It was at an international, multidisciplinary conference organized by the University of Zaragoza (Spain), AIRSI 2025, which brings together over 200 researchers around 4.0 technologies (artificial intelligence, robotics, virtual assistants, avatars, metavers, augmented reality, big data, etc.), that Florence Nizette brilliantly received the Best Paper Award for an article from her thesis in artificial intelligence.

In her thesis, Florence Nizette looks at user confidence in AI technologies, and in particular at the notion of their "explainability" (XAI). An essential aspect in making these tools more understandable, at a time when their use is only increasing in many sectors.

The originality of Florence Nizette's work lies in the deployment of a multi-stakeholder perspective, an aspect as yet little studied in the literature yet crucial to fostering the adoption of these tools. "I interviewed various actors in sensitive sectors such as finance or insurance, where trust is key: company executives, managers, experts, developers and users with the aim of gaining a global view of how to improve the explicability of AI services. My work consisted in identifying the expectations and constraints encountered by each of the stakeholders with the aim of building bridges between these different actors and seeing how they can collaborate to improve AI-enabled services."

By reconceptualizing explicability as a human-centric challenge, Florence Nizette's study provides theoretical and practical keys to developing more transparent and trustworthy AI systems, aligned with business needs and compliant with regulations.

For this project - based on interviews conducted internationally with XAI players and stakeholders - Florence Nizette benefits from the guidance of its promoters, Professors Wafa Hammedi (UNamur), Allard Van Riel (Hasselt University) and Nadia Steils (HEC Liège). Indeed, the researcher has the particularity of conducting her research at both UNamur and Hasselt University. An advantage in her view: "It's very enriching, both from an intellectual point of view and in terms of access to resources and networks in both regions", explains Florence Nizette.

Beyond the scientific aspect, Florence emphasizes the human richness of her career. As part of the dynamic team at the NaDI-CeRCLe research center, she emphasizes the mutual support and collaboration that prevail within her group, while also having the opportunity to exchange with different teams at other universities and internationally. The guidance of her three promoters, each bringing a singular perspective to her work, has been invaluable support throughout.

According to Florence, the singularity of her career path lies in this openness: learning and progressing by helping others and receiving their advice, finding enrichment in the diversity of collaborations and points of view. "What stimulates me in a PhD is scientific discovery as much as human interaction: the discussions, the collaborations, the diversity of perspectives", she explains. An experience that is both formative and deeply human, illustrating the power of networking, sharing and international openness.

Florence has benefited from the academic anchorage offered by a community of researchers in service, both nationally and internationally. The scientific rigor, methodological rigor and quality of exchanges that characterize this community represent an invaluable opportunity for any young researcher. This environment has nurtured his scientific maturity and enabled him to raise his work to a higher level.

The research center, with its stimulating yet caring atmosphere, provides fertile ground for academic development. Added to this is the participation in or organization of events of international stature, such as Let's Talk About Service (LTAS), the benchmark conference by the American Marketing Association, held in 2023 in Namur, as well as seminars regularly hosting renowned researchers. These experiences have not only enabled her to integrate the highest standards of the discipline, but also to challenge herself in order to develop and refine her skills as a researcher.

In early June, the 19th International Research Symposium on Service Excellence in Management (QUIS19) was held in Rome, one of the most important conferences in the field of service management. An enriching experience in more ways than one for Victor Sluÿters, a PhD student at the NaDI-CeRCLe research center, who was awarded the "Best Paper Award" by an international jury from over 350 papers.

"Typically, the award is given to a presentation that fits in with the conference theme, which this year focused on digital and sustainable transformation.Although my research project is currently attracting quite a bit of attention, it deviated quite a bit from this theme. So I didn't expect to win an award," confides Victor Sluÿters.

An original approach to crisis management

The thesis paper by Victor Sluÿters - whose work is supervised by Professors Wafa Hammedi (UNamur), Yves Van Vaerenbergh (KU Leuven) and Thomas Leclercq (IÉSEG School of Management) - focuses on data breaches (or data breach) and their management by companies. These are well-known threats feared by organizations for their potentially severe and far-reaching consequences.

Victor Sluÿters focuses more specifically on the psychological mechanisms of shame that underpin employee behavior in a crisis context. This emotion has strong and lasting effects on employee commitment, performance and well-being. Companies therefore have a vested interest in understanding the behavioral mechanisms at work to better cope with this type of event. It was this in-depth psychological dimension of crisis management, still relatively unexplored in the literature, that convinced the QUIS jury.

