At NaDI, researchers provide innovative solutions to the new societal challenges posed by the digital revolution (eGov, eHealth, eServices, Big data, etc.). Coming from a variety of disciplines, researchers combine their expertise in IT, technology, ethics, law, management or sociology. Grouping six research centers from various disciplines, the Namur Digital Institute offers a unique multidisciplinary expertise to all areas of informatics, its applications and its social impact.
Among its main competencies are formal methods, man-machine interface, requirement engineering, modeling techniques to reason and design complex software systems, testing, quality insurance, software product lines, data bases, big data, machine learning and more generally artificial intelligence, security, privacy, ethics by design, technology assessment and legal reasoning.

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Is watching gaming gaming? Twitch and the video game revolution
Is watching gaming gaming? Twitch and the video game revolution
A lifelong video game enthusiast, Fanny Barnabé, a researcher at the CRIDS research center (Namur Digital Institute) and lecturer at the University of Namur, explores behind the scenes of a major cultural phenomenon: video game streaming on Twitch. Between humor, irony and toxic discourse, she deciphers the issues at stake in a digital space in the throes of change.

Video games are no longer just a pastime: they've become an object of study in their own right. And Fanny Barnabé is one of its leading figures at UNamur. Trained as a literary scholar, she turned to Game Studies to better understand the complex fictional universes that have always fascinated her. "It was because of video games that I studied literature," she confides with a smile. Today, she's interested in a fast-growing phenomenon: the broadcasting of live video game games on platforms like Twitch.

Twitch, between humor and toxic speeches
On Twitch, millions of viewers watch streamers play their favorite games every day. This practice, known as "secondary gaming" (a concept developed by ULiège researcher Julie Delbouille), involves playing vicariously by watching someone else hold the controller. "Some people no longer play themselves, they watch others play. It's become a fully-fledged way of consuming video games", explains Fanny Barnabé, "Twitch is a space where humor reigns, often in the form of irony or second degree. But it's also a place where toxicity can develop very quickly". Hence the theme of his current research: when does an ironic comment become violent? At what point can we determine whether or not a comment is acceptable in the video game context?
A fast-changing industry
Fanny Barnabé's work doesn't stop at Twitch. She has also studied in-game storytelling, tutorials, or even players' creative practices, such as fan fiction or "machinimas" (films made within games themselves).

Video games are an incredibly rich and interdisciplinary field of study
And this terrain is changing fast. Very fast. "Video games have gone from a niche hobby to a mass phenomenon. Today, over 90% of young people play," she points out. This popularity is accompanied by an economic transformation: in the context of platform capitalism, the practice of gaming tends to become profitable, monetized, professionalized. "We've gone from the game you buy once, to the "game as a service" model, and to streaming, where professional streamers somehow convert their gaming experience into advertising revenue."
A mirror of our changing society
For Fanny Barnabé, it's hard to predict how the world of video games will evolve in the future. "It's becoming very difficult to talk about video games as a single object, so diverse are the practices," she explains. Between mobile games like Candy Crush, e-sport competitions or collaborative online adventures, the uses are multiple and reflect the complexity of our digital society.

This diversity is part of a broader context: that of platform capitalism. "Gaming, which was originally a leisure practice, is now integrated into profit-making logics," observes the researcher. Streaming, in particular, illustrates this transformation: gaming is becoming a productive, income-generating activity, sometimes even a profession in its own right.
Fanny Barnabé - portrait
At 36, Fanny Barnabé recently joined the ranks of UNamur academics. She is a lecturer in the "Social, Political and Communication Sciences" Department of the SciencesPo Economics Management Communication Faculty (EMCP). There, she teaches students in the three-year bachelor's program in interactive and participatory media and digital transition. Next academic year, she will be teaching the Media Narration and Storytelling course.
Fanny is also passionate about Japan. In 2017-2018, she completed a one-year postdoctoral stay in Kyoto, at the Ritsumeikan Center for Game Studies, under the direction of Professor Hiroshi Yoshida, with the help of a Marie-Curie COFUND fellowship from the Université de Liège (co-funded by the European Union). This stay was devoted to the study of video game paratexts.
During the academic mission organized by the Wallonie-Bruxelles International, on the sidelines of the Osaka World Expo, she was able to return to Tokyo and Kyoto to re-establish links with various colleagues specializing in game studies and set up research partnerships between Japanese institutions and UNamur.

