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.

According to Elena Frech, member of the Transitions and of the Department of Social Sciences, and Communication (Faculty EMCP), the lack of parenting Members of the European Parliament, and in particular mothers and young parents, has a direct impact on political decisions. "Parents see the world differently and, if there are fewer parents in the Parliament, this will inevitably affect policy and the decisions taken," she explains in an interview with EUobserver.

The researcher highlights the difficulties faced by MEPs in reconciling their mandate and family life. Between long working hours, travel between Strasbourg, Brussels and their constituencies, as well as the absence of formal parental leave, many elected representatives are forced to curtail or interrupt their political careers. "The absence of a parental leave policy, combined with a demanding schedule, has led some MPs not to stand for re-election in 2024," adds Elena Frech.

The European Parliament currently provides neither maternity nor paternity leave for its members. According to Elena Frech, this lack of official recognition of parental leave increases the pressure on parent MEPs. "Their party loses a vote, because parents on leave cannot be replaced for the vote. So the pressure to return is very strong" (EUobserver).

Elena Frech's research highlights a structural problem within the European institutions, which limits the diversity and representation of parents, particularly women, in the European Parliament. Her work raises a fundamental question: how can internal regulations be adapted to take better account of the reality of MEPs' families? A key issue for the future of European democracy.

Credits : the interview passages in this article are taken from an interview with Elena Frech conducted by EUobserver.

Source for EUobserver article : Bonneyrat, S. (2025).Is the EU Parliament still letting down female MEPs with children? EUobserver.

Find the scientific studies on which the EUobserver article is based:

Frech, Elena and Sophie Kopsch.2024. "Beyond Rhetoric: The European Parliament as a Workplace for Parents and Current Reform Debates", Politics and Governance 12.

Frech, Elena.2024. Mothers, parliamentarians, leaders: career factors influencing women's representation in the European Parliament - a case study of German parliamentarians.European Politics and Society, 1–19.

At a time when various governments are trying to get us to work until we're 67, some workers are continuing to work past the legal retirement age.

The BRIDGE-EXT project, funded by the PDR du F.R.S-FNRS, aims to gain a better understanding of these professional situations by questioning both the individual and relational reasons that contribute to continuing to work, but also the structural dynamics involved. It is for the latter reason that the researchers have developed a partnership with colleagues in French-speaking Switzerland, under the supervision of Prof. Valérie Hugentobler of the Haute Ecole de Travail Social de Lausanne (HETSL/HES-SO).

The interest of this collaboration lies in understanding post-retirement work according to differentiated political contexts where retirement systems are both fairly comparable, but also very different. How, then, are we to apprehend this work, which poses both the question of life choices and the constraints, particularly financial, that weigh on individuals today?

The research team will be made up of sociologists and anthropologists specializing in issues of aging at work. Amélie Pierre will be hired at UNamur to work on these issues, which are at the heart of current affairs.

In recent years, her scientific horizons have opened up to questions related to transmissions, life courses and temporalities, as well as to the sociology of emotions.

She is also a member of the Institut TRANSITIONS - Pôle Transitions et âges de la vie. This cluster studies the way in which these life courses are recomposed according to new social constraints and normative imperatives. It focuses on the fragility of populations at all stages of life, and also on the repercussions of political measures and mechanisms on the construction of life courses. It brings together researchers from different disciplinary backgrounds who analyze both the normative transformations affecting life courses and life-age transitions.

Over the past decade, the European political landscape has undergone major upheavals, with the collapse of certain parties, the emergence of new players and a fragmentation of the political offering. The consequences? An increase in abstention, greater electoral volatility and more unpredictable results. Against this backdrop, the social-democratic parties, emblems of the mass parties of the second half of the twentieth century now in difficulty, have found themselves facing competition from new players (new center parties, far-right formations, and left-wing populist parties).

This project aims to answer the following question: How have "old school " social-democratic parties adapted in the face of new competition? Did they seek to respond to the ideological and organizational innovations of the new parties?

If we look back 10 years, we see that social democratic parties suffered marked electoral setbacks in the wake of the 2008 crisis. Yet, despite the initial success of emerging movements, and against some predictions, the traditional center-left parties in the countries studied did not collapse. On the contrary, in Spain and Italy, these parties have recovered. In France, the PS remains resilient and a key player in the political game. In Belgium, despite a gradual erosion, the Socialist family remains at a high electoral level in both Flanders and Wallonia.

Through this project, the idea is to provide a key to understanding this social-democratic resilience. The aim is to study the reasons for the strategic adaptations of these players, taking into account various factors that vary between the countries studied: identity and weight of the new competing parties, specific history of the social-democratic party, electoral system (from more proportional to more majoritarian), etc. Moreover, by studying social democracy, this project aims to provide keys to understanding the transformations of other traditional political families (Christian Democrat, Liberal, Conservative, etc.). One could imagine the same project in mirror form with, as its theme, the adaptations of center-right parties to the rise of the far right, for example.

The project is based on qualitative methods - analysis of discourse, documents, archives and interviews with political players - to understand how social-democratic players interpreted and reacted to the context, and trace the processes that led them to adapt their ideology or structure, sometimes at the cost of bitter internal struggles.

Since February 2023, he has been a lecturer in the Department of Social, Political and Communication Sciences at the EMCP Faculty of the University of Namur. He recently published with Verso, in collaboration with Anton Jäger: The Populist Moment. The Left After the Great Recession.

In December 2024, Arthur Borriello was awarded an MIS from the FNRS. This prestigious 3-year funding aims to support young tenured academics wishing to develop an original and innovative research program by acquiring their scientific autonomy within their Department.

Within the Democratic Transformations Pole of the TRANSITIONS Institute, this mandate will enable the constitution of a research team led by the researcher.