From left to right and from bottom to top: Adrien Dufour (CEO of Clinique Saint-Luc Bouge), Arthur Meuleman (Ph.D. candidate and researcher at UNamur), Annick Castiaux (Rector of UNamur), Christophe Plompteux (Director of Purchasing and Coordinator of Quality and Sustainable Development), Anna Renneson (CSL Bouge CSR Project Manager), Anthony Simonofski (Professor at UNamur and academic advisor for the project), Morgane Belin (Head of Corporate Sponsorship at UNamur), and Fabian Dehanne (Staff Member in the Executive Management Office at Clinique Saint-Luc Bouge). 

Through its MINDIT (Management of Information and Digital Transformation) center, which is part of the Namur Digital Institute, UNamur will lead a program dedicated to “Twin Transformation,” which combines digital transformation and sustainable transition in healthcare. Supported by the Clinique Saint-Luc Bouge, this research aims to develop innovative solutions that benefit patients and staff in the hospital sector. This is an issue that affects the entire healthcare system both in our country and internationally. 

Globally, as well as in Belgium, the healthcare sector accounts for about 5% of greenhouse gas emissions. If it were a country, it would be the fifth-largest emitter of CO₂ in the world. Without structural changes, its carbon footprint in Belgium could grow by more than 60% by 2050, with hospitals accounting for more than half of these emissions.

At the same time, healthcare facilities are accelerating their digital transformation: digitized patient journeys, electronic health records, artificial intelligence, automation, and decision-support tools. The Twin Transformation aims to bring these developments together so that digital technology can fully contribute to the environmental goals of healthcare organizations.

In practical terms, the Twin Transformation combines digital transformation and sustainable transition so that they reinforce one another. In healthcare, it involves making digital technology more resource-efficient and using it to reduce environmental impact, while improving the quality of care.

The project centers on a doctoral dissertation on the governance and implementation of Twin Transformation in hospital information systems. Conducted at MINDIT under the supervision of Professor Anthony Simonofski, the research will involve close collaboration between a doctoral researcher and the teams at Clinique Saint-Luc Bouge.

The research will identify the organizational, managerial, and technological levers that enable the integration of environmental considerations into digital projects. In particular, it will address governance, digital frugality, the impact of information systems, the involvement of frontline staff, and decision support.

Ultimately, the project will produce tools, methods, and recommendations that can be applied to the Belgian hospital network and beyond: all hospitals face the same challenges worldwide. 

This project will be integrated into UNamur as part of a new Chair dedicated to the topic of Twin Transformation. This Chair will help foster a research momentum on the Green Health System and the dual digital and sustainable transformation as major societal challenges. It will serve as an interface between academic experts and practitioners in the field to collaboratively address these challenges. In particular, the Chair will facilitate the development of scientific activities related to Twin Transformation, such as study days, conferences, and scientific symposia during the 2026–2030 period.

At the Clinique Saint-Luc in Bouge, issues related to Corporate Social Responsibility have been a focus for several years. Various initiatives have been implemented, such as the installation of solar panels, active mobility policies, the expansion of vegetarian meal options, and various discussions regarding healthcare practices. Supporting this academic research project is part of Clinique Saint-Luc Bouge’s commitment to advancing discussions on the sustainable transformation of the healthcare system.

For UNamur, this partnership reaffirms its role in conducting research to address major societal challenges.

“There is no established, consensus-based definition of ‘post-truth,’” warns Olivier Sartenaer, director of the Department of Sciences, Philosophy, and Society and a member of the ESPHIN Institute (Namur Philosophical Forum). He prefers to describe four trends that, together, shape the phenomenon.

First observation: our relationship with established consensus is becoming more fragile. Ideas that were once marginal now enjoy unprecedented visibility thanks to social media. Second transformation: the line between opinion and knowledge is blurring. “Everyone’s opinion is considered knowledge.” ” Third change: lying has lost some of its symbolic cost. “Until recently, when a political figure was caught lying shamelessly, they had to pay a price—whether electoral or symbolic. Today, lying can even become a sort of badge of honor.”

