Search results

Recognized as a leading research conference in the field of organic electroluminescence and light-emitting devices, the ICEL conferences have generally been held every two years since their inception in Fukuoka, Japan, in 1997, by Professor Tetsuo Tsutsui. A look back at ICEL2026, the 15th conference of its kind, held at UNamur. 

Preparatory Courses Discover university-level education and life at UNamur while reviewing the essential subjects for your future program.To help you start your first year of studies on a solid foundation, the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters offers courses and exercises at the end of August that will allow you to: assess your proficiency in French, your ability to take notes, and your ability to summarize an oral presentation or a text; engage in activities specific to Latin and French languages and literatures; discover the demands of university life and the role of a student; become familiar with the methodological principles of your discipline; evaluate your choices regarding your academic focus. Check out the preparatory course schedule Do you have what it takes? Test your knowledge and skills with the “Passports to the Bac.”Starting in the first year, the “Passports to the Bac” allow you to compare your knowledge and skills with your teachers’ expectations.Following these tests, the Faculty offers sessions and workshops to help you strengthen your:reading strategies;ability to analyze questions and formulate appropriate answers.This helps you fill in any gaps in your knowledge and sets you up for success. Are your methods appropriate? To succeed in your first year, you need effective strategies.Every Wednesday, two-hour study skills sessions are held to help you become familiar with university learning techniques:taking clear and comprehensive notes;summarizing and synthesizing course material;gaining a deep understanding of the material;developing your study tools;memorizing large amounts of information;manage your time during the semester and exam periods;organize your work;anticipate instructors’ expectations.In addition to these study skills sessions, your faculty’s Academic Support Unit organizes individual feedback sessions after your tests and exams. If you request it, you can also receive personalized support throughout the year.If you’re having trouble with your study methods in general, the Interfaculty Academic Support Unit also offers individual support. Throughout the year, an advisor is available to review your study methods and techniques and help you improve them.Finally, just before the first intensive study period, you can participate in a discussion and advice session with second- or third-year students under the supervision of the Academic Support Unit. How can you improve your reading and writing skills? Learn how to express yourself clearly in writing and deepen your understanding of texts.Your faculty’s Academic Support Unit helps you improve your skills in various areas:writing papers and exam answersreading and understanding university-level textsthrough language tests at the beginning of the year that assess spelling, vocabulary, and syntax;through workshop-style reinforcement sessions and online exercises;through guidance on some of your written assignments: annotated corrections, both individual and group;through the organization of mock exams (November tests);through individual follow-up (via email and in person);a reading test at the beginning of the year;through sessions focused on reading strategies;Special support is provided for students whose native language is not French. What resources are available to you? The central and departmental libraries, the computer lab, and the e-learning platform: invaluable resources.At the central library (“BUMP” for Bibliothèque Universitaire Moretus Plantin), you can access: catalogs, dictionaries, encyclopedias, bibliographies, literary works, databases, and more. Rarer or specialized journals and books can be obtained upon request.At the department library, located on the floor of your section, you have free access to most of the resources you need for your studies: journals, specialized grammars and dictionaries, overview collections, scholarly studies, exemplary monographs, collections of edited or manuscript sources, and sometimes even microfilm readers.You’ll also benefit from practical advice from upperclassmen and even professors in the adjacent offices.And that’s not all! Thanks to the WebCampus e-learning platform, you can download the materials that instructors make available to you, access discussion forums with other students, and ask questions in real time... How can you prepare for exams? Study regularly, develop good study habits, and familiarize yourself with your teachers’ expectations and their testing styles.In the first year, formative assessments are held in early November in most subjects. Your exams are returned to you with corrections and comments, and the teachers then explain orally the expected answers to their questions.These tests do not factor into the grades that will be assigned at the end of the year. They are solely a learning tool that gives you an idea of the teachers’ expectations and allows you to assess the effectiveness of your work. Exam Administration January, June, and, if necessary, August… three sessions to demonstrate your mastery of the material.In January, you take exams on the material covered in the first quadrimester. If you fail, you can retake the exam in June and/or August. That means you have three chances to pass, but only during your first year of the bachelor’s program. Starting in the second year, any exam failed during the January or June session is automatically rescheduled for the August session.Depending on the professors’ discretion, courses may be assessed through written or oral exams. The assessment procedures are explained during the first class and are detailed on the university’s website.Throughout your program, the knowledge and skills developed in technical courses are assessed on an almost continuous basis; this assessment relies primarily on quizzes and exercises completed during the year.You will complete your program by demonstrating, through your final project, your ability to conduct independent research and analysis. Image Les études en Faculté de philosophie et lettres See content Image Etudier à l'UNamur See content Image Vie du campus See content

Dive into the vast heritage of the productions of the human mind in search of meaning and value. Explore the past, perceive art across the centuries, decode ancient and modern languages, and take a fresh look at the captivating world of cinema.Through works, languages, documents and currents of thought, journey through the cultural, contextual and temporal diversity of humanity's great questions.Your curiosity is the only limit. Welcome to the Faculty of Philosophy and Humanities at UNamur!