Training
Discover our courses in economics, management, communication and political science.

With AI, it's all about putting the user in control
With AI, it's all about putting the user in control
For Bruno Dumas, computer science fits in with the principles of applied psychology
Artificial intelligence (AI) is interfering in our professional as well as our private lives. It both seduces and worries us. On a global scale, it is at the heart of major strategic, societal or economic issues, still being debated in mid-February 2025, at the AI World Summit in Paris. But how can we, as users, avoid being subjected to it? How can we gain access to the necessary transparency of its workings? By placing his research prism on the user's side, Bruno Dumas is something of a "computer psychologist". An expert in human-computer interaction, co-president of the NaDI Institute (Namur Digital Institute), he defends the idea of a reasoned and enlightened use of emerging technologies.

This article is taken from the "Expert" section of Omalius magazine #36 (March 2025).
In early February 2025, the AI Act, the world's first general legislation on AI that frames its use and development came into force in Europe. As a specialist in human-machine interaction, does this new framework reassure you?
At UNamur, within my research group, we focus our work on the user side and his interaction with technology. When it comes to AI, we are particularly focused on this notion of transparency, which is reflected in the principle of the AI Act. How does AI make decisions? What data is it based on? What are its operating processes? Can it explain them? This need for AI transparency is of paramount importance to the user. For the time being, however, this is blocked from a purely technical point of view, essentially because of the gargantuan amount of data that AI uses to function, to train itself. At present, only experts are really capable of understanding how AI works. However, since AI is often a tool for the citizen, the need for transparency must also, and above all, be accessible to the citizen. At UNamur, a great deal of research is being carried out along these lines.
.For example, you're working with doctors on the degree of trust they have in AI as part of their profession: what's it all about?
It's about an AI system that should, in particular, enable doctors to help them identify tumors on medical images. The challenge? For the doctor to know whether the answer provided by the AI is reliable, and how reliable it is. We are developing and testing this process with doctors. A process that will enable the AI to give them its degree of certainty. Early feedback shows that this transparency will be fundamental.

With this principle of transparency, AI is no longer just a machine that gives a solution, but a technology that assesses its degree of certainty and explains its decision-making process. The result is a truly collaborative approach between doctor and AI.
Today, are you confident in the way citizens are appropriating AI?
I'm fascinated by these emerging and multiple uses. Now, whether we're writing a greetings card, summarizing a text, organizing a meeting, making a cake recipe or writing an e-mail, we're turning to AI. I don't think we have any bad habits, but I'm more worried about the lack of awareness of the need for transparency in the way AI works. There's a need for information, awareness and education. We're working on this, including at UNamur. With this in mind, 24 colleagues and I have launched a course on the challenges and opportunities of AI, accessible to all university students, whatever their discipline. But this is very clearly an area that needs to be strengthened and accelerated so that it progresses at the same pace as the development of technology.
Another technology that's making inroads into the everyday life of the citizen, and which you're studying closely, is augmented reality: where do we stand?
Are we going to trade in our smartphones for smart glasses? The answer is most likely yes, and in the relatively near future! So I'm studying what's going to happen to the user when there's an extra digital layer grafted onto their environment, onto what they see. We mustn't leave this control exclusively to the tech giants, who all have such prototypes in the pipeline. My job is to find out how, from a technological point of view, we can give more control to the user. How can he filter what he sees? How can he define what information he wants to see, how much, etc.? Our aim is to give him the tools to keep control over these future augmented reality systems.
What kind of tools?
For example, we're developing techniques that allow the user to filter the elements they want to see in real time. At present, existing augmented reality tools give very little power to the user. We're working to reverse this trend. We're also making sure that this presence of augmented reality is for the benefit of the user, to enable them to better understand their environment.
More generally, does the technology adapt sufficiently to the user's needs?
No, too often the user just has to endure these technological developments. My approach as a researcher is the opposite: it's up to the system to adapt to user needs. Every development must be carried out in dialogue with the user. This is why our work lies at the crossroads of computer science research and principles inherited from applied psychology. Because we must, above all, understand how the user functions before we can develop technologies that are more relevant, more effective, more legitimate and better adapted.
The TRAIL4Wallonia initiative
This article is taken from the "Expert" section of Omalius magazine #36 (March 2025).


