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Abstract Deep learning has become an extremely important technology in numerous domains such as computer vision, natural language processing, and autonomous systems. As neural networks grow in size and complexity to meet the demands of these applications, the cost of designing and training efficient models continues to rise in computation and energy consumption. Neural Architecture Search (NAS) has emerged as a promising solution to automate the design of performant neural networks. However, conventional NAS methods often require evaluating thousands of architectures, making them extremely resource-intensive and environmentally costly.This thesis introduces a novel, energy-aware NAS pipeline that operates at the intersection of Software Engineering and Machine Learning. We present CNNGen, a domain-specific generator for convolutional architectures, combined with performance and energy predictors to drastically reduce the number of architectures that need full training. These predictors are integrated into a multi-objective genetic algorithm (NSGA-II), enabling an efficient search for architectures that balance accuracy and energy consumption.Our approach explores a variety of prediction strategies, including sequence-based models, image-based representations, and deep metric learning, to estimate model quality from partial or symbolic representations. We validate our framework across three benchmark datasets, CIFAR-10, CIFAR-100, and Fashion-MNIST, demonstrating that it can produce results comparable to state-of-the-art architectures with significantly lower computational cost. By reducing the environmental footprint of NAS while maintaining high performance, this work contributes to the growing field of Green AI and highlights the value of predictive modelling in scalable and sustainable deep learning workflows. Jury Prof. Wim Vanhoof - University of Namur, BelgiumProf. Gilles Perrouin - University of Namur, BelgiumProf. Benoit Frénay - University of Namur, BelgiumProf. Pierre-Yves Schobbens - University of Namur, BelgiumProf. Clément Quinton - University of Lille, FranceProf. Paul Temple- University of Rennes, FranceProf. Schin'ichi Satoh - National Institute of Informatics, Japan

Florentin Rochet, a professor of computer security at the University of Namur, specializes in applied cryptography and secure communications. Against the backdrop of rapid advances in artificial intelligence and open-source solutions, he shares his analysis of the current situation and offers his outlook for the future. 

From the heritage of a civilization to the foundation of our cultureThe bachelor's degree in ancient and modern languages and literature stands at the crossroads of two complementary fields - Latin and French - and studies them from a linguistic and literary perspective.The program gives you access, in the original language, to the founding texts of our culture, from Antiquity to the Renaissance, in Latin, and from the Middle Ages to the Contemporary Era, in French.

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.

On May 13, the software engineering project presentations (known as the MDL project) were held before a panel consisting of coaches and external clients who had come for the occasion. Through the seven projects presented this year, the students were able to showcase their work and explain how they collaborated with their clients to successfully complete their development projects.

An innovative educational initiative was carried out at the University of Namur during the 2024–2025 academic year as part of the “Software Testing and Quality” course in the Master’s program in Computer Science, with a focus on software engineering. This initiative led to the publication of the SNAIL Report 2025, a comprehensive barometer of software development practices in the Wallonia-Brussels Federation.

Would you like to earn a dual bachelor’s degree in philosophy and law in just one extra year? It’s possible! 

The F.R.S.-FNRS published on June 25, 2024, the list of winners of the various doctoral and postdoctoral mandates. Among them, 16 researchers from the University of Namur have obtained funding.

While women are still in the minority in technical and scientific fields, confidence and passion have enabled some to overcome stereotypes and structural barriers. Women physicists and computer scientists are leading the way for those who cherish the bench and the screen, the numbers, and the machines.

A frightening figure in traditional tales, the wolf is the object of a myth carried by the popular memory of our elders. Long gone from our landscapes, this large predator is making a comeback in Wallonia and is posing us with major challenges. Does it still have a place? A historian and a veterinarian talk about this fascinating natural phenomenon.

Success for the interfaith and interdisciplinary colloquium organised by the University Chair Our Lady of Peace and the eponymous research centre, in collaboration with the Abbey of Maredsous.

On July 1, 2025, the F.R.S.-FNRS published the list of winners of the various doctoral and postdoctoral mandates, Télévie projects and co-financing with the Fonds de recherche du Québec. Among these, many UNamur researchers were awarded funding. UNamur's particularly high ranking rate demonstrates the quality and excellence of research on the Namur campus.