小瓢虫传媒

Diversity is a source of enrichment and a driver of excellence for our University. The DEI policy is one of my priorities because it is an area where we need to improve. It must be approached through the notion of diversity(/ies): this underlines the need for an intersectional approach, without neglecting any of the dimensions: gender, origin, religious beliefs, ableism, age, socio-economic precarity, family situation, etc. Welcoming and supporting diversity requires inclusion projects and equal opportunities.

One of the first steps is to institutionalise this issue and bring all related expertise under the portfolio of a pro-rector. He or she will have to work in collaboration with the DEI Council, the vice-rectorates and the University鈥檚 governing bodies.

The DEI General Assembly and the Harc猫lement et violences de genre (鈥淗arassment and gender-based violence鈥�) report have produced a high-quality diagnosis and concrete proposals. On this basis, the pro-rectorate鈥檚 task will be to present a cross-cutting policy framework and an action plan, without excluding more urgent measures.

The priority is to combat violence and harassment; in my opinion, this also means respecting diversity. Another priority is to ensure that our regulations comply with our legal obligations. On this basis, we must improve inclusion by:

• welcoming diversity at all career levels: recruitment, missions, promotion, parenthood support, etc.;
• targeting the stages in the administrative processes and infrastructure that destabilise study and work paths, which cannot themselves create discrimination;
• strengthening our awareness-raising and student support systems, evaluating PEPS status and providing more support at the start of and during studies, including for internationally mobile students.

UCLouvain鈥檚 financial situation is solid, thanks particularly to the vigilant action of the director general and her teams, who are responsible for the University鈥檚 financial management. While respecting the expertise of our governing bodies, we must, together with the director general, release the necessary budgets and resources that will enable the Rectoral Council to progressively implement the priorities relayed by the community and developed in my programme. In addition to the resources made available in the ordinary budget, there are several other levers of action open to us: the NEXT Fund and external funds such as foundations, centres of excellence, regional funds and the F.R.S.-FNRS.

In consultation with the Academic Council and the Board of Governors, my priorities include:

• implementing 鈥淒EI-Respect鈥� initiatives and measures to combat student precarity;
• supporting scientists in completing their (post)doctorate;
• creating an internal funding mechanism (Louvain Bridge) for small research budgets, enabling students to wait for a source of funding or to complete a thesis hampered by legitimate obstacles;
• on the basis of a needs analysis, hiring additional scientific, administrative and technical staff on an ad hoc or structural basis;
• increasing budgets for promotions and advanced training leave;
• reinforcing technical staff, research logisticians and data officers for long-term research;
• improving learning infrastructures to support innovative practices;
• establishing a master plan for our major scientific facilities;
• investing in IT security.

I will be paying close attention to our eight campuses, our three sectors, our administrative support services and our hospitals. Our multicampus, cross-sector identity reveals the breadth of our activities, the variety of our expertise, the wealth of our collaborations and the vitality of our local roots. It deserves to be better recognised and better exploited. If it were better thought out, it could strengthen our sense of belonging to a single university.

Successive changes at UCLouvain have accentuated the need for a better understanding of the realities of the campuses and sectors in order to build an identity that respects its plurality. Our governance structures must be supportive, stimulating, representative and unifying, and enable us to unite without hierarchising or creating competition.

My project is to evaluate and improve our governance in a participatory way to guarantee respect for people, sectors and campuses in the fulfilment of our missions and social responsibilities. This involves identifying difficulties and added value, prioritising improvements, planning actions and gradually implementing them.

In my vision, applying the principle of subsidiarity, the campuses must have strong identities, local services and the necessary level of autonomy to deploy their priorities. The sectors need to understand, integrate and communicate with each other. For their part, the central bodies must ensure that this diversity is part of an overall vision that is transparent, coherent, aligned with our objectives and obligations, and non-discriminatory.

I want to ensure that campuses are represented in bodies where necessary, clarify the division of responsibilities and arbitration bodies, and improve technical, administrative, financial and scientific support. I also want to take into account the practical impact of multicampus working, so as to reduce the 鈥渂urden鈥� of it: intercampus travel, meetings, internal correspondence, interaction with central services, etc.

The University must offer education (higher and continuing) and support that will enable students to acquire a solid command of their subject and be empowering, so that they have the necessary skills to become key actors in society.

I intend to implement equity, diversity and inclusion at the University, take measures to reduce student precarity (course materials, housing, study grants, childcare, mental health, etc.) and offer, on each of the campuses a learning environment conducive to the acquisition of knowledge and skills.

