Whether it concerns linguistics, economics, politics, sustainable development, law, history, educational sciences, literature or translation, research in the humanities and social sciences is as eclectic as it is rich and essential for tackling society's challenges. Of UNamur's eleven research institutes, seven are directly involved in SHS research. While there is a high degree of complementarity in these areas of research, better pooling of resources, sharing and easier access to certain services, resources and support will help to sustain and strengthen the excellence of SHS research at UNamur. It is with this in mind that the SHS impulse platform has just been created.

• Axis 1 - Support for the acquisition of databases, documentary resources and software
• Axis 2 - Subsidy for cutting-edge training in the use of specialized methods
• Axis 3 - Funding access to the SMCS "Support en Méthodologie et Calcul Statistique" platform at UCLouvain, thanks to an inter-university partnership.
• Axis 4 - Setting up an SHS space, containing a laboratory for running experiments and shared work tools promoting exchanges between researchers.

This initiative, launched in January 2025, addresses the specific challenges faced by SHS researchers. The long-term aim is to sustain and expand the services. "We will also hire a researcher expert in methodological analysis in SHS who will be able to inform innovative methodologies and frame the methodological design of research projects," emphasizes Sandrine Biémar, vice-dean of UNamur's Faculty of Education and Training Sciences, a member of the IRDENA institute and the SHS Impulse management committee. "The wish is also to support networking between SHS researchers at UNamur and to be a lever for setting up interdisciplinary projects," adds Sandrine Biémar.

The platform's management team is made up of representatives of the university's various SHS institutes, and ensures efficient management of resources. The platform's impact will be assessed during its initial phase (2025-2027), enabling strategies for its sustainability and development to be defined.

The Sign Language of French-speaking Belgium (LSFB) has acquired several resources in recent years. A dictionary, developed and enriched since 2010 by the LSFB asbl association (https://dico.lsfb.be/). A contextual bilingual dictionary, developed at the University of Namur from LSFB-Lab research data and put online in 2022 (https://dico.corpus-lsfb.be/) . Today, MOSI brings these two resources to the user's fingertips, while enabling the signing community to contribute to the enrichment of the data.

From a web browser, a reader will now be able to highlight a word and see a video appear with the corresponding sign. It will also be possible to carry out manual searches in the database, which currently boasts over 7,000 signs. Sign language speakers will be able to add new signs to this resource. MOSI is thus conceived as a bilingual (French - LSFB) and collaborative tool; it is both a site and a web extension.

MOSI is accessible free of charge: https://www.mot-signe.be/

Based on research carried out at the University of Namur (LSFB-Lab and the NaDI institute), the LSFB asbl association and the partnership forged between UNamur and Ecole et Surdité 25 years ago, MOSI will be particularly useful for students, adults, families, teachers, speech therapists, interpreters and anyone working in the field of deafness. The test phase demonstrated the enthusiasm of the 40 registered users, who carried out 30,000 searches and recorded 500 signs.

Linguistic research on LSFB began in 2000 at the University of Namur, pioneering the field in French-speaking Belgium. Since then, a team has developed, the Laboratoire de langue des signes de Belgique francophone (or LSFB-Lab). Several fruitful collaborations between the LSFB-Lab and UNamur's Faculty of Computer Science have led to ambitious projects, such as the bilingual and contextual dictionary: a dictionary that can be queried in both French and LSFB, via a webcam, and provides access to translations illustrated with examples in context, taken from real conversations.

The origins of MOSI lie in the needs of students and teachers in the bilingual classes at Sainte-Marie in Namur. A teacher, Magaly Ghesquière, was aware of the resources available, and had the idea of making them more accessible to students and teachers. A first version of the tool was developed by two students from the Faculty of Computer Science (Innocent Ye and Babacar Sow). This was followed by a collaboration between computer scientists from the PreCISE center and the HuMaLearn laboratory at UNamur (Jérôme Fink, Pierre Poitier, Benoît Frénay, Anthony Cleve), the LSFB-Lab (Sibylle Fonzé, Laurence Meurant and Bruno Sonnemans), École et Surdité teachers (guided by Magaly Ghesquière and Sibylle Fonzé), and the LSFB asbl association (Bruno Sonnemans) which led to the completed version of the tool.

"Despite the progress made, French sign language bilingual education is still sorely lacking in resources and tools for both students and their teachers. By bringing together players from the signing community at large: researchers, teachers, interpreters and all LSFB speakers, the MOSI project offers the hope of a concrete response. It's a citizen's advance that's both generous and collaborative."

