The "research credits and projects" call resulted in 14 grants for ambitious new projects. These include two "equipment" grants, five "research credits (CDR)" grants and seven "research projects (PDR)" grants, including one in collaboration with the University of Applied Sciences and Arts of Western Switzerland. The FRIA doctoral research support call will fund 6 doctoral fellowships.

A prestigious Mandat d'Impulsion Scientifique (MIS) has also been obtained. This 3-year funding supports young permanent researchers wishing to develop an original and innovative research program while acquiring scientific autonomy within their department.

Call for Equipment

• Max Collinet, Institut ILEE
• Catherine Michaux, with Stéphane Vincent and Guillaume Berionni, co-sponsors, Institut NISM

Call for Research Credits (CDR)

• Thierry Arnould, Institut NARILIS
• Thomas Balligand, Department of Medicine
• Danielle Leenaerts, Institut PaTHs
• Denis Saint-Amand, Institut NaLTT
• Elio Tuci, Institut NADI

Appel Projets de Recherche (PDR)

• Nathalie Burnay, in collaboration with "the University of Applied Sciences and Arts of Western Switzerland", Institut Transitions (Subject to acceptance by SNSF Switzerland)
• Catherine Guirkinger, Institut DEFIPP, co-promoter in collaboration with UCLouvain
• Luca Fusaro, Institut NISM
• Laurence Meurant, Institut NaLTT
• René Preys, Institut PaTHs
• Stéphane Vincent, Institut NISM, co-promoter in collaboration with UCLouvain
• Johan Wouters, Institut NISM, co-promoter in collaboration with UCLouvain

Fonds pour la formation à la Recherche dans l'Industrie et dans l'Agriculture (FRIA)

• Alix Buridant - Promoter: Henri-François Renard, Institut NARILIS ; Co-sponsor: Medical University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck - Austria -
• Constance De Maere d'Aertrycke - Promoter Nicolas Gillet, Institut NARILIS
• Noah Deveaux - Promoter: Benoît Champagne, Institut NISM
• Nicolas Dricot - Promoter: Muriel Lepère, Institut NISM; Co-promoter: Bastien Vispoel, Institut NISM and Université Grenoble Alpes
• Laurie Marchal - Promoter Thierry Arnould. Co-promoter: Patricia Renard. Institut NARILIS
• Léa Poskin - Promoter: Catherine Michaux, Institut NISM; Co-promoter: Jean-Pierre Gillet, Institut NARILIS

Mandat d'Impulsion Scientifique (MIS)

• Arthur Borriello, Institut Transitions

Congratulations to all and sundry

The mission of the Fonds de la Recherche Scientifique - FNRS is to develop basic scientific research through initiatives presented by researchers. It promotes the production and development of knowledge by supporting individual researchers on the one hand, and by financing research programs carried out in laboratories and departments located mainly in the universities of the Wallonia-Brussels Federation on the other.

Based on the sole criterion of scientific excellence, financial support from the F.R.S.-FNRS is provided in several ways. Numerous calls for funding are launched each year to support fundamental research at all levels of researchers' careers.

This list, created by Stanford University and published in August 2024 is compiled in collaboration with Elsevier's ICST lab from Scopus data, aims to provide a standardized means of identifying the world's best scientists and recognizing those scientists who have had a significant impact on their respective fields.

While this list has been adopted by many institutions as a reliable measure of research impact, it is not the only way to evaluate research. Based strictly on bibliometric data, it is also subject to criticism.

Since September 2023, the University of Namur has been strengthening its commitment to the implementation of research assessment reform with the signing of the "Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment (CoARA) "agreement.

This agreement commits the institution to a series of principles, including taking into account career diversity and emphasizing qualitative research criteria rather than relying solely on bibliometric (and therefore quantitative) data.

