Projects

TRAKK, Capacity Building of Actors in Creativity and Innovation

Management innovation in public and collective services: integrating the participation of the “customer”

Entrepreneurial thinking in developing countries: Is it a matter of Gender? (Case of Tunisia)

Projet INSOLL ("Germaine Tillon" project, funded by the Walloon Region)

In July 2014, we inaugurated TRAKK, the creative hub of our region. This creative hub looks in particular, but not exclusively, at creative opportunities coming from digital technologies. As a matter of fact, in this field, the region can capitalise on the complementary assets of the region: a well-developed higher education system (in particular with recognised schools in software engineering (UNamur) or videogame development (Albert Jacquard); a dynamic festival of digital arts (KIKK festival, partner of the project); a motivated administration dedicated to the development of a smart city and a smart territory, etc. In this context, UNamur, through our team, has three missions: (1) to develop creative methods to support entrepreneurial projects; (2) to organise the knowledge and competence transfer from research to the regional actors, and (3) to observe the creative dynamics and use the as a research field. In 2016, we obtained funds from the FEDER program to finance three doctoral researchers on this project.

Contact: Annick Castiaux

All industries are faced to the necessity to integrate the participation of their customers, including in their innovation process. This trend has been accentuated by digital technologies that facilitate sharing and participation. This is still more the case for services as they are more and more co-developed with the customers. This evolution reaches public and collective services that have to consider their customers (citizens, patients, students, etc.) as a partner. Moreover, they are asked to propose differentiated services to their customers, taking into account the particular needs of everybody. This challenges usual management methods and requires looking at creative alternatives. In this project, we collaborate with local and regional authorities to face those new challenges. A platform called “Namur creativity office” has been launched in August 2015 to welcome various similar projects.

Contact: Annick Castiaux

This project ambitions to set up a typology of different patterns of living and fab labs, by leading ethno-methodological analysis of existing structures, regulations and practices of such labs in Belgium, France and Canada. Based on this analysis, the project should set up the structural, organizational, legal and pragmatic conditions to set up a living lab dedicated to healthcare in Wallonia.

Contact : Claire Maris

This project is in collaboration with the University of Sfax (Tunisia). In many regions in Tunisia, the female entrepreneurship seems to be a key driver of economic growth, leading to poverty reduction. While the number of women operating their own business is increasing, women continue to face huge obstacles that stunt the growth of their businesses, such as lack of capital, strict social constraints, limited time and skills, added to some cultural problems. It is important to notice also that female entrepreneurs are more likely to operate in the informal sector or in traditional female sectors. This project aims therefore to deepen our understanding of the female entrepreneurship especially in the less developed areas. As the gender gaps are expected to still be present in the critical skills needed to run a successful enterprise, the project aims to better identify the key success factors of the female entrepreneurship.

Contact: Wafa Hammedi

EFFaTA-MeM, Evocative Framework for Text Analysis – Mediality Models

The main goal of the EFFaTA-Mem consists in conceiving innovative media to support text analysis and interpretation. The originality of EFFaTA’s transdisciplinary approach can be summarised by the following characteristics:

Enrichment of meaning with evocation, presupposition and the implicit(s) of the texts, where conventional techniques reduce the sense – often to statistics – and synthesize the concepts;
Relying on new visualization techniques combined with immersive and interactive techniques;
Exploring new forms of multi-media writing.

Complementarily, note that a particular attention will be paid to the aesthetics of the proposed solutions (in the line of Tufte’s beautiful evidences).

Contact: Isabelle Linden