New impetus for the humanities and social sciences at UNamur
New impetus for the humanities and social sciences at UNamur
A new platform dedicated to research in the humanities and social sciences (SHS) is being launched at UNamur. The aim? To offer SHS researchers methodological support tailored to their needs and strengthen SHS excellence at UNamur. This platform, SHS Impulse, will provide various services such as financial support for training, consultancy, access to resources, or co-financed software purchases.

Whether it concerns linguistics, economics, politics, sustainable development, law, history, educational sciences, literature or translation, research in the humanities and social sciences is as eclectic as it is rich and essential for tackling society's challenges. Of UNamur's eleven research institutes, seven are directly involved in SHS research. While there is a high degree of complementarity in these areas of research, better pooling of resources, sharing and easier access to certain services, resources and support will help to sustain and strengthen the excellence of SHS research at UNamur. It is with this in mind that the SHS impulse platform has just been created.

We started from the needs of SHS researchers to establish four axes developed within this platform
.
Resources organized around 4 axes
- Axis 1 - Support for the acquisition of databases, documentary resources and software
- Axis 2 - Subsidy for cutting-edge training in the use of specialized methods
- Axis 3 - Funding access to the SMCS "Support en Méthodologie et Calcul Statistique" platform at UCLouvain, thanks to an inter-university partnership.
- Axis 4 - Setting up an SHS space, containing a laboratory for running experiments and shared work tools promoting exchanges between researchers.
Outlook
This initiative, launched in January 2025, addresses the specific challenges faced by SHS researchers. The long-term aim is to sustain and expand the services. "We will also hire a researcher expert in methodological analysis in SHS who will be able to inform innovative methodologies and frame the methodological design of research projects," emphasizes Sandrine Biémar, vice-dean of UNamur's Faculty of Education and Training Sciences, a member of the IRDENA institute and the SHS Impulse management committee. "The wish is also to support networking between SHS researchers at UNamur and to be a lever for setting up interdisciplinary projects," adds Sandrine Biémar.
The platform's management team is made up of representatives of the university's various SHS institutes, and ensures efficient management of resources. The platform's impact will be assessed during its initial phase (2025-2027), enabling strategies for its sustainability and development to be defined.

EMCP Faculty: Working together to transform
EMCP Faculty: Working together to transform
In September 1961, a few professors and fifteen students inaugurated the Faculty of Economic and Social Sciences at the University of Namur. Later renamed the Faculté des sciences économiques, sociales et de gestion, or FSESG, in over 60 years of existence, it has trained thousands of students who have become experts and decision-makers in key fields: economics, management, communication and political science. In September 2024, it changed its name to EMCP or Faculté Économie Management Communication sciencesPo. A change of name, symbol of a visionary mutation.