• Charlotte Beaudart - Faculty of Medicine, Narilis Institute
• Benoît Champagne - Faculty of Science, NISM Institute
• Alain Decrop - EMCP Faculty, NaDi-CRIDS Institute
• Olivier Deparis - Science Faculty, NISM Institute and PaTHs Institute
• Jonathan Douxfils - Faculty of Medicine, Narilis Institute
• Patrick Kestemont - Faculty of Science, ILEE Institute
• Alexandre Mayer - Faculty of Science, NISM Institute and Institut naXys
• Carine Michiels - Faculty of Science, Institut Narilis
• Antoinette Rouvroy - Faculty of Law, ESPHIN Institutes and NaDi-CRIDS Institute
• Frédéric Silvestre - Faculty of Science, ILEE Institute
• Bao-Lian Su - Faculty of Science, NISM Institute
• Johan Wouters - Faculty of Science, NISM Institute

The list is updated every year, with data on the whole career and impacts on a single year, for the sake of transparency and relevance.

A variety of bibliometric measures are taken into account to ensure a fair and balanced representation of researchers' work.

• The C-score: this composite score is based on various bibliometric factors, including the total number of citations.
• The h-index: this impact indicator takes into account the number of a researcher's publications as well as the number of their citations.
• The percentiles of fields and subfields : scientists are classified into 22 major fields and 176 subfields. Only those who rank in the top 2% of their subfield are taken into account.
• Career-wide or single-year impact: rankings are available for both career-wide impact and single-year performance, providing a better understanding of long-term contribution and recent achievements.

Figuring among this top 2% of scientists is therefore a prestigious recognition of an individual's contribution to science and demonstrates the excellence of their research, enhancing their reputation in academia and industry.

The ranking offers visibility across all disciplines, drawing attention to work that might otherwise remain in a niche or be under-appreciated. It also serves as a benchmark for institutions and governments to assess the influence of their research programs.

Many institutions use the ranking to measure the success of their faculty, or other entity, which can also enhance credibility within the academic community.

This list encourages scientists to focus on producing high-quality, impactful research rather than chasing quantity.

By compiling data from all scientific fields and offering a fair, metrics-based approach, this ranking not only celebrates individual achievements, but also highlights the importance of impactful research in advancing knowledge. However, it must be qualified, as it only takes into account quantitative data, which are not necessarily representative of the full diversity of research.

According to another database, that of UNESCO, the number of researchers in the world is increasing by 300,000 per year, reaching 9 million today. The Top 2% comprises 200,000 names, including twelve researchers from the University of Namur.

Congratulations to them for their excellent research and for this prestigious worldwide recognition!

This article is taken from the "Tomorrow Learn" column in Omalius magazine's June 2024 issue.

Under the direction of Professor Isabelle Parmentier, it is the fruit of two collaborations. On the one hand, future historians have benefited from the expertise of Julie Duchêne, FRESH/FNRS doctoral student at PolleN (Pôle de l'histoire environnementale de l'Université de Namur) and the ILEE Institute (Institute of Life, Earth and Environment) at UNamur. Through innovative, interdisciplinary research, she decided to examine the history of the wolf in Wallonia from the 18th to the 20th century. As scientific curator of the project, Julie Duchêne contributed historical, paleogenetic and ethological data to build the exhibition.

On the other hand, the HECTOR podcasts "Histoire(s) du grand méchant loup" (series 4 - episode 1) and "Les diplomates" (series 4 - episode 2) by Céline Rase, PhD in history, served as a starting point for the construction of the exhibition's red thread. As an additional source, these podcasts brought a narrative dimension to the exhibition.

By combining Julie Duchêne's scientific data with Céline Rase's evocative stories, the project was intended to be both instructive and cultural. The exhibition reflected a chronological evolution showing the variations in the image of the wolf throughout history, sometimes positive, sometimes negative. And it did so in order to highlight the debates linked to the current situation of the wolf's return today.

