Doctoral seminar: Nephtali Callaerts
From its formal appearance in the 3rd year of general secondary education in FW-B, the chemistry course takes the form of a program detailing a series of contents to be taught. Within the framework of an internal didactic transposition specific to their activity, teachers are led to estimate their relative importance in the curriculum and to transform them. In the midst of a pandemic or following a prolonged absence, what content will teachers retain, adapt or delete?This research project proposes to study this prioritization of the content to be taught in the chemistry course by the teaching staff. More specifically, this paper focuses on the construction and analysis of a questionnaire investigating the organization of the main chapters (UAA) by chemistry teachers.
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Former UNamur doctoral student featured in The Economist
The research of Dr. Nitin Bharti, a former PhD student in the Economics Department of the EMCP Faculty at the University of Namur, is covered in "The Economist", the prestigious international business magazine. The article deals with one of his favorite research themes: understanding the development of education systems and their link with economic growth and long-term inequality.
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Research centers
DeFiPP is a research institute that fosters the sharing of academic research through interactions between its three constituent centers.
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Center for Research in Development Economics (CRED)
The CRED is a research entity dedicated to the study of development economics. More specifically, researchers work on issues related to micro-institutions, collective action, market development and political economy. Much of CRED's research is based on first-hand data collected by researchers in numerous countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Theoretical and empirical work is regularly produced by a team of 6 permanent academic researchers as well as 10 to 15 PhD students and post-doctoral researchers.
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Center for Research in Finance and Management (CeReFiM)
The CeReFiM studies issues of finance and macroeconomics. In recent years, several research programs have been conducted on specific topics such as complex financial systems, sustainable finance and systemic risk in the mutual fund industry. In most cases, research questions are approached from an empirical perspective using modern econometric techniques. Currently, CeReFiM consists of a balanced group of senior and junior members who work in close collaboration with each other, as well as with academics and financial practitioners from numerous universities and financial institutions in Belgium and abroad.
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The theses
Theses in progress
AGBA Komlan (CeReFiM) | Thesis title: Essays in international Finance (Supervisor: GNABO Jean-Yves; Co-supervisor: BENANNI Hamza) ALVAREZ Pablo (CRED) | Thesis title: Essays on development economics with a focus on gender inequality (Supervisor: GUIRKINGER Catherine) ALVAREZ Pablo (CRED) | Thesis title: Essays on development economics with a focus on gender inequality (Supervisor: GUIRKINGER Catherine) AYACHI Syrine (CeReFiM) | Thesis title: Essays on green bonds BARAKA KUSINZA Doux (CRED) | Thesis title: Essays in gender economics (Supervisor: GUIRKINGER Catherine)DEBROISE Auguste (CERPE) | Thesis title: Essays on behavioral political economicsERNAELSTEEN Christophe (CERPE) | Thesis title: Essays in public economics and regional competitiveness (Supervisor: DEJARDIN Marcus) FERRONI Giorgio (CERPE) | Thesis title: Essays on platforms and sharing economy (Supervisor: TOULEMONDE Éric)GUEBEN Marine (CRED) | Thesis title: To Be AnnouncedJOLIVET Anna (CRED) | Thesis title: Essays in development economics and household decision-making (Supervisor: GUIRKINGER Catherine)LÜLLE Angela (CRED) | Thesis title: Essays in Development EconomicsMOHAMED SULIMAN Ammar (CeReFiM) | Thesis title: To Be AnnouncedPEREZ RIAZA Baptiste (CeReFiM) | Thesis title: Essays on Crypto-assets and financial stability (Supervisor: GNABO Jean-Yves)RENK Andréa (CRED) | Thesis title: Essays on institutional change in India and Nepal (Supervisor: BALAND Jean-Marie)RICHARD Quentin (CRED) | Thesis title: Intergenerational transmission of life expectancy (Supervisor: GUIRKINGER Catherine ; Co-supervisor: BALAND Jean-Marie)SCHRAVERUS Louise (CeReFiM) | Thesis title: Three essays on Sovereign Wealth Funds SOUDANT Joey (CeReFiM) | Thesis title: Applications of complex systems in macro-finance topicsTCHINDA Charlie (CERPE) | Thesis title: Essays in the economics of self-employment (Supervisor: DEJARDIN Marcus)
Past theses