Program Overview This event will take place over two exciting days, featuring a diverse program designed to offer a dynamic and interactive experience for all participants. The entire symposium will be conducted in English.On Wednesday, December 9, and Thursday, December 10, two days of scientific and technical sessions will be dedicated to the topics of alternative proteins, the microbiome, and functional ingredients.On Wednesday, December 9, there will be a public lecture (in English) presented by Dr. Patrice Cani on the topic “Nourishing Your Gut: Nutrition, Microbiota, and Health.”For experienced researchers and group leaders, we are organizing a third day on December 11 dedicated to international collaboration, including laboratory visits and a workshop focused on establishing structured collaborative projects. Separate registration is requiredOverview of the ThemesThis symposium is structured around the three projects in the FoodWal portfolio, while pushing their boundaries and framing them within a “One Health” approach.The session titled “Building Sustainable Value Chains for Alternative Proteins: from protein sources to the development of healthy food products” will provide an opportunity to present scientific and technological advances in the creation and characterization of alternative protein sources and products, as well as socioeconomic perspectives on the development, maintenance, and growth of sustainable value chains for alternative proteins.The session titled “Research on the Microbiome and Microbiotics: Innovation in Nutrition for Better Health” will present scientific advances in the characterization, understanding, and modulation of the microbiome, as well as cutting-edge technologies aimed at developing innovative microbiotics.Finally, the session titled “Functional Ingredients and Bioactive Compounds: Food Science and Biotechnology for Health” will focus on scientific advances in the identification, characterization, and understanding of the mechanisms of action of functional ingredients, as well as cutting-edge technologies designed to develop and produce innovative functional ingredients. More information on the FoodWal website Je m'inscris

In human societies as well as in ecosystems, opportunistic behaviour does not always prevail. The scientific article, fruit of the collaboration between research teams in India, Slovenia and Belgium, has just been published in the prestigious PNAS journal.

The PDID symposium is finally back in 2026! Organized every two years by the Belgian Biophysical Society (BBS) and the Laboratoire de Chimie Physique des Biomolécules (CPB), the PDID symposium is an intimate and friendly event for exchanging new ideas and meeting leading experts in the field in the quintessentially Belgian city of Namur, the capital of Wallonia, located at the confluence of the Meuse and Sambre rivers.We welcome participants from any scientific background who are particularly interested in delving into the world of biomolecular dynamics and exploring their unique behaviors, including structural transitions, interaction networks, protein-ligand interactions, self-assembly, amyloid fibrillation, condensation, phase separation, and phase transitions. Through the lens of biophysics, biochemistry, bioinformatics, and molecular biology, the program aims to cover both experimental and computational approaches for characterizing such intricate and elusive systems in health-related, biotechnological, and biomaterial contexts. Detailed program and registration here