The exhibition "Même pas peur! Une évolution de l'image du loup à travers les siècles" offered much more than a simple immersion in the history of the wolf in Wallonia. This ambitious educational project embodies the fusion between scientific research and the popularization of knowledge, while offering students a professionalizing experience. "The exhibition project has two pedagogical objectives, details Isabelle Parmentier, professor of history and exhibition coordinator. "The first is to explore a mode of communicating scientific knowledge that is more focused on the general public. The second objective is to enable learners to immerse themselves in a more accomplished form of realization.Indeed, this goes far beyond academic work. Here, there's a public to be visited, guided tours, various aspects for which the result must be professional. Our aim is to provide training in the scientific mastery of historical research, but from a different pedagogical angle, where everyone can give free rein to their imagination and explore all kinds of avenues that prove fruitful in the context of such a project.". In designing and producing the exhibition, the aim was to reflect on how to make historical information understandable and engaging for different audiences.

To design the exhibition, a team of nine male and female students were involved in the project. "It was very enriching because it allowed us to learn more about subjects we wouldn't see during our degree course," shares Cécile Bourdon, a third-year bachelor's student in history at UNamur and involved in the project. "In history, we usually deal more with human history than animal history. By creating this exhibition, we had the opportunity to combine this learning with a fundamental objective of the historian's profession: the popularization of science. Managing a project like this is an asset for our future career. It's very interesting to have this kind of training as part of our curriculum.".

This professional immersion experience also enabled participants to develop skills directly linked to the reality of the field. "Resilience was one of the qualities to have during this project. Knowing how to bounce back from the unexpected is something we often had to do.But satisfaction takes over once we perceive visitors' smiles as they leave the exhibition." explains Théo Di Pillo, a third-year bachelor's student in history, also involved in the project. "We were able to think about and design the exhibition from A to Z: which audience to target, how to write the texts, what tone to use to communicate to the general public, etc. It was a stimulating but rather anxiety-provoking project at the same time, as we wanted everything to be perfect," add Cécile Bourdon and Théo Di Pillo.

This original project has won over several Belgian institutions and will tour at Pairi Daiza, in spring 2025 and then at the Musée Gaumais in Virton, from October 2025 to January 2026.

Finally, the exhibition is not just a one-off experience. It is part of a wider movement to support wolf research in Wallonia, illustrating the importance of scientific research in understanding and preserving our environment. By encouraging the public to support this research financially, the exhibition creates a tangible link between the past and the present, inviting everyone to contribute to the sustainable management of our ecosystem.

This article is taken from the "Impact" section of the June 2024 issue of Omalius magazine.

The next thing that interested me was Egyptian religion, mythology, temple life, architecture and decoration. Egyptology is very broad. Every student interested in Egypt can therefore find his or her "dada" in this choice of studies: texts, ceramics, statuary, art, temples, papyri.

For me, it's Egyptian religion and particularly temple religion that fascinates me: ritual life, how the temple functioned, what was done there. Egyptian temples also had an economic aspect, as they managed fields, orchards, bakeries and butcheries. Egyptian temples are over 3,000 years old!

O. How did you become interested in Egyptian diet?

R.P.: I'm involved in a research project funded by the prestigious FNRS EOS (Excellence Of Science) program. I'm working on it with several Belgian and international researchers. We're focusing on the Greco-Roman period in Egypt, since food remains were found during excavations in a Roman-era city. Preserved thanks to the dry, warm Egyptian climate, they are being sifted for their nutritional value. We often think that people in ancient times ate poorly. But this idea is based on the nutritional value we know today, comparing things that are not comparable. We don't prepare and preserve our food today as we did in ancient times. The consortium includes chemistry researchers who will, among other things, analyze the nutritional value of these food scraps.