The fourth transformation, the most subtle, concerns what philosophers call “rhetoric.” “While a liar knows the truth and conceals it, a rhetorician produces discourse to seduce, frighten, or convince, regardless of whether it is true. ” Thus, when Donald Trump claims that one should drink bleach to treat COVID, the most important thing may not be the content of the statement. “Saying that positions him against the elites and gets people talking about him. Is it true? He doesn’t even ask himself that question.”

While “post-truth” is not a legal category in and of itself, Alejandra Michel, a researcher at CRIDS (Center for Research on Information, Law, and Society) within the NaDI Institute (Namur Digital Institute), approaches the phenomenon through what are known as “information disorders.” A key distinction sheds light on the mechanisms at work: “misinformation” refers to incorrect information disseminated without the intent to deceive; “disinformation,” by contrast, implies an intent to manipulate; and “malinformation” is based on true information that has been taken out of context or used to cause harm. In practice, however, these categories remain difficult to distinguish. Intentionally produced false information can be shared in good faith by thousands of people who believe it to be authentic, and its status then changes as it circulates.

From a legal perspective, the issue is all the more delicate because freedom of expression protects both the speaker and the recipient of the information. Should the authors of false information be punished? It’s not that simple: criminalization could backfire on journalists, whistleblowers, or those who disseminate information that is inconvenient for those in power. 

The fight against disinformation cannot, therefore, be solely a legal one. It also requires media literacy, support for quality journalism, and the protection of pluralism. One question remains that the law cannot resolve: when no one seems to regard the truth as a common reference point anymore, what still underpins a person’s credibility?

Part of the answer lies in humor, which has become a dominant form of communication on the web. According to Fanny Barnabé, a lecturer at CRIDS/NaDI, memes, parodies, trolling, and shitposting play such a significant role in digital cultures that they, too, blur our relationship with the truth. 

In classical irony, the speaker says the opposite of what they mean while leaving their listener enough clues to grasp the message’s true meaning. Irony has now lost its transgressive nature because it has become ubiquitous. To continue to surprise, internet users have therefore developed new levels of ambiguity. Today, the lines are blurred: “We no longer know whether a statement is ironic, sincere, or partly both.” This is what is known as post-irony.

A content creator’s credibility therefore no longer rests on their relationship to the truth, but on their authenticity. Fanny Barnabé observes this shift on the streaming platform Twitch, where the relationship between streamers and their community hinges on a sense of direct and sincere connection: awkward moments, spontaneous reactions, and an unfiltered personality are valued more highly than accuracy.

We see exactly this same mechanism at work in politics. Figures like Donald Trump and Elon Musk now use memes, provocation, trolling, and references to gaming culture to speak directly to their audience. Post-irony offers them powerful rhetorical protection. Serious statements can be made in a joking manner, and if the reaction is negative, all one has to do is say, “I was just kidding.” 

Authenticity doesn’t promise virtue; it promises closeness. It means standing with ordinary people, with all their flaws, their anger, and sometimes even their transgressions. Facing off against Hillary Clinton, Trump essentially declared: Yes, the Wall Street system is corrupt—since I make use of it myself. He didn’t promise to put an end to it; he promised to be authentic. 

The political scientist goes further. He questions the very idea that politics is a matter of truth. “Political discourse is not a discourse of truth. That is not its aim.” Its strength lies rather in its internal coherence and its ability to give meaning to lived experience. Trumpism, for example, links economic decline, unemployment, immigration, and a sense of American decline into a single narrative. “Do immigrants eat pets? It doesn’t matter whether that statement is true or false. What matters is that it fits with the other elements in this coherent narrative,” summarizes the political scientist.

For Olivier Sartenaer, the consequences of this new relationship with the truth are not merely rhetorical. “If, for example, one claims that the recommendations of the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) are merely the ‘religion’ of bourgeois-bohemian environmentalists and that one prefers the popular common sense that favors coal-fired power plants, one creates a climate that becomes uninhabitable. ” The problem here isn’t just being mistaken about a scientific phenomenon; it’s choosing to ignore available knowledge even when the consequences are predictable.