This article is taken from the "The day when" section of Omalius magazine for December 2024.
Four major teaching and research disciplines have marked the Faculty's development and become its pillars over the years: economics and political and social sciences first, then management and communication. "In its early days, the Faculty of Economic, Social and Management Sciences, created by Father Camille-Jean Joset, was united around social sciences and economics," recalls Pietro Zidda, Dean of the EMCP Faculty. "Then, the various fields developed. Management took off, enrolments in political science and communications soared. We were careful to maintain a spirit of collaboration between each of our programs". Far from the usual silos, the Faculty today makes it a point of honor for its chosen disciplines to collaborate, question and nurture each other in order to develop the skills of students and researchers so that together they can contribute to the challenges of a society in transition.
Three key missions
The EMCP Faculty is committed to three major missions. The first is to train responsible experts and decision-makers, through rigorous, hands-on teaching that stimulates critical thinking and openness to the world. It also aims to conduct ambitious, interdisciplinary research with a strong scientific impact, feeding into teaching and innovation. Finally, the EMCP Faculty wishes to act as a responsible player in societal development, sharing knowledge and contributing to informed decisions at regional, national and international levels.
It is therefore quite natural that the FSESG has become the EMCP Faculty, a name now incorporating communication and political sciences and reflecting the importance they have acquired in recent years. Four disciplines united to prepare students and researchers in a transdisciplinary way for the challenges of tomorrow.
Collaboration, transdisciplinarity and unity
The spirit of collaboration is firmly rooted at the heart of the Faculty, which strives to develop transdisciplinary approaches to meet the complex challenges of a society in transition. "To meet these challenges, a solution from a single discipline is no longer enough. We need to think more broadly, with an approach that transcends disciplines," explains Anne-Sophie Collard, Vice-Dean of the EMCP Faculty. A sentiment shared by Zora Gilet, a management engineering student: "This new name above all brings coherence to the Faculty's image and visibility for all the courses on offer. It also represents the intra-faculty diversity that we wish to promote at all levels."
This vision is also accompanied by an internal reorganization, with the creation of four thematic schools or schools: UNamur School of Economics (NSE), UNamur School of Management (UNSM), UNamur School of Social Sciences, Politics and Communication and UNamur School of Evening Studies in Economics and Management. These schools aim to strengthen synergy between disciplines, while promoting a pedagogy that integrates cross-disciplinary skills and innovative working methods. Soft skills, for example, are now systematically integrated into projects, to prepare students to respond to societal challenges in a collaborative and creative way. "I think this change helps to concretize and recognize all the large-scale projects that have been set up in recent years," explains Zora. It's an expression of a desire to develop and innovate, which is more than positive today. I consider myself lucky to be able to witness this change and proud to be part of this community."
"EMCP aims to be the catalyst lever for a future where walls are broken down and barriers between disciplines abolished as much as possible, to provide strong solutions to societal problems," concludes Pietro Zidda. This new name therefore goes beyond mere naming: it symbolizes a renewed commitment to transforming the way graduates are trained, giving them the tools they need to provide strong, coherent solutions to major contemporary challenges.
Innovative and conclusive teaching experiments
Within the Faculty, various projects and teaching experiments illustrate this EMCP vision. Examples?
Learning by doing: an approach that offers immersion in concrete projects from the first year, combining knowledge and cross-disciplinary skills to respond to real-life challenges.
Regards croisés: this project invites students and teachers to explore a topical issue from a variety of disciplinary angles, enriched by exchanges with experts in the field at a major final conference.
Dialogue between a dean and ChatGPT
To mark the name change, a fresco was erected on one of the Faculty's facades. The result? A work in shades of blue and green, where the four letters of the faculty are concealed. A young shoot evokes hope and sustainability, patterns of connections symbolize the interactions and complementarities between the various disciplines, a pendulum embodies the balance sought between them...

A little wink, the Dean of Faculty wondered how this fresco would be perceived by an outside audience: "This work is quite original compared to what we usually do. So I asked the artificial intelligence to give me its interpretation. And then, surprise, the answer was bluffing! ChatGPT perfectly identified the meaning and intentions of the project, as if it had read our initial brief", laughs the dean.
The EMCP Circle: students involved in change
Students have also been involved in this transformation, notably through their circles. Thus, the Cercle €co became the Cercle EMCP. "We were contacted by the Dean, who suggested that our Circle should bear the same name as the Faculty, and this seemed to us to be a perfectly natural move. We had many discussions with the dean and the vice-presidents of the Cercle. We put a lot of effort into the name change, but it was an extremely rewarding experience," explains Matthieu Dupuis, President of the Cercle EMCP. "The change may have come as a surprise to some students, but this new name enriches the Faculty's image by enhancing the value of all its courses of study. It embodies strong values and, in my opinion, represents our Faculty better than the old one."
This article is taken from the "The day when" section of Omalius magazine #35 (December 2024).


