The Faculty of Economics, Social Sciences and Management becomes "EMCP", symbolizing a joint effort for a better society

From just a few dozen students and staff in its early days, the Faculty today boasts a close-knit community of over 1700 students and 250 staff members, teachers, researchers and administrative staff.

Four major teaching and research disciplines have marked the Faculty's development and over the years have become its pillars: economics and political and social sciences first, then management and communication.

Far from the usual silos, the Faculty makes it a point of honor for its chosen disciplines to collaborate, question and feed off 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, whether economic, political, social, environmental or digital.

The Faculty's three missions are:

• To train students and researchers for their future role as experts and responsible decision-makers through scientifically rigorous, hands-on teaching, developing their critical thinking and openness to the world,
• To ensure ambitious, high-quality research in its areas of expertise, aiming for international scientific impact, open to interdisciplinarity, which feeds teaching, innovation and social and societal debates,
• To be a responsible player in the development of our society on the economic, social, environmental and political levels, by sharing knowledge, advising and assisting in decision-making both regionally, nationally and internationally.

It is therefore only natural that the FSESG should become the Faculty EMCP, 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.

"EMCP is therefore more than just a name change. It embodies a vision," emphasizes Pietro Zidda, Dean of the EMCP Faculty.

And beyond the symbolism, EMCP embodies the vitality of a faculty embedded in the University of Namur, proud of its values of openness, excellence, sustainability and freedom, putting people at the center of its concerns, in the service of humanity and the common good.

Within the Faculty, various projects and teaching experiments illustrate this EMCP vision:

• (New in 2024) UNamur School of Management. Gone are the days of everything to do with "business administration", as the Faculty renames its department to reflect its resolutely responsible and sustainable vision of management: helping to create and make a success of shared, responsible projects, whether for-profit or not.
• (New in 2024) Specialized Master's degree in Management and Economics of Sustainable Development (MEDD). In addition to the transformation of existing programs with the aim of reinforcing transdisciplinarity in the service of transitions, a new program with a staggered timetable sees the light of day. The MEDD master's degree aims to rethink public policies, corporate strategies, and modes of collaboration, production and consumption, in the light of today's environmental and societal challenges.
• (New in 2024) The Journées d'Education au Développement Durable et à la Transition écologique (JEDDT) are the perfect example of this desire to break down the barriers between disciplines in the service of transitions. Aimed at students from all faculties in a cross-disciplinary perspective, these days, in which the Faculty actively participates, enable them to work creatively in workshops and multidisciplinary teams on themes linked to the challenges of transitions, mixing legal, political, economic, managerial, medical, philosophical, scientific, IT and other perspectives.
• Learning by Doing is a pedagogical approach developed by the Faculty, which fundamentally alters university teaching as traditionally conceived. Knowledge is acquired through concrete projects, practice and experience. These are intended to be collaborative and interdisciplinary, and intensify over the course of the curriculum. Revolutionizing university pedagogy, they now form the backbone of the teaching programs offered by the faculty. The aim is to lead students, thanks to the monitoring and coaching of teachers, to decompartmentalize subjects and mobilize their knowledge and skills around concrete cases linked to the challenges of transitions.
• Regards Croisés aims to cultivate the critical thinking of the Faculty's students about a topical issue by offering a cross-disciplinary look at the different disciplines taught. The question is tackled in different courses, and teachers invite each other to cross-fertilize their contributions. The initiative culminates in a conference at which experts from the world of associations, politics and business are invited to debate with students.
• Service Learning is a pedagogical approach aimed at incorporating societal commitment into traditional academic teaching. The aim for students is to apply skills worked on in courses in various disciplines to become involved in an organization whose missions relate to societal themes, such as social justice, migration or the environment.