All theses completed in the last five academic years.2022-2023BAILY Camille: Climate Change: Impact and Challenges for the Financial SystemBHARTI Nitin: Essays on Socio-Economic Inequality and Development in India and China: A Historical & Institutional PerspectiveFARÈ Luca: Entrepreneurship, Small Businesses' Innovation and ContextsLEDRU François-Xavier: On the financial attributes of impact investments and the behavior of socially minded agentsMANUEL Clarice: Essays on women empowerment and norms in developing countries: the case of Nepal and the PhilippinesWOITRIN François: Three Essays on Mechanism Design and Family Economics2021-2022BEQUET Ludovic: Essays on agricultural productivity and intrahousehold dynamics in the PhilippinesKITUMBA Guylord: Coping strategies by microentrepreneurs in Kinshasa2020-2021DAYE Modeste: Essays in Development Economics: On Agents' Prosocial and Financial Behaviors. Supervisors: Profs. Romain Houssa and Paul Reding.2019-2020MICHELS Anne: Migration and Bequest Decisions: Theory and Evidence from the Bolivian Altiplano. Supervisor: Prof. Jean-Philippe Platteau.VANHOMWEGEN Henri: Distinctives Strategies in the Equity Mutual Funds Industry. Supervisors: Profs. Jean-Yves Gnabo and Oscar Bernal.2018-2019MOHIMONT Jolan: Business Cycles and Monetary Policy in a Small Open Emerging Economy. Supervisor: Prof. Romain Houssa.LAURENT Hélène: Essays in Public and Entrepreneurship Economics: Taxation and Corruption. Supervisor: Prof. Marcus Dejardin.HUBERT Olivier: Heterogeneous Effects of Fiscal Policy on Sovereign Yields. Supervisor: Prof. Romain Houssa.GROSS Jérémie: Individual and Family Behavior in Poor Households: Evidence from Semi-Arid Burkina Faso. Supervisors: Profs. Catherine Guirginger and Jean-Philippe Platteau.DELMEZ Françoise: Jobless Recoveries: No Jobs for the Unemployed, Longer Hours for Workers? Supervisor: Prof. Alain de Crombrugghe.2017-2018DAHLQVIST Carl-Henrik: Essays in Econophysics and Applied Econometrics: Modeling Complexity in Finance. Supervisors: Profs. Jean-Yves Gnabo and Sophie Béreau.SCHOLTES Nicolas: Interbank Networks and Financial Stability. Supervisors: Profs. Jean-Yves Gnabo and Sophie Béreau.2016-2017GONNE Nicolas: Consequences of Firm-Level Heterogeneity for Corporate Financial and Tax Policy. Supervisor: Prof. Eric Toulemonde.SIMILON Astrid: Essays on the Economics of Nonprofits and Philanthropy. Supervisor: Prof. Gani Aldashev.MERGESA Kelbesa: Government Finances and Financial Shocks in Developing Economies. Supervisor: Prof. Romain Houssa.GERACI Marco: Essays on Complexity in the Financial System. Supervisors: Profs. Jean-Yves Gnabo and Davy Paindaveine.
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Working documents
Following are links to working papers from the DeFiPP Research Institute. This series of working papers was launched in September 2021.
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The Master's degree specializing in sustainable development management and economics: a program rooted in contemporary issues
For more than 30 years, the Department of Flexible Scheduling at the Faculty of Economics, Management, Communication, and Political Science (EMCP) at the University of Namur has been helping adults returning to school to acquire new skills. In 2023, the Department launched a brand-new program: a Master's degree specializing in sustainable development management and economics. This one-year program addresses environmental and societal challenges by training professionals to support the ecological and economic transition.
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Economy: Why Are More African Women Converting to New Christian Churches?
New Christian churches are experiencing spectacular growth, particularly in Africa. While they are attracting a growing number of followers, it is notable that women are joining them far more often than men. Catherine Guirkinger, a professor and researcher in development economics, examines this gendered phenomenon of religious conversion and the economic mechanisms underlying it. This original research has just received prestigious WelCHANGE funding through the 2025 call for proposals from the F.R.S-FNRS.
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Training reflective, autonomous, and supportive teachers
Since September 2023, the reform of initial teacher training (RFIE) has been profoundly transforming the teaching profession. This year, it is taking a new step forward with the replacement of the former teaching-oriented master's degrees and the agrégation by master's degrees in teaching sections 4 and 5. Led by the Faculty of Education and Training Sciences (FaSEF), in collaboration with the Faculties of Science and EMCP (Economics, Management, Communication, and Political Science), the reform is accompanied by a strengthened partnership with HENALLUX (Namur-Liège-Luxembourg University College).