The same mechanism is at work in debates about vaccination. When scientific knowledge gives way to “common sense” or political convictions, collective decisions can have dramatic consequences. “The resurgence of measles in the United States is directly linked to the spread of doubts about vaccines. Today, children are dying from a disease that had been eradicated long ago,” laments the philosopher. 

Beyond poor decision-making, it is the very possibility of living together as a society that is at stake. “To discuss and reach agreement, we need a shared world. If we polarize to the extreme, we lose that shared world. We can no longer understand one another or act together.”

Beyond fake news and conspiracy theories, the “post-truth” and “post-irony” eras thus reveal a profound transformation in our relationship with the shared world. Authenticity versus expert opinion, humor that obscures intentions: the issue is becoming less one of truth and more one of trust. Hence the importance, for researchers, of rebuilding shared spaces through quality information, media literacy, a vibrant civil society, forums for debate, and collective narratives. For without a shared world, it becomes difficult not only to agree on the facts, but also to form a society. One final, distinctly political question remains: can we even combat this obfuscation with “truth” alone? Arthur Borriello believes not, and explains why in the sidebar.

The Truth in Crisis: Disinformation, Critical Thinking, and the Right to Information

A collective work to be published in the fall of 2026 by Larcier Intersentia. This book brings together several contributions, including texts by Alejandra Michel and Fanny Barnabé.

Arthur Borriello, Populism: The Misnamed

University of Brussels Press, “Débats” series.

In this essay, the political scientist examines contemporary uses of the notion of populism and offers a critical analysis of a concept that has become ubiquitous in public debate.

Denis Saint-Amand, Countering Fascist Laughter: Trolling and Resistance

Éditions Rue de l’Échiquier, “Les Incisives” series.

An analysis of the political uses of humor, trolling, and digital cultures, as well as the forms of resistance they can inspire.

Denis Saint-Amand is a qualified researcher at the FNRS at UNamur and president of the Namur Institute of Language, Text, and Transmediality (NALTT)

“The measles vaccine causes autism”: The topic of fake news in the field of health—and specifically regarding vaccination—was one of the subjects discussed during UNamur’s official 2026 academic year opening ceremony. Watch the video of this presentation.

Researchers from the VUB’s Artificial Intelligence Lab and the University of Namur (UNamur) demonstrate, in a new large-scale study, how autonomous AI systems can spontaneously develop, without human intervention, a functional and shared language. Unlike large language models such as ChatGPT, which learn existing human language by heart, these AI agents construct their own communication system, directly rooted in their specific sensors and environment. This discovery represents a major breakthrough for communication between autonomous systems, such as self-driving cars, robots and industrial sensors.

Current AI language models focus on understanding and generating human languages such as Dutch or English. These human languages are historically rooted in our own sensory perceptions. When physical or virtual AI agents are equipped with sensors for which humans have no direct sensory equivalent – such as lidar, sonar, infrared or chemical analysis – existing human language proves insufficient.

Jérôme Botoko Ekila, a PhD student at the VUB’s AI Lab, explains: ‘Instead of forcing AI systems to communicate in a human language that does not correspond to their sensors, we allow them to develop their own “artificial natural language”. They construct effective concepts that correspond exactly to what they perceive via their sensors, even if the data is incomprehensible to humans.’

As, in practice, the sensors on different machines or vehicles can never be calibrated identically, the researchers believe that this language offers the ideal solution.

Paul Van Eecke, professor of artificial intelligence at the VUB: “In industrial or physical applications, it is simply unrealistic to expect all the sensors on different robots or vehicles to be calibrated in exactly the same way. Humans solve this problem through language: if I say I am standing near the ‘red car’, we understand each other without our eyes registering exactly the same colour values. Language provides a layer of abstraction above the sensor readings, and this is precisely what we are now allowing these AI agents to construct autonomously.”

Instead of pre-programmed words or fixed codes, the researchers simply provided the agents with the basic mechanisms underpinning the evolution of human language: the local invention of words, the adaptation of conceptual prototypes, and the incorporation of feedback following successful or failed communication.

The universal applicability of the method has been demonstrated across 37 varied and complex datasets. The agents successfully developed their own vocabulary to communicate, notably regarding physico-chemical analyses of wine, NASA data on exoplanets, visual datasets, and images of birds or faces. In all these situations, the agents successfully synthesised the data into new, shared concepts.

