The Bundesbank’s University of Applied Sciences in Hachenburg and the University of Toulon have signed a partnership agreement. To mark the occasion, Hachenburg’s Rector Erich Keller and his deputy Andreas Kremer visited their partner institution in France in mid-March of 2024. “The two partner universities complement each other perfectly,Mr Keller said. The intercultural communication skills and media competencies taught in Toulon will deeply enrich the Central Banking programme in Hachenburg. At the same time, he added, students of the University of Toulon will benefit from the courses on monetary policy and financial stability offered by their German counterpart. 

© Olivier Radelet

Xavier Leroux, President of the University of Toulon, stressed the European dimension of its partnership with the Bundesbank, stating that it marked a new chapter in his University’s international relations. By strengthening our relationships in the field of economics, he explained, we are offering students from Toulon and the Bundesbank an unparalleled international experience. Brigitte Müller, Vice-President of the University of Toulon and the staff member responsible for international relations, added, It is an opportunity for students from Toulon to visit the Bundesbank, Bundesbank, which remains to this day the foundation upon which the ECB and the euro are built.

Over the next three years, the two institutions intend to establish both a student exchange and an academic exchange. In future, the Bundesbank’s University will invite ten Master’s students enrolled in the University of Toulon’s Money, Banking, Finance and Insurance programme to Hachenburg once a year in either March or April. There, they will participate in a two-week series of courses on current issues relating to monetary policy, banking supervision and financial stability. In return, in October or November of each year, ten students from Hachenburg will travel to Toulon for 14 days, where they will expand their media skills in seminars on communicating economic data.

© Nicolas Huchet

With the help of the University of Toulon’s professional video production studio, which is fitted with Telomedia equipment, students will also be able to produce short films on topics from the banking and financial sectors in different formats and for different audiences. The Telomedia studio provides a state-of-the-art production platform for creating digital audiovisual works. The platform is also suitable for creating massive open online courses (MOOCs). These are online courses for large numbers of participants without restrictions on access and admission. According to Mr Keller and Mr Kremer, the Telomedia studio opens up impressive technical and creative opportunities. The studio consists of two large recording rooms with a green screen, mixing rooms and a speaker booth, providing infrastructure for creating virtual realities. Here, German and French students will work together to design content to educate the public on matters of monetary policy, banking supervision and payments, and then record videos and podcasts for websites or social media platforms.

According to Mr Keller and Mr Kremer, student exchanges will not be restricted to imparting communication skills. The partnership is also set to include a cultural programme and an exchange of teaching staff between the two universities, for example in the form of intensive English courses or peer review in the context of doctorate studies at the University of Toulon.

Thanks to Toulon’s location on the French Riviera, students at the Bundesbank’s University of Applied Sciences will in future be able to study between the mountains and the Mediterranean, forging many friendships with their French peers, the Hachenburg Rector and deputy said.