The College of International Exchange of Shandong Agricultural University is among China’s first batch of Sino-foreign cooperative undergraduate education institutions officially approved by the Ministry of Education and the People’s Government of Shandong Province in 2003. It is jointly run by Shandong Agricultural University and FOM University of Applied Sciences for Economics and Management, Germany.

The college offers four undergraduate majors: Accounting, Business Administration, International Economics and Trade, and Mechatronic Engineering. German serves as the medium of instruction for the three majors of Accounting, Business Administration and International Economics and Trade, while English is adopted for Mechatronic Engineering. The four-year program enrolls 300 students annually with a total planned capacity of 1,200 students. All courses can be completed domestically with instructors dispatched by the German partner university. Students may voluntarily choose to study in Germany for one year in their fourth academic year. Credits earned from both Chinese and German curricula are mutually recognized. Students who meet all academic requirements will be awarded an undergraduate graduation certificate and bachelor’s degree from Shandong Agricultural University, as well as a bachelor’s degree certificate issued by FOM University of Applied Sciences for Economics and Management, Germany.

FOM University of Applied Sciences for Economics and Management is located in Essen, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. Founded in 1993, it was co-established by the Essen Entrepreneurs’ Association, Retail Trade Association, Wholesale and Foreign Trade Federation, and the Chamber of Industry and Commerce of the Essen-Mülheim-Oberhausen region. These organizations represent leading enterprises across Germany’s energy supply, retail and service, chemical and glass manufacturing, metal and electrical industries, covering local small and medium-sized enterprises as well as large multinational corporate groups. Headquartered in Essen, FOM has grown into one of Germany’s largest universities specializing in economics and management. Its disciplines cover economics, management, law, science and engineering, with 10 accredited research institutes and 11 research centers, highlighting its positioning as an application-oriented research university. The university has branch campuses in 29 German cities including Berlin, Bochum, Düsseldorf, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Cologne and Munich, as well as Vienna, Austria.

Degrees awarded by FOM University are officially recognized by the German government and also accredited by the Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China. In 2004, FOM obtained institutional accreditation from the German Council of Science and Humanities (Wissenschaftsrat), Germany’s supreme academic accreditation body. In 2006, its bachelor’s and Master of Business Administration programs were accredited by FIBAA (Foundation for International Business Administration Accreditation), one of Germany’s top degree certification authorities. In 2012, it became one of the first higher education institutions to pass FIBAA’s educational quality system evaluation, with all its majors fully accredited. The university successfully passed the re-accreditation review in December 2018.

Students from the College of International Exchange pursuing studies in Germany will live and study in Essen, the sixth-largest city in Germany.