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A prestigious FNRS prize in the social sciences for Professor Jean-Marie Baland
The FNRS has awarded the five-year Ernest-John Solvay Prize in the Social Sciences to Jean-Marie Baland, Professor in the Department of Economics at UNamur's EMCP Faculty and co-founder of the DeFiPP Institute's Centre de Recherche en Economie du Développement (CRED). A major accolade for a career devoted to the study of poverty, informal institutions and sustainable development..
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Theoretical frameworks in science and mathematics didactics
Conceptual field theory and didactic situation theory
Two complementary theories for thinking about and organizing mathematical learningIn the first part of this talk, I'll propose an introductory situation in literal arithmetic (Barallobres & Giroux, 2008) that will enable me to introduce and illustrate the main concepts and methodological tools of the theory of didactic situations developed by Guy Brousseau (Brousseau, 1997; Bessot, 2024). In the second part, I will give a brief presentation of Gérard Vergnaud's theory of conceptual fields (Vergnaud, 1990; Durand-Guerrier and Saby, 2023), then show how this theory helps to shed further light on the introductory situation.The contributions of the anthropological theory of didactics The Anthropological Theory of Didactics (TAD, Chevallard, 2001) aims to explain why and how a given knowledge lives in a certain institution, and/or is transformed as it passes from one institution to another. This perspective and some of its evolutions will be presented and illustrated in this talk.Students' activities and teachers' practices in the mathematics classroom: analysis methodology with Activity TheoryIn this talk, we will present the founding assumptions of the Activity Theory framework adapted to the Didactics of Mathematics (TADM, Vandebrouck, 2008), showing how this theory gives importance to fine-grained analyses of mathematical knowledge to appreciate classroom developments. We will then exemplify some of these aspects on the teaching of limits at university (Bridoux and Grenier-Boley, 2024).BibliographyBarallobres, G., & Giroux, J. (2008). Environmental deficiencies and regulations in validation situations. N. In Berdnaz, & C. Mary (Eds). L'enseignement des mathématiques face aux défis de l'école et des communautés. Actes du colloque EMF 2006 (CD-ROM). Éditions du CRP https://emf.unige.ch/application/files/1414/5390/4857/EMF2006_GT8_Barallobres.pdfBessot, A. (2003). An introduction to the theory of didactic situations. Cahiers du laboratoire Leibniz, 91. hal-00078794Bridoux, S., & Grenier-Boley, N. (2024). What teaching practices should be used to introduce the limits of functions in the first year of university? A case study. In A. González-Martín, G. Gueudet, I. Florensa & N. Lombard (Eds.), Proceedings of the Fifth Conference of the International Network for Didactic Research in University Mathematics (INDRUM 2024, 10-14 June 2024) (pp. 791-800). Escola Universitària de Sarrià. Univ. Autònoma de Barcelona and INDRUM.Brousseau, G. (1997). Théorie des situations didactiques. Lecture given at the award to Guy Brousseau of the title of Doctor Honoris Causa from the University of Montreal. http://www.cfem.asso.fr/actualites/archives/Brousseau.pdfChevallard, Y. (2001). Organizing study: 1. Structures and Functions. In J.-L. Dorier, M. Artaud, M. Artigue, R. Berthelot, & R. Floris Proceedings of the XIe École d'été de didactique des mathématiques. (pp. 3-32). Editions la Pensée Sauvage.Durand-Guerrier, V., & Nicolas Saby, N. (2023). Usages de la théorie des champs conceptuels en didactique des mathématiques. The example of transitivity. Caminhos da Educação Matemática em Revista, 13 (4),118-134. ⟨hal-04585866⟩Vandebrouck, F. (dir.) (2008). La classe de mathématiques: activités des élèves et pratiques des enseignants. OCTARES Éditions.Vergnaud, G. (1990). Conceptual field theory. Recherches en didactique des mathématiques, 10(2/3), 133-170.
In practice
Program18:00: Presentation by Viviane Durand-Guerrier 18:40: Presentation by Ghislaine Gueudet 19:20: Presentation by Nicolas Grenier-Boley and Stéphanie Bridoux20:00: Q&A around the three presentationsModalities Required registration via the PhD school website or direct link to the registration form.Or online participation link (via TEAMS).
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