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

On the night of January 31, 1953, the North Sea suddenly rose by almost four meters, submerging parts of the Netherlands and Belgium. The disaster caused the death of over 2,500 people, as well as considerable damage. According to Anna Kiriliouk, lecturer in statistics at UNamur's Department of Mathematics and EMCP Faculty, this exceptional event truly marked "the beginning of the development of extreme value theory, with the development of the first extreme value construction project"

The Delta Plan, as it is called, is a system of dikes that protects the Netherlands against the risk of flooding, with these dikes overtopping once every 10,000 years. A rare danger, certainly, but not zero, which "could not have been calculated using conventional statistics, which are very poorly adapted to rare events", believes the mathematician.

While climate change is often discussed in terms of averages, such as rising temperatures and sea levels, it also has the consequence of increasing the frequency of extreme weather events, with significant repercussions for our societies. "In other words, the risk increases along with the concentration of greenhouse gases (GHGs) in the atmosphere", summarizes the researcher. "Thus, a flood calculated in 1953 to occur only every 10,000 years does not have the same significance as today. The latter could happen more frequently, for example every 1,000 years."

While extreme weather events are on the increase, it's difficult in practice to attribute any particular flood or drought to climate change. With this in mind, Anna Kiriliouk has just been awarded an interdisciplinary research project,named EXALT, in collaboration with UCLouvain. "It involves both climatologists and statisticians, she reveals.

In practice, the EXALT project will therefore calculate the probabilities of an extreme event occurring, and compare this probability with that of the same situation in a world where GHG emissions would not have increased. "Of course, we don't have real data from such a world", says Anna Kiriliouk. "We are therefore basing ourselves on alternative climate simulations, the quality of which we will moreover compare, with a focus on extreme events."

Divided into three working groups, the EXALT project will seek in particular to determine the role of climate change in the occurrence of floods, as well as heat waves and drought in Europe. And to do so as realistically as possible: "One of the things we want to incorporate into climate models concerns the dependency between data," explains Anna Kiriliouk. "For example, if a heat wave hits Namur, there's a good chance that the same temperatures will affect Louvain-La-Neuve. We therefore say that there is a strong spatial dependency between these two data. However, this dependence is probably not at all valid for rain, which is much more heterogeneous. By taking into account all these variables, both spatial and temporal, we hope to improve existing models."

A third working group will study much more distant areas, located in Antarctica. "Until 2016, the extent of the Antarctic ice pack was increasing, before abruptly decreasing", the researcher illuminates. "Or, according to the models, this event was considered almost impossible. But with one of EXALT's partners, we began to analyze the evolution of pack ice extent using extreme value theory. With the latter, this sudden drop was no longer so improbable. This gave us confidence in our approach, which is all the more important when the state of the pack ice has such a strong influence on other climate variables."

This interaction between several climatic processes is, moreover, the subject of a second project just obtained by Anna Kiriliouk and funded by an FNRS Mandat d'Impulsion Scientifique. "The aim is to make it possible to study what we call compound events", explains the researcher. "During extreme climatic situations, we usually associate very high or low values simultaneously, such as a lack of rain and high temperature, resulting in an intense drought. But in the case of compound phenomena, we find that the combination of several variables, albeit in a moderate state, results in a severe and unusual event."

In 2017, for example, Hurricane Sandy, which struck the US coastline, is considered a compound event. While North Atlantic hurricanes usually dissipate in mid-ocean, this one coincided with onshore winds and a high tide, leading to massive flooding of New York and the surrounding area.

"In this project, we will therefore try to include more flexibility between the different variables, by introducing different degrees of dependence, the mathematician elaborates. "We're also going to try, as a second step, to group the dependencies together, in order to lighten the models, which become more and more complex as we add nuances to them. And once these models have been modified, we'll apply them to recent events to test their realism."

With Professor André Füzfa, the most complex notions of gravity, gravitational waves and relativity become (almost) child's play. With his explanations, interstellar travel, for example, becomes almost as simple as a bus ride!

The astrophysicist indeed has that ability to make cutting-edge scientific research in cosmology and astrophysics understandable and attractive.

Through his "cartes blanches", his media appearances, or the observatory tours he offers to the general public from a very young age, he is passionate about explaining how our solar system and planets work, but also about drawing attention to the environmental, economic and scientific issues, linked to the exploitation of the space domain.

His passion for sharing knowledge has even led him to embark on an unusual path for a scientist: science fiction. André Füzfa is the author of an educational science fiction novel entitled "À l'appel des étoiles". And his second novel will be released in January 2025.

In awarding this prize, the "Matière Grise" program, in partnership with Paris Match, was keen to salute and recognize André Füzfa's investment, in popularizing science.

"This recognition gives me great pleasure. And I wasn't expecting it. I do science popularization, not for myself, but for others. For society. Because knowledge and its dissemination at all levels make our society more democratic and more sustainable. All this helps to increase collective intelligence, and that's particularly useful in a context where fakenews occupy an important place".