Is watching gaming gaming? Twitch and the video game revolution
Is watching gaming gaming? Twitch and the video game revolution
A lifelong video game enthusiast, Fanny Barnabé, a researcher at the CRIDS research center (Namur Digital Institute) and lecturer at the University of Namur, explores behind the scenes of a major cultural phenomenon: video game streaming on Twitch. Between humor, irony and toxic discourse, she deciphers the issues at stake in a digital space in the throes of change.

Video games are no longer just a pastime: they've become an object of study in their own right. And Fanny Barnabé is one of its leading figures at UNamur. Trained as a literary scholar, she turned to Game Studies to better understand the complex fictional universes that have always fascinated her. "It was because of video games that I studied literature," she confides with a smile. Today, she's interested in a fast-growing phenomenon: the broadcasting of live video game games on platforms like Twitch.

Twitch, between humor and toxic speeches
On Twitch, millions of viewers watch streamers play their favorite games every day. This practice, known as "secondary gaming" (a concept developed by ULiège researcher Julie Delbouille), involves playing vicariously by watching someone else hold the controller. "Some people no longer play themselves, they watch others play. It's become a fully-fledged way of consuming video games", explains Fanny Barnabé, "Twitch is a space where humor reigns, often in the form of irony or second degree. But it's also a place where toxicity can develop very quickly". Hence the theme of his current research: when does an ironic comment become violent? At what point can we determine whether or not a comment is acceptable in the video game context?
A fast-changing industry
Fanny Barnabé's work doesn't stop at Twitch. She has also studied in-game storytelling, tutorials, or even players' creative practices, such as fan fiction or "machinimas" (films made within games themselves).

Video games are an incredibly rich and interdisciplinary field of study
And this terrain is changing fast. Very fast. "Video games have gone from a niche hobby to a mass phenomenon. Today, over 90% of young people play," she points out. This popularity is accompanied by an economic transformation: in the context of platform capitalism, the practice of gaming tends to become profitable, monetized, professionalized. "We've gone from the game you buy once, to the "game as a service" model, and to streaming, where professional streamers somehow convert their gaming experience into advertising revenue."
A mirror of our changing society
For Fanny Barnabé, it's hard to predict how the world of video games will evolve in the future. "It's becoming very difficult to talk about video games as a single object, so diverse are the practices," she explains. Between mobile games like Candy Crush, e-sport competitions or collaborative online adventures, the uses are multiple and reflect the complexity of our digital society.

This diversity is part of a broader context: that of platform capitalism. "Gaming, which was originally a leisure practice, is now integrated into profit-making logics," observes the researcher. Streaming, in particular, illustrates this transformation: gaming is becoming a productive, income-generating activity, sometimes even a profession in its own right.
Fanny Barnabé - portrait
At 36, Fanny Barnabé recently joined the ranks of UNamur academics. She is a lecturer in the "Social, Political and Communication Sciences" Department of the SciencesPo Economics Management Communication Faculty (EMCP). There, she teaches students in the three-year bachelor's program in interactive and participatory media and digital transition. Next academic year, she will be teaching the Media Narration and Storytelling course.
Fanny is also passionate about Japan. In 2017-2018, she completed a one-year postdoctoral stay in Kyoto, at the Ritsumeikan Center for Game Studies, under the direction of Professor Hiroshi Yoshida, with the help of a Marie-Curie COFUND fellowship from the Université de Liège (co-funded by the European Union). This stay was devoted to the study of video game paratexts.
During the academic mission organized by the Wallonie-Bruxelles International, on the sidelines of the Osaka World Expo, she was able to return to Tokyo and Kyoto to re-establish links with various colleagues specializing in game studies and set up research partnerships between Japanese institutions and UNamur.

