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.

• 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.

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.

The strength of disciplinary know-how within PaTHs makes possible bold openings into the exact sciences, which have already been initiated by most of the 5 centers and groups affiliated to the institute: AcanthuM (Monumental, archaeological and artistic heritage), aRaiRe (Recherches namuroises en histoire Rurale), Fontes Antiquitatis, HiSI (History, sounds and images) and PraME (Medieval written practices).

The mammisi or birthing house is a typical architectural feature of Egyptian temples from the Greco-Roman period. The Roman mammisi at Dendera, dating from the Nerva-antonine period (2nd century CE), is the last specimen of this type and embodies the synergy of 400 years of tradition and innovation. The mammisi was dedicated to the child-god and celebrated his (re)birth as a guarantee of natural cycles and thus of Egypt's prosperity.

This project aims to reconstruct the intellectual and material processes that had to be put in place to realize the architectural project. From the priests who gathered theological ideas to the hierogrammatists who wrote the texts and designed the decoration on papyrus, from the architects and workers who erected the walls to the engravers who transferred the concept of decoration from papyrus to the walls, this project sets out to study this monument from different angles in order to identify the operational chain of an architectural project.

The missions in Egypt will produce a new publication conforming to modern standards of epigraphy and a translation of all the texts. This will make it possible to study the arrangement of the monument's decoration made up of offering scenes and texts according to the rules that Egyptologists have called "temple grammar", and to understand the relationship between image and text.

The project will thus provide the first detailed study of the theology of Dendera's two child-gods. It will analyze the hieroglyphic system, characteristic of texts from the Roman period, and examine the walls to define the engraving techniques of the ancient craftsmen. Finally, he will place the mammisi in a wider context to highlight the architectural strategies of the emperors of the Nerva-antonine dynasty in Egypt.

Over the past twenty years, several works by photographic artists have given visibility to the effects of radioactivity - mainly following the Chernobyl and Fukushima nuclear disasters - or to the risks associated with the burial of radioactive waste.

Series by Japan's Takashi Arai, Switzerland's Julian Charrière, France's David Fathi, Guillaume Herbaut, Jacqueline Salmon, Anaïs Tondeur and Lucas Chastel, Germany's Jürgen Nefzger and Wim Wenders, and Belgium's Cécile Massart have been selected.

Five objectives are pursued in this research:

• analyze the contexts of these artistic productions;
• define the intentions of their authors, with regard to their body of work and their contribution to a nuclear culture;
• study the aesthetics of their creations, in relation to the materiality of photography, its nature as imprint, trace, testimony or even representation ;
• evaluate the public reception of these distinct works;
• contribute, through the dialogical linking of these works, their analysis and dissemination, to a nuclear culture nourished by artistic expression.

A comparative method will be applied to the study of the different series in the corpus to identify their specificities, convergences and/or divergences, assessed against the scientific literature available in the field of visual arts and the humanities on nuclear power and its representations. Fieldwork will be undertaken through interviews conducted with each photographer.

From a cultural studies perspective, this research is part of an approach to analyzing the construction of representations and knowledge, free from bias but invested in societal debates in which the art center and publishing house partners in this research project are also involved, through their respective activities, and which will disseminate the results via:

• an exhibition scheduled at the Le Delta art center (Namur, March-July 2026)
• a study day involving some of the exhibited artists (UNamur, March 2026)
• a book to be published by La Lettre Volée editions (Brussels) (spring 2026)

FNRS funding will enable interviews to be conducted with the artists concerned, in Belgium, France and Germany, but also to guarantee the dissemination of this research, by funding part of the book and exhibition communication in which it will take shape.

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!