When asked what his trick is for being a good popularizer, André Füzfa doesn't hesitate for a second. "I've kept a childlike spirit and that wonder for the things around me, including my job as a scientist. This allows me to approach my work in a different way. I have fun and I'm also enriched on a human level by popularizing science," he confides.

©Paris Match

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!

BABots un projet d’envergure, proposant une nouvelle approche de la bio-robotique et soutenu par le Conseil Européen de l’Innovation, qui débute en octobre 2023. Coordonné par le professeur Elio Tuci de la Faculté d’Informatique et de l’institut de recherche naXys de l’Université de Namur, le projet BABots réuni six autres partenaires: le Département de neurobiologie médicale de l’Université hébraïque de Jérusalem, l’Institut des sciences et technologies cognitives (ISTC) du Conseil national italien de la recherche (CNR), l’Institut Max Planck de neurobiologie du comportement - CAESAR (Allemagne), l’Institut Max Planck du comportement animal (Allemagne), le Département des études de gestion de l'université d'Aalto (Finlande) et l’entreprise d'agriculture verticale ZERO Farming (Italie).

Ensemble, ils vont fédérer leur expertise pour étudier de manière interdisciplinaire le comportement individuel et collectif de petits robots biologiques : les BABots. Ce sont de petits animaux dont le système nerveux est génétiquement reconfiguré pour produire de nouveaux comportements. Ces créatures serviront de robots animaux biologiques destinés à exécuter diverses tâches, telles que la protection des cultures contre l'invasion d'agents pathogènes, l'élimination des contaminants du sol ou de l'eau, ou la réalisation de procédures cliniques spécifiques au sein du corps humain.

« Bien que certaines de ces tâches puissent également être réalisées par des moyens chimiques ou par l'utilisation de robots conventionnels, les BABots offriront un niveau inégalé d'agilité, de précision, d'efficacité et de biocompatibilité », soulignent les chercheurs.

L’objectif est de développer la technologie BABots, et de démontrer son utilité et sa sécurité dans un cadre éthique et réglementaire rigoureux. Le premier système BABots sera mis en œuvre au sein du C. elegans, un ver nématode de 1 mm de long. Un groupe de nématodes sera programmé pour coordonner leurs actions, détecter et éliminer des agents pathogènes. Ce scénario sera exclusivement étudié dans une boîte de Petri. Toutefois, le projet a pour ambition de tester l’efficacité de la technologie BABots aussi dans un environnement naturel comme celui confiné de l’agriculture verticale. 

• La neurobiologie et la biologie synthétique. Il s’agira de concevoir et construire des vers transgéniques biosécurisés de type C. elegans.
• L’intelligence en essaim et la dynamique des populations. Les chercheurs vont étudier le comportement individuel et collectif des Babots, tant sur le plan théorique qu'expérimental. L’objectif est de pouvoir déterminer comment programmer le comportement des BABots et comment composer les populations.
• L’Éthique de la technologie. Une équipe va travailler sur la conception d’un cadre éthique et réglementaire solide et efficace pour le développement de la technologie BABots.
• L’agriculture verticale. L’objectif sera de pouvoir fournir un contexte réaliste en vue de la mise en œuvre d'un premier BABots dans un environnement agricole contrôlé et confiné (risque zéro).

Strictement encadrée, la modification génétique est une pratique courante dans la recherche fondamentale et est de plus en plus utilisée dans diverses applications. Par exemple, certains poissons sont conçus pour devenir fluorescents lorsqu'ils rencontrent des polluants. La nouveauté essentielle qui distingue les BABots des simples animaux transgéniques est qu'ils seront actifs et autonomes et qu'ils produiront les réponses complexes souhaitées en fonction des situations. Au lieu de se contenter de signaler la présence d'une substance cible, ils agiront pour l'éliminer de manière efficace.

Si la technologie robotique actuelle joue un rôle important et croissant dans de nombreux domaines, elle présente certaines limites, que les BABots pourraient contourner. D’une part, les BABots feront preuve d'une sensibilité, d'une agilité et d'une compatibilité supérieures dans divers environnements biologiques à plusieurs échelles, grâce à leurs capteurs et actionneurs biologiques très évolués. D’autre part, ils présentent un haut degré de flexibilité et de sophistication, grâce à leur programmation au niveau des réseaux neuronaux biologiques. Enfin, ils seront faciles à fabriquer, à alimenter, à recycler et finalement à dégrader, car ils peuvent s'auto-répliquer et sont entièrement organiques.

Une attention particulière sera accordée au public afin de le sensibiliser aux opportunités ainsi qu'aux risques calculés que comportent les BABots. À cette fin, de multiples activités de démonstration et d'éducation seront menées, tels que des événements grand public où des discussions constructives ouvertes et des séances de réflexion sur les questions d'éthique et d'acceptabilité sociale liées aux objectifs du projet seront proposées.

Ce projet a reçu un financement du programme de travail du Conseil européen de l'innovation Horizon Europe - EIC PathFinder, dans le cadre de la convention Project 101098722 — BABots.