Training
Discover our courses in economics, management, communication and political science.

With AI, it's all about putting the user in control
With AI, it's all about putting the user in control
For Bruno Dumas, computer science fits in with the principles of applied psychology
Artificial intelligence (AI) is interfering in our professional as well as our private lives. It both seduces and worries us. On a global scale, it is at the heart of major strategic, societal or economic issues, still being debated in mid-February 2025, at the AI World Summit in Paris. But how can we, as users, avoid being subjected to it? How can we gain access to the necessary transparency of its workings? By placing his research prism on the user's side, Bruno Dumas is something of a "computer psychologist". An expert in human-computer interaction, co-president of the NaDI Institute (Namur Digital Institute), he defends the idea of a reasoned and enlightened use of emerging technologies.

This article is taken from the "Expert" section of Omalius magazine #36 (March 2025).
In early February 2025, the AI Act, the world's first general legislation on AI that frames its use and development came into force in Europe. As a specialist in human-machine interaction, does this new framework reassure you?
At UNamur, within my research group, we focus our work on the user side and his interaction with technology. When it comes to AI, we are particularly focused on this notion of transparency, which is reflected in the principle of the AI Act. How does AI make decisions? What data is it based on? What are its operating processes? Can it explain them? This need for AI transparency is of paramount importance to the user. For the time being, however, this is blocked from a purely technical point of view, essentially because of the gargantuan amount of data that AI uses to function, to train itself. At present, only experts are really capable of understanding how AI works. However, since AI is often a tool for the citizen, the need for transparency must also, and above all, be accessible to the citizen. At UNamur, a great deal of research is being carried out along these lines.
.For example, you're working with doctors on the degree of trust they have in AI as part of their profession: what's it all about?
It's about an AI system that should, in particular, enable doctors to help them identify tumors on medical images. The challenge? For the doctor to know whether the answer provided by the AI is reliable, and how reliable it is. We are developing and testing this process with doctors. A process that will enable the AI to give them its degree of certainty. Early feedback shows that this transparency will be fundamental.

With this principle of transparency, AI is no longer just a machine that gives a solution, but a technology that assesses its degree of certainty and explains its decision-making process. The result is a truly collaborative approach between doctor and AI.
Today, are you confident in the way citizens are appropriating AI?
I'm fascinated by these emerging and multiple uses. Now, whether we're writing a greetings card, summarizing a text, organizing a meeting, making a cake recipe or writing an e-mail, we're turning to AI. I don't think we have any bad habits, but I'm more worried about the lack of awareness of the need for transparency in the way AI works. There's a need for information, awareness and education. We're working on this, including at UNamur. With this in mind, 24 colleagues and I have launched a course on the challenges and opportunities of AI, accessible to all university students, whatever their discipline. But this is very clearly an area that needs to be strengthened and accelerated so that it progresses at the same pace as the development of technology.
Another technology that's making inroads into the everyday life of the citizen, and which you're studying closely, is augmented reality: where do we stand?
Are we going to trade in our smartphones for smart glasses? The answer is most likely yes, and in the relatively near future! So I'm studying what's going to happen to the user when there's an extra digital layer grafted onto their environment, onto what they see. We mustn't leave this control exclusively to the tech giants, who all have such prototypes in the pipeline. My job is to find out how, from a technological point of view, we can give more control to the user. How can he filter what he sees? How can he define what information he wants to see, how much, etc.? Our aim is to give him the tools to keep control over these future augmented reality systems.
What kind of tools?
For example, we're developing techniques that allow the user to filter the elements they want to see in real time. At present, existing augmented reality tools give very little power to the user. We're working to reverse this trend. We're also making sure that this presence of augmented reality is for the benefit of the user, to enable them to better understand their environment.
More generally, does the technology adapt sufficiently to the user's needs?
No, too often the user just has to endure these technological developments. My approach as a researcher is the opposite: it's up to the system to adapt to user needs. Every development must be carried out in dialogue with the user. This is why our work lies at the crossroads of computer science research and principles inherited from applied psychology. Because we must, above all, understand how the user functions before we can develop technologies that are more relevant, more effective, more legitimate and better adapted.
The TRAIL4Wallonia initiative
This article is taken from the "Expert" section of Omalius magazine #36 (March 2025).


