Japan is a world reference when it comes to video games. Nintendo, Sony, Sega... so many companies that have left their mark on contemporary popular culture. Fanny Barnabé knows this industry well. A lecturer at the Faculté Économie Management Communication sciencesPo (EMCP) and researcher at the CRIDS/NaDI research institute, she specializes in game studies, a field of research devoted to the study of games. After defending her doctoral thesis on videogame détournement in the fictional universe of Pokémon in 2017, she spent a year as a postdoctoral fellow at the Ritsumeikan Center For Game Studies (Ritsumeikan University, Kyoto), the archipelago's largest video game research center. Internationally recognized, the Center is fortunate to host an exceptional and unpublished archive, thanks to a donation from the giant Nintendo.

Many years and research work later, Fanny Barnabé visited Japan once again at the end of May, on an academic mission. The aim: to present the latest work being carried out at UNamur, particularly in edutainment or "serious game"and, she hopes, lay the foundations for new partnerships and student exchanges.

The Faculty of Informatics has long-standing links with the National Institute of Informatics (NII), an internationally recognized research institute located in the heart of Tokyo. Each year, Master's and PhD students from the faculty are hosted there for a period of four to six months to carry out internships and research projects, via a specific collaboration agreement (Memorandum Of Understanding agreement, or MOU). It's an experience much appreciated by students and PhD students alike, on both scientific and human levels.

Gilles Perrouin, researcher and chairman of the Faculty of Computer Science's Research Commission, guides these students through the presentation of their research topic, often focused in the fields of software engineering, artificial intelligence (AI) or, more recently, green AI. "These are research fields that are evolving very quickly", Gilles Perrouin points out. "There's a lot of debate right now around AI's energy consumption. It's a bit of an oxymoron to say that we can do green AI.But we're working on it via the exploration of smarter techniques when looking for promising solutions to avoid resorting to systematic training of the neural network, which is very costly in terms of energy"explains the researcher. The collaboration has led to the exploration of other areas of AI, such as sign language recognition (Professor Benoît Frénay), in addition to topics in formal methods and software engineering (Professors Pierre-Yves Schobbens and Xavier Devroey).

At the heart of the Mathematics Department, Alexandre Mauroy, professor and researcher at the Namur Institute for Complex Systems (naXys), is working with his long-time collaborator and friend Yoshihiko Susuki from the prestigious University of Kyoto on a project co-funded by F.N.R.S and JSPS (Japan) to study dynamical systems. "These are so-called 'non-linear' phenomena that do not respect the rules of proportionality. The equations are therefore very difficult, if not impossible, to solve in practice, explains Alexandre Mauroy. "To get around this problem, we mobilize techniques like operator theory, which we're studying as part of this project." This has the advantage of combining theoretical aspects with practical applications, particularly in the field of electrical distribution networks. "These are complex systems, with slow and fast dynamics. An interesting case for which mathematical tools need to be adapted", continues Alexandre Mauroy. This first positive partnership has already led to research visits between the two countries, and promises new collaborations in the future.

In a related field, Riccardo Muolo has been a postdoctoral fellow at the Institute of Science Tokyo since 2023, after completing a PhD thesis at UNamur under the supervision of Professor Timoteo Carletti. Building on the knowledge acquired during his PhD on network dynamics, Riccardo Muolo is now interested in network synchronization theory, a mathematical model that enables us to understand a wide variety of systems: from fireflies to electrical networks to the functioning of the human brain: "For example, in the brain, abnormal synchronization of neuronal networks is associated with pathologies such as epilepsy or Parkinson's. The recent power grid failure in Spain can also be analyzed through this theory", details the researcher.

Students wishing to spend part of their degree course in Japan have the opportunity to do so, thanks to the various agreements UNamur has signed with Japanese institutions. This is the case with the National Institute of Informatics (NII), but also with Soka University and Sophia University (Chiyoda), with which UNamur has signed framework agreements.

In early June, the 19th International Research Symposium on Service Excellence in Management (QUIS19) was held in Rome, one of the most important conferences in the field of service management. An enriching experience in more ways than one for Victor Sluÿters, a PhD student at the NaDI-CeRCLe research center, who was awarded the "Best Paper Award" by an international jury from over 350 papers.

"Typically, the award is given to a presentation that fits in with the conference theme, which this year focused on digital and sustainable transformation.Although my research project is currently attracting quite a bit of attention, it deviated quite a bit from this theme. So I didn't expect to win an award," confides Victor Sluÿters.

An original approach to crisis management

The thesis paper by Victor Sluÿters - whose work is supervised by Professors Wafa Hammedi (UNamur), Yves Van Vaerenbergh (KU Leuven) and Thomas Leclercq (IÉSEG School of Management) - focuses on data breaches (or data breach) and their management by companies. These are well-known threats feared by organizations for their potentially severe and far-reaching consequences.