In parallel, we also need to understand what the Egyptians ate and in what quantities. This is the aspect that will concern the UNamur researchers. We'll be analyzing hieroglyphic texts on temples and in tombs. We're going to establish the menu of the Egyptians! And we'll be able to compare the results with modern diets. In April, as part of the EOS project, we welcomed a number of renowned international researchers to a symposium devoted to the role of fish in ancient Egypt. Indeed, fish was not only used as food. It was also used as an offering to the gods, for example. Another surprising and little-known research topic on Egypt.

O. : So we still don't know everything about ancient Egypt?

R.P.: Indeed! Egypt is eternal, the buildings constructed thousands of years ago are still there. Egyptology, too, is eternal. New subjects of research appear regularly, new points of view that we analyze in relation to ancient texts, the results of ancient excavations can be analyzed with modern techniques, for example. Egyptology is 200 years old. It was born with the deciphering of hieroglyphics by Jean-François Champollion in 1823, but there are always new subjects to study: food, which is the subject of our EOS research project, or climate. We're trying to establish how climatic changes can explain events that have marked Egypt's history: changes in the Pharaonic Empires, for example, can be explained by economic crises linked to fluctuations in the Nile's behavior. The river's flooding was necessary for wheat production. Without flooding, there was no agricultural yield sufficient to feed the population.

O. : A new archaeology laboratory has been launched at UNamur, can you tell us more about it?

R.P.: This is LASA, the Laboratoire d'Archéologie et des Sciences de l'Art. It was recently created within the Department of Archaeology and Art Sciences. It is dedicated to the study of movable heritage. Our students are in direct contact with archaeological material. The department doesn't want to limit itself to ex cathedra courses, but places great emphasis on practical work in the field through internships and trips, and therefore also through this new laboratory. It includes wooden statuary, stained glass, ceramics, granite and limestone objects. We're very lucky to have specialists in a wide range of disciplines within the department: architecture, art, technology, materials and so on. Our students are exposed to all aspects of archaeology and the art sciences. The profession for which they are preparing is not one of sitting in one's corner, but of examining the subject of research from every angle. Our students really appreciate not being cooped up in their classrooms all the time.

Learn more about research in the Department of Archaeology and Art Sciences

O. : You recently became co-director of the Association égyptologique Reine Élisabeth. What's it all about?

R.P.: It's an association bringing together Belgian Egyptologists, founded nearly 100 years ago by Jean Capart.

This famous Belgian Egyptologist accompanied Queen Elisabeth, wife of King Albert 1st, on her visit to the tomb of Pharaoh Tutankhamun. Jean Capart, the "father" of Belgian Egyptologists, did his early studies at the Facultés de Namur (today's UNamur). Egyptology studies didn't exist in Belgium a hundred years ago, so he went to study in Paris. On his return to Belgium, he created the very first chair in Egyptology. He was also curator of the Egyptological section of the Royal Museums of Art and History in Brussels. The Queen Elisabeth Egyptological Association has a scientific objective. Creating exchanges between researchers, publishing scientific articles, as well as an objective more focused on the general public: raising the profile of Egypt through exhibitions, conferences, etc.

O. : You combine teaching and research duties. Do you travel regularly to Egypt?

R.P.: Combining the role of teacher with the scientific aspect is obviously a challenge. But I manage to go to Egypt at least once a year, for a month at a time. I work on various archaeological sites. I'm researching three temples in particular: firstly, the great temple of the god Amun at Karnak. This is the largest and best-known temple in Egypt, managed by the Franco-Egyptian Centre for the Study of the Temples of Karnak. I'm also working with a Swiss and German team on the Greco-Roman temple of Kôm Ombo. Finally, the last site, and my personal favorite, is the temple of Denderah. It is dedicated to the goddess Hathor, goddess of love and fertility. She is also considered the mother of the solar god. For the ancient Egyptians, she therefore played a very important role in the continuation of the solar cycle. I completed my doctoral thesis on this temple and am now fortunate enough to be able to work on it in collaboration with the Institut français d'Archéologie orientale.

Sophie Arc