Ten members of UNamur's academic and scientific staff, accompanied by the International Relations Department and the NGO FUCID, the University Forum for International Development Cooperation, took part in an exploratory mission co-organized with UCAD. The mission was part of the university's drive to strengthen partnerships with the South, by promoting exchanges, raising researchers' awareness of the issues facing the global South, and helping new projects to emerge.

For a week, several activities were organized to enable members of the delegation to discover the Senegalese university: a visit to UCAD and discovery of its issues, exchanges around the concept of "One Health", meetings between researchers, a field visit and a closing moment in the presence of institutional partners.

Catherine Linard, professor at the Faculty of Sciences, was part of the Namur delegation "Going on site and exchanging with our Senegalese colleagues is very important. It allows us to discover the wealth of their research, in fields often directly connected to realities on the ground," she explains.

Since 2015, Catherine Linard has been collaborating with UCAD, notably as part of a research and development project supported by ARES. "From this initial collaboration a number of dynamics were born. Several Senegalese PhD students have come to Belgium to pursue their research. And conversely, one of my Belgian PhD students, Camille Morlighem, who is working on the creation of malaria risk maps in Senegal, has been able to benefit from mobility grants for research stays at UCAD. We've also established teaching exchanges: I went to Dakar to give a week's training to PhD students in geography, and a fellow health geographer, Aminata Niang Diène, comes to Belgium every year to speak in one of my master's courses," continues the professor.

The delegation brought together profiles from several UNamur faculties and departments:

• Francesca Cecchet, Faculty of Science, President of the NISM (Namur Institute of Structured Matter) Research Institute and member of the (NaRILIS Namur Research Institute for Life Sciences)
• Laurent Houssiau, Faculty of Science and member of the NISM (Namur Institute of Structured Matter) Research Institute
• Charles Nicaise, Faculty of Medicine and President of the NaRILIS Research Institute (Namur Research Institute for Life Sciences)
• Denis Saint-Amand, Faculty of Philosophy and Letters and member of the NaLTT Research Institute (Namur Institute of Language, Text and Transmediality)
• Laurent Ravez, Faculties of Medicine and Science and member of the NaRILiS (Namur Research Institute for Life Sciences) and EsPhiN (Espace Philosophique de Namur)
• Anne Vermeyen, member of the Cellule bien-être animal
• Flora Musuamba, Faculty of Medicine and member of the NaRILIS Research Institute (Namur Research Institute for Life Sciences)
• Florence Georges, Faculty of Law and member of the NaDI (Namur Digital Institute)
• Nathanaël Laurent, Faculty of Science and member of the EsPhiN (Espace Philosophique de Namur)
• Catherine Linard, Faculty of Science and member of the NaRILIS (Namur Research Institute for Life Sciences) and ILEE (Institute of Life-Earth-Environment)
• Rita Rixen, Director of FUCID, the University Forum for International Development Cooperation
• Amélie Schnock, member of the International Relations Department

The institute comprises four research centers: Pluri-LL, the Centre Nerval, the Observatoire des Littératures Sauvages (OLSa) and the Laboratoire de langue des signes de Belgique francophone (LSFB-Lab).

Two researchers from NaLTT have just been awarded funding from the F.R.S - FNRS following calls whose results were published in December 2024.

An estimated 72 million people worldwide use a sign language. The 150 signed languages recorded to date (The Ethnologue) are derived from the sociolinguistic dynamics of different deaf communities, their history and their interaction with society as a whole.

Like all languages, signed languages evolve and vary. Variations linked in particular to the age, region, gender, linguistic and educational profile of signers are attested in the use of most signed languages. Sign language in French-speaking Belgium (LSFB) is no exception. For example, the former boarding schools for the deaf established in Brussels and Wallonia still have regional variants. While the older generation's sign language shows traces of the restrictive context of oralist teaching and the disregard for signed languages at the time of their schooling, the younger generation's language is tinged with numerous borrowings from American Sign Language (ASL) or international signs, symbols of openness and mobility. Increasingly, LSFB signers are highlighting the linguistic divergence between age- and region-related LSFB varieties.

The Research Project (PDR) "DiVa LSFB - Linguistic distance and variation in French-speaking Belgian sign language: a mixed-methods analysis" aims to understand this phenomenon of linguistic distance and variation within today's LSFB. It aims to provide a multidimensional analysis of this complex phenomenon that is as representative as possible of the social ecosystems in which deaf people live. Can generational or regional profiles be identified from an analysis of LSFB usage? What linguistic characteristics and strategies promote or hinder intercomprehension between young signers and their elders? What ideas and beliefs do signers have about the degree and reasons for variations in LSFB, and about the elements that promote or hinder intercomprehension? And in their day-to-day practices, how do they handle interaction with younger and older signers, and with those who use regional varieties other than their own? To answer these questions, the team will use a combination of corpus data, experimental data on inter-comprehension between signers, as well as ethnolinguistic-type data.

