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Designed to promote scientific knowledge in overseas countries, the Royal Academy of Overseas Sciences (RAOS) is an independent, multidisciplinary, national and international forum serving Science in overseas countries. Professor of geology at UNamur, Johan Yans has just been appointed as a new member of ARSOM.

Do you know the rivulus? It is a small fish that lives in the Caribbean and has some amazing characteristics. It is indeed capable of self-fertilisation! But in this case, what happens to genetic diversity, which is essential for the evolution of a species? Welcome in the mangroves of Florida and Belize to find an answer.

From 11 to 13 May 2022, a hundred or so scientists and actors from the economic and cultural world gathered at UNamur to discuss the issue of water pollution. The aim? To share and enrich knowledge, but also to alert and inform about its long-term effects on fauna, flora and human beings. Scientific sessions, workshops and a conference for the public were on the programme for these three days.

For their research activities, NISM Institute researchers rely on technology platform teams, each of which houses state-of-the-art equipment, technical know-how and cutting-edge expertise. They are accessible to the scientific community as well as to industry.

Research at NISM is identified by four poles, which highlight the main scientific activities carried out within the institute. Each pole has a well-defined structure with members, and is managed by the pole representative. The structuring does not prevent ongoing cooperation between them. Indeed, there is well-established interaction between the various clusters, through joint projects, conferences, seminars, co-supervision of master's and doctoral theses, among others..

The expertise of the Functional Structured Materials (FSM) pole is divided into two interconnected areas: the development of 3D porous architectures and the functionalization of nanostructures.

The Institute's research projects, publications and collaborations include all categories of researchers. Led by academic promoters, they mobilize post-doctoral researchers, PhD students and even master's students (student-researchers).

The NISM Institute's Multi-scale Modeling through High-Performance Computing (HPC-MM) cluster aims to share techniques, skills and computational tools to develop new materials and predict their final properties. It also aims to improve modeling techniques and computer codes to take into account most of the chemistry and physics of structured matter.

The Nonlinear Optics and Photonics cluster (NOP) develops experimental, theoretical and numerical research in various fields of optics, mainly in nonlinear optics and photonics, including plasmonics and quantum optics.

The Surfaces, Interfaces and Carbon Nanostructures (SICN) pole is active in the synthesis, characterization and modeling of new materials, with a particular focus on interfaces between two distinct phases and for low-carbon materials.

An international team of researchers has just published an article in the prestigious journal Light: Science & Applications (LSA) from the Nature group.  The teams led by Professors Michaël Lobet and Alexandre Mayer (University of Namur) collaborated with the team led by Professor Shanhui Fan, one of the leading experts in the field, from the prestigious Stanford University in California (USA).  The result: an article entitled ‘Twist-Induced Beam Steering and Blazing Effects in Photonic Crystal Devices’, or the study of beam deflection by twisting in photonic crystal devices.  Come on, let's twist light again at UNamur! 

From 2020 to 2025, as part of her doctoral thesis in history, researcher Julie Duchêne conducted a ground-breaking investigation blending history and biology to trace the cohabitation between humans and wolves in Wallonia and Luxembourg, from the 18th to the early 20th century. Thanks to an innovative interdisciplinary approach, including DNA analysis of naturalized 19th-century specimens, her work sheds light on the mechanisms that led to the local extinction of the species. This research was made possible thanks to the support of numerous scientific and cultural partners.