New impetus for the humanities and social sciences at UNamur
New impetus for the humanities and social sciences at UNamur
A new platform dedicated to research in the humanities and social sciences (SHS) is being launched at UNamur. The aim? To offer SHS researchers methodological support tailored to their needs and strengthen SHS excellence at UNamur. This platform, SHS Impulse, will provide various services such as financial support for training, consultancy, access to resources, or co-financed software purchases.

Whether it concerns linguistics, economics, politics, sustainable development, law, history, educational sciences, literature or translation, research in the humanities and social sciences is as eclectic as it is rich and essential for tackling society's challenges. Of UNamur's eleven research institutes, seven are directly involved in SHS research. While there is a high degree of complementarity in these areas of research, better pooling of resources, sharing and easier access to certain services, resources and support will help to sustain and strengthen the excellence of SHS research at UNamur. It is with this in mind that the SHS impulse platform has just been created.

We started from the needs of SHS researchers to establish four axes developed within this platform
.
Resources organized around 4 axes
- Axis 1 - Support for the acquisition of databases, documentary resources and software
- Axis 2 - Subsidy for cutting-edge training in the use of specialized methods
- Axis 3 - Funding access to the SMCS "Support en Méthodologie et Calcul Statistique" platform at UCLouvain, thanks to an inter-university partnership.
- Axis 4 - Setting up an SHS space, containing a laboratory for running experiments and shared work tools promoting exchanges between researchers.
Outlook
This initiative, launched in January 2025, addresses the specific challenges faced by SHS researchers. The long-term aim is to sustain and expand the services. "We will also hire a researcher expert in methodological analysis in SHS who will be able to inform innovative methodologies and frame the methodological design of research projects," emphasizes Sandrine Biémar, vice-dean of UNamur's Faculty of Education and Training Sciences, a member of the IRDENA institute and the SHS Impulse management committee. "The wish is also to support networking between SHS researchers at UNamur and to be a lever for setting up interdisciplinary projects," adds Sandrine Biémar.
The platform's management team is made up of representatives of the university's various SHS institutes, and ensures efficient management of resources. The platform's impact will be assessed during its initial phase (2025-2027), enabling strategies for its sustainability and development to be defined.

EMCP Faculty: Working together to transform
EMCP Faculty: Working together to transform
In September 1961, a few professors and fifteen students inaugurated the Faculty of Economic and Social Sciences at the University of Namur. Later renamed the Faculté des sciences économiques, sociales et de gestion, or FSESG, in over 60 years of existence, it has trained thousands of students who have become experts and decision-makers in key fields: economics, management, communication and political science. In September 2024, it changed its name to EMCP or Faculté Économie Management Communication sciencesPo. A change of name, symbol of a visionary mutation.

