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This Francqui Chair offers a fresh perspective on the advances and tensions that characterize the way in which the law currently organizes society's relationship with the environment, as an essential substrate for human life and the balance of ecosystems. Far from presenting this law as having reached its peak, it is its recent major advances that will be discussed, as well as the risks of regression that threaten it. If the ambition to protect the environment has indeed become a legal issue, how are its essential drivers evolving, whether in terms of climate, human health, or the status accorded to nature?The conference will be followed by a local drink offered by the Cercle de Droit, the Régionale la Binchoise, and the Régionale RTM.Free event. Registration strongly recommended. More information and full program I'm signing up

This Francqui Chair offers a fresh perspective on the advances and tensions that characterize the way in which the law currently organizes society's relationship with the environment, as an essential substrate for human life and the balance of ecosystems. Far from presenting this law as having reached its peak, it is its recent major advances that will be discussed, as well as the risks of regression that threaten it. If the ambition to protect the environment has indeed become a legal issue, how are its essential drivers evolving, whether in terms of climate, human health, or the status accorded to nature?The conference will be followed by a local drink offered by the Cercle de Droit, the Régionale la Binchoise, and the Régionale RTM.Free event. Registration strongly recommended. More information and full program I'm signing up

This Francqui Chair offers a fresh perspective on the advances and tensions that characterize the way in which the law currently organizes society's relationship with the environment, as an essential substrate for human life and the balance of ecosystems. Far from presenting this law as having reached its peak, it is its recent major advances that will be discussed, as well as the risks of regression that threaten it. If the ambition to protect the environment has indeed become a legal issue, how are its essential drivers evolving, whether in terms of climate, human health, or the status accorded to nature?The conference will be followed by a local drink offered by the Cercle de Droit, the Régionale la Binchoise, and the Régionale RTM.Free event. Registration strongly recommended. More information and full program I'm signing up

On May 12, the Institute for Research in Didactics and Education (IRDENa) at the University of Namur is organizing a seminar dedicated to a topic at the heart of current concerns in initial and continuing teacher education: training through professional practice.In a context where expectations of the teaching profession and the realities on the ground are evolving rapidly, and where policymakers are entrusting the field with a significant portion of the training of future teachers through the requirement for extended teaching placements, practical experience plays a decisive role in the development of professional competencies, professional skills, and educational approaches. This essential practice also raises numerous questions:What challenges does training in (with and through) professional practice face today?What obstacles still hinder its implementation or quality?What challenges must training institutions, partner schools, and trainers address?What concrete benefits does professional immersion offer for both aspiring and experienced teachers?To shed light on these questions, the event will feature two speakers:Catherine Van Nieuwenhoven, professor and international expert on teacher education and work-study programs;Sephora Boucenna, a researcher at IRDENa, whose work focuses on professional development through practice and the analysis of field experiences.Their combined perspectives, blending scientific expertise, institutional analysis, and a nuanced understanding of the field, will fuel a collective discussion on the levers to strengthen and the avenues to explore in order to support an ambitious, coherent, and efficient practical training program in light of current policy challenges.The program will continue with a roundtable bringing together colleagues from various universities, who will compare their perspectives on the training of internship supervisors. Their discussion will focus in particular on training needs, support models, institutional challenges, and the conditions necessary to organize this training effectively.Finally, the day will give significant attention to real-world practice through testimonials from several student teachers, who have been invited to share their experiences, their mentoring practices, as well as the tensions that arise in their daily professional lives. These accounts will help ground the discussion in the concrete realities of schools and highlight the importance of the partnership between academic institutions and K-12 education.This study day is intended for researchers, trainers, teachers, as well as anyone involved in teacher education who wishes to contribute to a shared reflection on the future of the profession. Program 8:30–9:00 a.m. – Welcome9:00 AM to 10:00 AM – Catherine Van Niewenhoven (UCLouvain) - The Role of Fieldwork in Teacher Education: Support and Professional Development10:00 AM to 10:20 AM - Coffee break10:20 AM to 11:20 AM – Research findings (Call for papers)11:20 AM to 12:20 PM - Presentation of mentor programs12:30 PM to 1:30 PM – Lunch1:30 PM to 2:00 PM - Research Incubator2:00 PM to 3:00 PM - Sephora Boucenna (UNamur) - Training through and within professional practice: what are the specific features?3:00 PM to 4:00 PM - RoundtableStarting at 4:00 PM - Closing reception