Transparency is a notable advantage of the systems developed. Unlike many ‘black-box’ AI models, researchers can precisely determine the meaning of a specifically developed word, as the prototype can be directly linked to the values of the underlying sensors.

Furthermore, these evolving linguistic systems are extremely robust. When the environment changes, when sensors produce noise, or when individual agents have a different structure, the language automatically adapts to the new circumstances through continuous interaction.

Botoko Ekila, J., Verheyen, L., Nevens, J., Beuls, K., & Van Eecke, P. (2026). Emergent Communication in Continuous Worlds: Self-Organization of Conceptually Grounded Vocabularies at Scale. Transactions of the Association for Computational Linguistics, vol. 14, pp. 2234–2257. DOI: 10.1162/TACL.a.799

This research was carried out as part of a collaboration between the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) and the Faculty of Computer Science at the University of Namur (UNamur), and was funded by the Research Foundation – Flanders (FWO) and the Belgian National Research Fund (FNRS) as part of the WEAVE project.

Before artificial intelligence can recognize an image, understand a text, or answer a question, it must first be trained. To do this, developers and data scientists use specialized software libraries—true “toolboxes” that enable the construction of these AI models.

A research team comprising the University of Namur, the University of Passau (Germany), and TU Delft (Netherlands) has been studying this software. Their goal: to detect bugs that are particularly difficult to spot and that could cause a program to crash suddenly.

To verify that these libraries are functioning properly, researchers use software capable of automatically generating thousands of tests. The purpose of these tests is to push the programs to their limits in order to identify any potential errors. 

Until now, however, these tools had a major limitation: whenever a test caused a software library to malfunction, the software responsible for running the tests would also stop working. This made it impossible to pinpoint the exact source of the problem or report it to the developers. 

Researchers at UNamur have therefore devised a new method. Now, each test is run separately. If one of them causes a crash, it is isolated: the testing software continues to run, logs the error, and carries on with its analysis. This makes it possible to automatically detect bugs that previously went unnoticed. 

Using this new method, researchers analyzed 1,648 modules from the leading machine learning libraries and uncovered 32 previously unknown bugs. Several of these affected software that has become indispensable for training artificial intelligence models.

These issues were reported to the development teams. Several have already been acknowledged and fixed. “When a bug is fixed at this level, potentially thousands, or even millions, of users benefit,” notes Xavier Devroey, a professor in the Faculty of Computer Science at UNamur and a member of the PReCISE research center at the Namur Digital Institute (NaDI). Beyond these fixes, this research helps make the software on which so many artificial intelligence applications rely today more reliable.

This breakthrough originated from Lucas Berg’s master’s thesis, completed at UNamur under the supervision of Professor Xavier Devroey. As part of his research internship, Lucas Berg then joined Professor Annibale Panichella’s team at TU Delft to work on Pynguin, the open-source automated test generation tool developed at the University of Passau by Professor Gordon Fraser’s team, mentioned earlier. 

Initially, his goal was to improve this tool. By preventing crashes while discovering bugs, this first contribution subsequently caught the attention of researchers at the University of Passau, who were facing the same problem, leading to an international collaboration that would result in a joint scientific publication. 

Lucas Berg is currently pursuing a Ph.D. at the Faculty of Computer Science at UNamur under the supervision of Professors Wim Vanhoof and Xavier Devroey. The results of this research were presented at the IEEE International Conference on Software Testing, Verification, and Validation (ICST 2026), one of the most prestigious international conferences in the field of software testing.  

This research also received support from the Wallonia Public Service (SPW Research) and Wallonia-Brussels International. This recognition underscores the quality of this work and its significance to the international scientific community. 

At NaDI, researchers develop innovative solutions to the new societal challenges posed by the digital revolution (eGov, eHealth, eServices, big data, etc.). Drawing from a variety of disciplines, the researchers combine their expertise in computer science, technology, ethics, law, management, and sociology. Comprising six research centers, the Namur Digital Institute offers unique multidisciplinary expertise in all areas of computer science, its applications, and its social impact.