This article is taken from the "The day when" section of Omalius magazine for December 2024.
Four major teaching and research disciplines have marked the Faculty's development and become its pillars over the years: economics and political and social sciences first, then management and communication. "In its early days, the Faculty of Economic, Social and Management Sciences, created by Father Camille-Jean Joset, was united around social sciences and economics," recalls Pietro Zidda, Dean of the EMCP Faculty. "Then, the various fields developed. Management took off, enrolments in political science and communications soared. We were careful to maintain a spirit of collaboration between each of our programs". Far from the usual silos, the Faculty today makes it a point of honor for its chosen disciplines to collaborate, question and nurture each other in order to develop the skills of students and researchers so that together they can contribute to the challenges of a society in transition.
Three key missions
The EMCP Faculty is committed to three major missions. The first is to train responsible experts and decision-makers, through rigorous, hands-on teaching that stimulates critical thinking and openness to the world. It also aims to conduct ambitious, interdisciplinary research with a strong scientific impact, feeding into teaching and innovation. Finally, the EMCP Faculty wishes to act as a responsible player in societal development, sharing knowledge and contributing to informed decisions at regional, national and international levels.
It is therefore quite natural that the FSESG has become the EMCP Faculty, a name now incorporating communication and political sciences and reflecting the importance they have acquired in recent years. Four disciplines united to prepare students and researchers in a transdisciplinary way for the challenges of tomorrow.
Collaboration, transdisciplinarity and unity
The spirit of collaboration is firmly rooted at the heart of the Faculty, which strives to develop transdisciplinary approaches to meet the complex challenges of a society in transition. "To meet these challenges, a solution from a single discipline is no longer enough. We need to think more broadly, with an approach that transcends disciplines," explains Anne-Sophie Collard, Vice-Dean of the EMCP Faculty. A sentiment shared by Zora Gilet, a management engineering student: "This new name above all brings coherence to the Faculty's image and visibility for all the courses on offer. It also represents the intra-faculty diversity that we wish to promote at all levels."
This vision is also accompanied by an internal reorganization, with the creation of four thematic schools or schools: UNamur School of Economics (NSE), UNamur School of Management (UNSM), UNamur School of Social Sciences, Politics and Communication and UNamur School of Evening Studies in Economics and Management. These schools aim to strengthen synergy between disciplines, while promoting a pedagogy that integrates cross-disciplinary skills and innovative working methods. Soft skills, for example, are now systematically integrated into projects, to prepare students to respond to societal challenges in a collaborative and creative way. "I think this change helps to concretize and recognize all the large-scale projects that have been set up in recent years," explains Zora. It's an expression of a desire to develop and innovate, which is more than positive today. I consider myself lucky to be able to witness this change and proud to be part of this community."
"EMCP aims to be the catalyst lever for a future where walls are broken down and barriers between disciplines abolished as much as possible, to provide strong solutions to societal problems," concludes Pietro Zidda. This new name therefore goes beyond mere naming: it symbolizes a renewed commitment to transforming the way graduates are trained, giving them the tools they need to provide strong, coherent solutions to major contemporary challenges.
Innovative and conclusive teaching experiments
Within the Faculty, various projects and teaching experiments illustrate this EMCP vision. Examples?
Learning by doing: an approach that offers immersion in concrete projects from the first year, combining knowledge and cross-disciplinary skills to respond to real-life challenges.
Regards croisés: this project invites students and teachers to explore a topical issue from a variety of disciplinary angles, enriched by exchanges with experts in the field at a major final conference.
Dialogue between a dean and ChatGPT
To mark the name change, a fresco was erected on one of the Faculty's facades. The result? A work in shades of blue and green, where the four letters of the faculty are concealed. A young shoot evokes hope and sustainability, patterns of connections symbolize the interactions and complementarities between the various disciplines, a pendulum embodies the balance sought between them...

A little wink, the Dean of Faculty wondered how this fresco would be perceived by an outside audience: "This work is quite original compared to what we usually do. So I asked the artificial intelligence to give me its interpretation. And then, surprise, the answer was bluffing! ChatGPT perfectly identified the meaning and intentions of the project, as if it had read our initial brief", laughs the dean.
The EMCP Circle: students involved in change
Students have also been involved in this transformation, notably through their circles. Thus, the Cercle €co became the Cercle EMCP. "We were contacted by the Dean, who suggested that our Circle should bear the same name as the Faculty, and this seemed to us to be a perfectly natural move. We had many discussions with the dean and the vice-presidents of the Cercle. We put a lot of effort into the name change, but it was an extremely rewarding experience," explains Matthieu Dupuis, President of the Cercle EMCP. "The change may have come as a surprise to some students, but this new name enriches the Faculty's image by enhancing the value of all its courses of study. It embodies strong values and, in my opinion, represents our Faculty better than the old one."
This article is taken from the "The day when" section of Omalius magazine #35 (December 2024).