Victor Sluÿters focuses more specifically on the psychological mechanisms of shame that underpin employee behavior in a crisis context. This emotion has strong and lasting effects on employee commitment, performance and well-being. Companies therefore have a vested interest in understanding the behavioral mechanisms at work to better cope with this type of event. It was this in-depth psychological dimension of crisis management, still relatively unexplored in the literature, that convinced the QUIS jury.

A human adventure above all

Beyond the scientific recognition, Victor Sluÿters insists on the human aspect of his research work. "We started our thesis at the same time as Floriane [Goosse] and Florence [Nizette]. We really help each other out. We organized very critical proofreading sessions, sometimes tough, but always benevolent.""What's more, we're lucky enough to benefit from excellent support from our promoter, Professor Wafa Hammedi, from both a research and human point of view. And for my part, I can also count on the invaluable insight and support of my two other co-promoters, Yves Van Vaerenbergh and Thomas Leclercq, who contribute enormously to enriching this adventure.", continues the young researcher.

Four researchers obtained a mandat d'aspirant enabling them to start doctoral research:

• Ludovic DUBOIS and Niccolò PARDINI from the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters,
• Jordan ABRAS from the Faculty of Economics Management Communication sciencesPo (EMCP)
• Noah DEVEAUX from the Faculty of Science.

Success is also on the cards for the postdoctoral researchers, nine of whom have been awarded a research fellowship for 3 years.

• Audrey LEPRINCE, Ciska DE RUYVER, Dmytro STRILETS and Cinzia TOMASELLI from the Faculty of Sciences
• Nicolas MICHEL, Sébastien VANDENITTE and Manon HOUTART from the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters
• Pierre-Yves HUREL and Sebastian RONDEROS from the Faculty of Economics Management Communication sciencesPo (EMCP).

In addition, two new qualified researchers join our university.

• Marie DELABY in the Biology Department of the Faculty of Science
• Matthieu PIGNOT in the History Department of the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters

Three Namur researchers have also obtained funding from the Télévie call.

• Marc HENNEQUART for research aimed at highlighting new metabolic biomarkers for better detection of pancreatic cancer
• Carine MICHIELS for research into the resistance of glioblastoma to radiotherapy combined with chemotherapy
• Anne-Catherine HEUSKIN for research into understanding the reprogramming of macrophage immune cells in the formation of the tumor microenvironment.

Frédéric SILVESTRE (Faculty of Science, Department of Biology, URBE) has also been awarded funding for a FNRS-FRQ collaborative project with ULiège and Quebec teams from the Université de Montréal and the Université du Québec à Montréal. The aims of this project are to develop a new method of age determination based on molecular modifications (epigenetic clock) in beluga whales (Delphinapterus leucas) from the St. Lawrence estuary in Quebec, and to understand the role of age on contaminant accumulation as well as on their stress levels and health status. This will enable better decisions to be made to improve the recovery of this endangered population. As part of this project, two doctoral theses (one in Namur and one in Montreal) are open. Candidates must be biologists (or degree deemed equivalent) with an interest in conservation and ecotoxicology issues, and with experience in molecular biology (omics) and bioinformatics.

Congratulations to them!

Benoit Decerf, holder of a PhD in cotutelle between UCLouvain and the University of Bielefeld (Germany), joined the University of Namur in 2016. His career path led him to significant experience as a researcher, notably from 2020 to 2025, when he was seconded to the World Bank's research center in Washington DC. In this context, he contributed to the development of tools designed to measure poverty and well-being. The aim? To better understand development inequalities between countries and better assess development policies.

"Indeed, it seems difficult to quantify a person's state of health in euros. To address the limitations of monetary indicators, alternatives such as the Human Development Index or multidimensional poverty measures have been proposed to include aspects such as life expectancy and access to education," he continues. At the Development Economics Research Center, Benoit Decerf's work is part of these efforts to improve development indicators.

His stint at the World Bank allowed him to take part in improving the indicators used by this institution. "In addition to measuring extreme poverty, defined by the threshold of $2.15 per day per person, which the United Nations would like to see fall below 3% of the world's population by 2030, the World Bank also measures "shared prosperity". This concept is intended to be more inclusive than poverty, by taking into account the incomes of everyone, not just the poor, but maintaining the importance of inequalities by weighting the incomes of the least well-off more heavily", explains the economics researcher. With his co-authors, Benoit Decerf has therefore proposed a new indicator, the Prosperity Gap, which aims to be both simple to explain and mindful of inequalities.

This example illustrates the pragmatic approach followed in his research. Rather than looking for the ideal indicator, Benoit Decerf seeks to build on existing indicators, identifying their main limitations, and seeking to improve them while taking into account the constraints faced by practitioners.