A human adventure above all

Beyond the scientific recognition, Victor Sluÿters insists on the human aspect of his research work. "We started our thesis at the same time as Floriane [Goosse] and Florence [Nizette]. We really help each other out. We organized very critical proofreading sessions, sometimes tough, but always benevolent.""What's more, we're lucky enough to benefit from excellent support from our promoter, Professor Wafa Hammedi, from both a research and human point of view. And for my part, I can also count on the invaluable insight and support of my two other co-promoters, Yves Van Vaerenbergh and Thomas Leclercq, who contribute enormously to enriching this adventure.", continues the young researcher.

After winning the prestigious "Best Research Paper Award" at the SERVSIG conference by the American Marketing Association in 2024 for her thesis paper, Floriane Goosse, a researcher at the NaDI-CeRCLe research center, is among the two winners of the ServCollab Scholarship 2025, an international doctoral scholarship awarded by an American organization dedicated to promoting scientific research with high societal impact.

No fewer than 37 doctoral students from universities around the world were in the running to receive this scholarship. Two researchers were chosen after an in-depth selection process: Griffin Colaizzi, a PhD student in psychology at Northeastern University (USA), and Floriane Goosse, a PhD student at UNamur within NaDI-CeRCLE.

New technologies to empower people with disabilities

Supervised by Professors Wafa Hammedi (UNamur) and Dominik Mahr (Maastricht University), Floriane Goosse's thesis explores how new technologies, such as intelligent voice assistants, can empower people with disabilities, particularly the visually impaired, and thus significantly improve their well-being.

A high-potential project that convinced the members of the ServCollab jury, made up of eminent researchers in the field. The jury was particularly impressed by the young researcher's methodological rigor and praised her alignment with the principles of Transformative Service Research as well as her deep determination to create a tangible impact on the lives of so-called vulnerable people.

Triple recognition for Floriane Goosse

Floriane Goosse also took part in the 19th International Research Symposium on Service Excellence in Management (QUIS19), the bi-annual benchmark conference in service management, held in Rome in early June. On this occasion, his research once again distinguished itself by winning the prize for best research with societal impact, awarded by the conference's scientific committee. This prestigious international recognition crowns a rigorous and deeply committed body of work. Three major recognitions in less than a year, saluting both the scientific excellence and the strong societal impact of a particularly promising piece of research.

With its 5,000 employees, CHU UCL Namur is a unique field of study. A university hospital and the leading private employer in the province of Namur, it combines care, teaching and research missions, while facing the challenges of a constantly evolving organization. In this context, better structuring projects, reinforcing strategic steering and intelligently integrating technological innovation is becoming an imperative to guarantee the efficiency of processes and the sustainability of the reforms undertaken.

In contrast to other sectors, where projects are often entrusted to professionals trained in classic project management methodologies, hospitals rely mainly on non-professional project managers. These players, be they doctors, nurses, pharmacists, biologists, administrative staff, etc., regularly find themselves piloting strategic initiatives without dedicated project management training. Kevin Lejeune is interested in this reality, and seeks to understand how their intrinsic motivation and ability to structure initiatives in an informal setting influence the success of hospital projects. His doctoral thesis is part of a wider reflection on the balance between professionalization and organizational agility, supported by the academic expertise of UNamur.

While the sponsor is often presented as a key figure in projects, his role remains unclear and unevenly invested in reality. To what extent does his real involvement and interaction with the project manager influence the success of hospital initiatives? Drawing on the theory of leader-member exchange, Kevin Lejeune sets out to demonstrate that it's not so much the presence of the sponsor that matters, as the quality of his or her commitment. His work highlights three essential levers: the sponsor's concrete actions, his relational qualities and his level of involvement. This theoretical framework, nurtured by regular exchanges with the academic world of the EMCP Faculty, aims to provide tangible recommendations for rethinking leadership in hospital governance and better structuring the support of project managers.

The rise of artificial intelligence in healthcare opens up promising prospects, but also raises organizational and psychological resistance. How can we ensure that these tools do not remain isolated experiments, but become genuine catalysts for innovation within healthcare establishments? This is the issue that Kevin Lejeune explores in the final part of his research. He aims to identify the factors that influence the acceptance and integration of AI tools into hospital processes. Far from taking a purely technological approach, he focuses on the psychological and behavioral barriers that condition the adoption of these innovations. In particular, it analyzes the impact of perceived competence, self-esteem and professional recognition on the adoption of AI tools. By crossing hospital fieldwork and academic contributions, notably from UNamur, the aim is to propose implementation strategies adapted to the human dynamics specific to hospitals.

Through this thesis, Kevin Lejeune aims to offer hospitals operational keys to improve the management of their projects, structure the role of sponsors and support the adoption of technological innovations. Combining scientific rigor with a grounding in the field, his work is based on a dual approach: deciphering hospital organizational mechanisms to identify levers for improvement, and ensuring that these recommendations can be implemented pragmatically.