrolls about 80,000 students, including more than 10,000 international students from 128 different countries. The university, with its wide range of general and vocational courses including 600 degree courses, offers teaching in fields as varied as the Arts, Social Sciences, Health, Sport and Economics, Law and Political Sciences, Applied Economics and Management, and Exact Sciences such as Mathematics, Data-processing, Physical Sciences, Astrophysical Sciences, Chemistry and Biology. Its 132 recognized research units and 21 faculties make it a centre of international excellence in social and natural sciences. With more than 500 international agreements, the university participates in the creation of European area of education and research and in the development of mobility. A policy in the direction of Asian countries has led to increase its enrollments of excellent international students. Programmes in French and/or English have been organized in order to favour the welcome and the integration of international students, in particular thanks to the presence within the university of the University Service of French as a Foreign Language (SUFLE). Its predecessor, the Institute of French Studies for Foreign Students (Institut d'Etudes Françaises Pour Etudiants Etrangers (IEFEE)) was founded in 1953 and was regarded as one of the best French-language teaching centres in the country. About a thousand students from 65 countries attend the SUFLE throughout