Amandine le Maire completed her thesis at Heriot-Watt University (Edinburgh) as part of the Mobile Deaf project (ERC, under the direction of Prof. A. Kusters). After coordinating the LSFB-French Interuniversity Certificate in 2023-2024, Amandine joined the LSFB-Lab as part of "DiVa LSFB" and became the first deaf post-doc involved in research on LSFB, her mother tongue.

She will be working closely with Sibylle Fonzé, Bruno Sonnemans and Laurence Meurant. This project is part of a wider collaboration with Pr. Mieke Van Herreweghe (Universiteit Gent), Myriam Vermeerbergen (KULeuven) and Jeroen Darquennes (UNamur, NaLTT) on the study of linguistic change in Belgian sign languages.

This collaboration is taking shape in perfect synchronicity in the project Changing signs & signs of change: hoe variatie en taalcontact de taalverandering in Vlaamse Gebarentaal in hand werken which has just been selected as a "Senior onderzoekproject" by the FWO - Flanders' equivalent of the FNRS.

In partnership with the Faculty of Computer Science (the teams of Professors Anthony Cleve, Benoît Frénay and Bruno Dumas), it has initiated the development of digital tools in the service of bilingualism and the visibility of LSFB.

The Fonds Namur Université is the University of Namur's interface for its fundraising for patronage, donations and sponsorship. Thanks to the support of donors, the LSBF-French bilingual dictionary project was able to see the light of day.

This project takes as its starting point the fact that the acclimatization of poetry to advertising communication has helped to reinforce its urban inscription, so that today it frequently appears on the walls of our cities, often through fragmentary quotations and isolated verses. It invites us to take these writings seriously and to question the forms, uses and functions of poetic inscription in contemporary urban space.

The aim is to distinguish between authorized inscriptions (commissioned frescoes, window poetry and other installations conceived in collaboration with public authorities) and "wild" writings (spontaneous, raw, ephemeral).

On the side of authorized writings, we find notably quotations from canonical works, but also unpublished works participating in the production of legitimized authors, created to adorn public buildings - which raises a series of questions: is poetry reduced in this case to a simple decorative function? Which texts/extracts are chosen, and in which locations? What forms are favored? Are we banking on formulas that function as "inspirational" or "feel-good " maxims or proverbs, on emblematic extracts aimed at maintaining a common heritage? Should these productions be seen as the manifestation of a soothing "artist capitalism", or can they be seen as mediations that make poetry visible, serving as a first contact and an incentive to discover complex texts? How is the exhibition of the text designed materially (typography, colors, articulation with illustrations, etc.)?

On the side of wild writing, not based on commissions and not benefiting from authorization, other forms and conceptions of poetry are activated, from lyrical slogans to ironic watchwords and from puns to absurd aphorisms. These statements come under the heading of a vivid word vaguely disruptive of the everyday in that it brings salience, playfulness, incongruity, that it de-routinizes.

This is not to overplay the gap between institutional and wild poetic writings: it's striking to observe the multiplication of writings banking on an imaginary of illegality and protest while making it possible to transfer them to other, more instituted and, above all, potentially more sellable media - so that it's also the gentrification(*) of wild writings that we'll be studying in this framework.

(*)Gentrification: the process by which the population of a working-class neighborhood makes way for a more affluent social stratum.

This observatory is devoted to the way literature is also constructed outside the book, through alternative objects and channels, which sometimes nourish and energize the world of letters, but can just as easily evolve at a clear distance from it.

Numerous extra-book productions exploit the resources of literary communication: the handwritten album, the guestbook, the leaflet, the banner, the graffiti, the handmade documents cobbled together by the Surrealists and Situationists, the mimeographed newspaper, the fanzine or, of course, the screen, among many examples, are among these written media welcoming hybrid productions making room for lyricism, fiction or formal experimentation.

It is to these productions that the Observatoire des Littératures Sauvages is dedicated, whose members, from a variety of disciplines, set out to study the articulations of these literary practices to the social world.

International Francqui Chair 2024-2025 - Multilingualism and language learning. Challenges & Opportunities

This International Franqui Chair 2024-2025 is a joint initiative of VUB, Ghent University and Namur University. The Chairholder is Prof. Dr. Jean-Marc Dewaele. He will be present at UNamur for a series of lectures between February 19 and April 2, 2025. A general public conference entitled "How to raise children to become multilingual" will take place on March 11, 2025.

Every year, the F.R.S.-FNRS launches calls for funding for fundamental research. It has set up a range of tools enabling it to offer scientific and technical personnel, equipment and operating resources to researchers, who are the bearers of a project of excellence.