Our campuses must be accessible and sustainable, where students can flourish, open themselves up to culture, participate in sports, and so on. Whatever it may be, the future academic calendar must allow students to really take ownership of their knowledge, support their active engagement and ensure better management of the emotions generated by exams, while respecting the fulfilment of academic and administrative missions. Concrete actions will be stepped up to support students鈥� success and respond even better to their needs.

I am aiming for a University that offers higher and continuing education that is rooted in research, innovative and engaging, and supported by highly qualified and passionate teaching staff. Our institution will continue to cultivate strong links beyond the university with hospitals, businesses, institutions, and partner universities (KU Leuven, the University of Namur, Circle U., The Guild, etc.) and hautes 茅coles, because they broaden opportunities for students and teachers alike, enrich their perspectives and provide a window on the world.

It is important to me that geographical and linguistic boundaries are erased in favour of academic bridges, connecting our ideal university to global knowledge and know-how, and that our entire community participates in more inclusive and diverse science.

Our University must continue to develop promising partnerships with economic, social and cultural operators at local, regional, national and international levels. These collaborations concern all three of the University鈥檚 missions and involve cross-fertilisation. Some organisations support fundamental or applied research, others enable our students to practise and develop their skills during internships, and still others benefit from our continuing education courses and the expertise of our members.

These partnerships help ensure that UCLouvain has a strong foothold and gives it the status of a major player in regional development. These initiatives should be supported and new ones encouraged. Drawing up an institutional register of partner organisations (companies, associations, government departments) would already give us an idea of the extent of our existing collaborative network. On this basis, the University could equip itself with an evaluation tool to assess its partnerships and capacity for development. This will enable us to better support each campus or entity in its area of influence, with the aim of becoming the benchmark of excellence in its areas of expertise. The strengthening of links with hospitals is a good example of this.

Dialogue between experts from scientific and professional circles is very important to me, and these exchanges will enable the University to fulfil its mission of disseminating knowledge and know-how, and to play a more 鈥減olitical鈥� role by taking informed, proportionate and realistic positions in a context of successive crises (social, economic, health, political, international, etc.).

My aim is to make UCLouvain a leading actor in the ecological transition in Wallonia and Brussels, and an example to the outside world. UCLouvain has a triple responsibility in the current ecological emergency.

As a business and a research and education institution spread over several campuses, our university has a significant ecological footprint. My priority is to make our campuses more sustainable and achieve carbon neutrality by 2035, particularly by renovating buildings and supporting soft and multimodal mobility, without penalising the international mobility of researchers.

The university also has the task of developing the scientific knowledge needed for the transition. UCLouvain must be at the forefront of disciplinary and interdisciplinary research on the transition and support transdisciplinary approaches (involving stakeholders in the field), a good example of which is the 鈥渢hird place鈥� 鈥淟es Portes de la transition鈥� (鈥淭he Gates of Transition鈥�) at the Lauzelle farm. Experimentation with technical, agronomic and social innovations for the transition should be promoted, as should international cooperation on this issue.

But the most significant action that UCLouvain can take in terms of the transition is to raise awareness and educate its staff and students on the issues and paths of sustainable development, by including it in the compulsory basic education for bachelor鈥檚 students, in master鈥檚 courses and in the initial education of teachers. Making UCLouvain鈥檚 voice heard in influential circles and with the public authorities and ARES is also one of my priorities. To this end, I will continue to implement the 2021鈥�26 Transition Plan and renew it in line with the recommendations of the Transition Assembly, which I hope to make permanent.

To limit the impact of the cost of living on students鈥� daily lives, my priority will be to take strong measures to reduce the various forms of precarity, taking into account the specific characteristics of the campuses. We need to argue for an increase in scholarships from the Wallonia-Brussels Federation (FWB), increase financial aid to support studies (and communicate better about it), allow access to healthy food at an affordable price, speed up the housing renovation, extend the range of accommodation on offer and strengthen the range of soft mobility transport to UCLouvain campuses.

I will quickly assess the feasibility of implementing on all University campuses the system already in place on the Saint-Louis campus, allowing immediate free access to syllabuses and a 50% discount on books for recipients of an FWB or similar scholarship.

In addition to planning a second tranche of priority major renovation work for UCLouvain accommodation, I intend to look into the possibilities of increasing the supply of accommodation on our campuses and consider alternatives in collaboration with the towns and municipalities concerned and private estate agents.