Invited speakers: Manuel GARCÍA-SANTANA (Pompeu Fabra University) and Eric VERHOOGEN (Columbia University)Audience: PhD studentsCall for papers: PhD students and postdocs are invited to submit a paper by April 15, 2026. Applicants will be notified by May 15, 2026. Accepted contributions will be presented in a poster session, with a subset selected for seminar-style presentations. Please send your paper to this address: nathan.jespere@unamur.be

Researchers, graduate students, artists, designers, teachers, and creatives from all walks of life: this is a unique opportunity to take your ideas beyond the usual framework and bring them to life in a new way. The goal of this first edition: to collaboratively design an educational treasure hunt in Namur, centered on the theme of misinformation, aimed at young people aged 15 to 18.Practical detailsWhen? June 1, 2, and/or 3, 2026 (9 a.m.–4 p.m.), flexible participation (a few hours, half a day, a full day, or all three days)Where? The TRAKK in NamurLunch provided by NADI + unlimited coffee/tea in a collaborativeatmosphere Everything is set up for experimenting, testing, and creatingRegistration: free, but please send an email to digifactory.asbl@gmail.comA chance to bridge disciplines, break out of silos…and invent new ways to tell stories, convey information, and share.Note: For doctoral students, participation counts toward your doctoral program (course credits).

As part of the Inforums and CyberExcellence seminars, we are pleased to welcome Dr. Ryan Wails (Georgetown University), who will speak to us about cybersecurity. You will find the abstract of his presentation and his biography below.No registration required.We hope to see many of you at this event!On the Interplay of Modern Traffic Analysis and Internet Censorship & Circumvention TechniquesIn this talk, I will review the current state of real-world Internet censorship and some tools that network users employ to circumvent censorship. Then, I’ll take a forward-looking view on how censors might incorporate modern ML-based traffic analysis techniques to block users, highlighting the need for stronger circumvention tools. Finally, I’ll discuss our new internet censorship evasion technique called Unidentified Protocol Generation (published at USENIX Security 2025), which is capable of evading detection by state-of-the-art traffic analysis.Author bio: Ryan Wails is a postdoctoral researcher at Georgetown University studying network privacy and security. He completed his PhD while working at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory. This lab is known for originating the Tor network and establishing the PETs research community, which is now among the top international research communities in computer security. Ryan is a core contributor to the Tor project and has published in leading conferences on network simulators, privacy attacks, privacy-preserving measurements, path selection algorithms, censorship circumvention, and website fingerprinting. He has received several international distinctions, including Best Paper awards at top conferences and recognition at community events for his contributions.

JuryProf. Johan WOUTERS (UNamur), ChairProf. Steve LANNERS (UNamur), secretaryProf. Stéphane VINCENT (UNamur)Prof. Johan WINNE (UGent)Prof. Andrew MITCHELL (Illinois State University)AbstractTaxpropellane is a taxane complex with a particularly elaborate structure. Although its biological properties are still unknown, its structural complexity makes it a synthetic target of choice. The approach developed in this thesis is based on a retrosynthetic simplification toward a bicyclo[5.4.0]undecane, the preparation of which requires new methodologies, in particular the development of an (5+2) oxydopyrylium cycloaddition using a temporary bridge to construct the required bicyclic compounds.Oxydopyrylium species are highly reactive aromatic intermediates, commonly used to synthesize 7-membered rings via cycloaddition reactions. Their use for intermolecular cycloadditions is severely limited due to their rapid dimerization when the dipolarophile is not sufficiently reactive. The strategy developed in this work relies on the use of a temporary ether-type linker to overcome this limitation. Numerous bicyclic compounds have thus been efficiently synthesized using this methodology. We have shown that this diastereoselectivity depends solely on how the two reactive fragments are linked. Thus, the proposed methodology allows for complete control of stereoselectivity. The cleavage of the linker has also been investigated. This can be achieved in two different ways. This work extends the use of oxidopyrylium ions in synthesis, and this methodology will be applied to the total synthesis of taxpropellane, following the synthesis of a suitable dipolarophile also described here.

Additional information Milan Van Steenvoort - milan.vansteenvoort@unamur.beNathan J'Espère - nathan.jespere@unamur.beGuilhem Cassan - guilhem.cassan@unamur.be View the program and list of speakers