JuryProf. Steve LANNERS (UNamur), ChairProf. Johan WOUTERS (UNamur), SecretaryProf. Pierre FRANCOTTE (ULiège)Dr. Marie HAUFROID (UCB)Prof. Lionel POCHET (UNamur)AbstractCurrently, Mycobacterium tuberculosis remains the second deadliest infectious agent in the world, responsible for 1.6 million deaths in 2021. The burden and cost of current treatment (6 months and 4,000 euros), coupled with the alarming emergence of antibiotic-resistant strains, underscore the absolute urgency of developing new therapeutic molecules. This study focuses on the Mycobacterium tuberculosis phosphoserine phosphatase (MtSerB2), an enzyme essential for serine biosynthesis and vital to the pathogen’s survival. Furthermore, this protein plays a key role in host invasion (through its interactions with the NF-κB factor and the cellular cytoskeleton), making MtSerB2 a prime therapeutic target for the development of new, potent anti-tuberculosis drugs.One of the innovative strategies explored in this thesis is based on destabilizing the protein’s structure (disruption of protein structure). The goal is to design a molecule capable of disrupting the enzyme’s conformation, thereby causing it to lose its catalytic activity. This new class of molecules is expected to exhibit significantly higher selectivity for MtSerB2 compared to its human homolog, human phosphoserine phosphatase (hPSP).To this end, the Mycobacterium avium phosphoserine phosphatase (MaSerB) was initially used as a model system, justified by its 83% sequence identity with MtSerB2 and its propensity to crystallize rapidly. Initially, a virtual screening of drugs already available on the market was conducted to identify potential inhibitors of MaSerB. Enzymatic assays based on malachite green detectionwere then performed to evaluate the inhibitory activity of the various candidates. The results demonstrated increased selectivity of these compounds for dimeric proteins (MtSerB2 and MaSerB) compared to the human enzyme hPSP.Notably, subsequent enzymatic assays conducted directly on MtSerB2 revealed response profiles that differed from those observed with the MaSerB model. To elucidate the molecular basis of these differences, the structure of the protein in its ligand-bound state is currently being investigated. To this end, protein-inhibitor complexes have been crystallized and will be analyzed by X-ray diffraction.

JuryProf. Carine MICHIELS (UNamur), ChairProf. Anne-Catherine HEUSKIN (UNamur), SecretaryProf. Stéphane LUCAS (UNamur)Dr. Rudi LABARBE (IBA)Prof. Joao SECO (German Cancer Research Center)Prof. Simon GALAS (University of Montpellier)AbstractRadiotherapy is one of the most widely used treatments for cancer and plays a central role in modern oncology. While technological advances have greatly improved the precision of radiation delivery, damage to healthy tissues surrounding the tumor remains a major limitation. In recent years, an innovative approach known as FLASH radiotherapy has attracted considerable attention. Unlike conventional radiotherapy, FLASH delivers the therapeutic radiation dose within a fraction of a second using ultra-high dose rates. A growing body of evidence suggests that this approach may reduce radiation-induced side effects in healthy tissues while maintaining the ability to control tumours. However, the biological mechanisms responsible for this protective effect remain poorly understood.This thesis addressed two key challenges in FLASH research. The first was the development and characterization of an experimental platform capable of generating ultra-high dose rate irradiations using the ALTAÏS accelerator at the University of Namur. This work involved designing irradiation systems, validating beam dosimetry, and establishing robust experimental protocols to ensure accurate and reproducible exposure conditions. The second objective was to introduce a new biological model for FLASH investigations: the microscopic nematode Caenorhabditis elegans (C. elegans). This organism offers several advantages, including a short life cycle, ease of handling, low cost, and the conservation of many fundamental biological processes shared with higher organisms. These characteristics make it an attractive complementary model for studying radiation responses and exploring the mechanisms underlying the FLASH effect.This thesis demonstrated the suitability of C. elegans as a model for investigating biological responses to ultra-high dose rate irradiation. Studies of developmental and neurobiological endpoints across multiple irradiation conditions highlighted its potential for mechanistic FLASH research. Together, these findings provide valuable tools to advance our understanding of the FLASH effect. More broadly, they contribute to the development of safer radiotherapy strategies aimed at reducing treatment-related toxicity and improving patient quality of life.

Researchers at ULiège and UNamur are developing a new electrochromic material: MoWOx.

An international team of researchers has just published an article in the prestigious journal Light: Science & Applications (LSA) from the Nature group.  The teams led by Professors Michaël Lobet and Alexandre Mayer (University of Namur) collaborated with the team led by Professor Shanhui Fan, one of the leading experts in the field, from the prestigious Stanford University in California (USA).  The result: an article entitled ‘Twist-Induced Beam Steering and Blazing Effects in Photonic Crystal Devices’, or the study of beam deflection by twisting in photonic crystal devices.  Come on, let's twist light again at UNamur! 

Michaël Lobet, professor in the Department of Physics, and André Fuzfa, astrophysicist and professor in the Department of Mathematics at UNamur, have just been awarded a grant from the Wernaers Fund to develop an original scientific project: the design of a comic strip that will explore all the fascinating facets of energy. Aimed at a "student" audience, it will weave the link between science and science fiction, and will be produced thanks to the invaluable pencil strokes of illustrator Jean-Marc Dubois.

Since its launch in December 2022, ChatGPT, the chatbot developed by OpenAI, an artificial intelligence company co-founded by Elon Musk, has continued to elicit astonished comments and concerned questions, including: is the human brain still useful?