In view of the public health issues at stake, we must also continue to call on political decision-makers to ensure that higher education establishments receive specific funding to enable them to implement a real mental health support policy.

Lastly, an in-depth study, carried out jointly with the people concerned, will consider ways of recognising student commitment, particularly for student representatives on representative bodies and those responsible for student activities.

I am paying close attention to this issue in connection with the DEI policy (Q1). I am responding to these issues by centralising expertise in the hands of a pro-rector. As part of this mandate, the fight against violence and harassment is the first urgent area of action.

We have the 鈥淗arc猫lement et violences de genre鈥� (鈥淗arassment and Gender Violence鈥�) report and the (alarming) data from a recent survey of our student community. The report offers a number of recommendations that need to be prioritised and implemented, based on the results of the survey.

Based on the report, my programme identifies actions to better prevent violence and discrimination and to act when it occurs, as well as to strengthen confidence in the attention we pay to it:

• ensuring that our regulations comply with legal requirements and review our disciplinary procedures;
• providing 鈥渟implified鈥� communication in the structures responsible for receiving reports and complaints, as well as their missions and working frameworks;
• establishing a first line of communication, information and guidance for declarants on each campus;
• expanding awareness-raising and training initiatives, focusing on the most susceptible situations (student groups, university accommodation, thesis relationships, international stays), and strengthening our collaboration with student groups and acting more rigorously in susceptible areas (festivities, initiations, university accommodation);
• ensuring equal protection of staff for whom the University is not the employer (people on external contracts, mobile researchers);
• reinforcing, if necessary, security services during certain activities;
• improving institutional reporting of incidents of violence and taking appropriate action.

UCLouvain is a research university that innovates and responds to the challenges facing our societies, economies and environments, both locally and globally. Achieving these objectives means drawing on the skills, creativity and innovative capacity of our scientists.

Embarking on a PhD is an exciting and long-term undertaking. Our researchers need to be supported and accompanied at every stage of this journey, personally, scientifically and financially.

Given the multitude of research fields and methods, the support provided to scientific staff must, on the one hand, help with the completion of a thesis or (postdoctoral) research and, on the other hand, with the development of scientific, methodological and cross-disciplinary skills, in order to facilitate careers 鈥渄uring and after the thesis鈥�.

The 鈥渓ocal鈥� team (supervisors, committees, peers) has an essential role to play in this support, which is not simply a matter of leadership or supervision, but also of maintaining the motivation and developing the skills of scientific staff. The 鈥渓ocal team鈥� must also be supported by enabling it to develop managerial skills by, for example, having supervisors share good practices or tackle difficulties together.

Finally, doctoral schools should enable (inter)disciplinary exchanges, opening the way to new approaches and collaborations. Reception, guidance and career advice services should also be strengthened and supported throughout the career.

The material and financial conditions required to complete a thesis or postdoctorate must be met. On the one hand, care must be taken to ensure that means and resources are equitable, depending on the status of the scientist (employee, grant holder, project). Where external funding is not available (e.g. FNRS), a specific budget line could be created at entity level, and better use could be made of existing opportunities (Erasmus+, available to doctoral students).

As far as staff are concerned, the employer has obligations arising from the Collective Labour Agreements and the Well-being at Work Code, especially in terms of prevention and management of psychosocial risks and reintegration following long-term absence. I will ensure that we comply strictly with these obligations, in consultation especially with the Prevention and Protection at Work Committee (CPPT), prevention advisors and confidential counsellors.

Secondly, I do not separate individual well-being from collective well-being. The University is also a community of individuals. I want to bring this dimension to the fore by organising participative meetings to discuss our missions and values. I will ensure that procedures are transparent and fair, particularly for promotion and career management, and that decision-making processes are streamlined. These are organisational commitments that also benefit our well-being.

Since burn-out is an occupational illness linked to working conditions and workload, the University must take steps to prevent such situations from arising in the first place. The organisation of work and work communities is crucial. We can already respond by restoring meaning and time to people through a series of concrete actions in my programme, such as reviewing the academic workload, streamlining organisation, increasing our managerial staff, and enhancing the value of our expertise.

As far as the student community is concerned, I will endeavour to define the priorities of a mental health support policy that strengthens existing actions and seeks, together with the persons concerned, especially student representatives, other ways of contributing to better care for our students, at least as far as our expertise is concerned. It also seems to me that action to strengthen social cohesion (through support for student groups) and individual motivation in the course of study (through innovative and inclusive educational practices) may be more indirect but beneficial measures.