University Management Team

Vice-Rector for International Relations, Mobility and Cooperation

A UMH biology graduate in 1994 and a Doctor of Biology since 1997, Laurence Ris specialises in the field of neurosciences and more specifically in the mechanisms of memory and learning. As a research fellow at the FNRS, she carried out a research stay at the Collège de France in Paris (CNRS) and wrote a thesis on brain plasticity in 2002. She then spent time at the University College of London (WIBR) before being appointed FNRS qualified researcher in 2003 in the Neuroscience Unit of UMH. She developed expertise in the field of electrophysiology and plasticity of neuronal connections, which is recognised through her national and international collaborations. She has been an associate professor since 2012 and a full professor since 2018. She was Vice-Dean of the Faculty of Medicine and Pharmacy between 2014 and 2022 and is in charge of the biomedical section, where she set up a specialised Master’s degree programme in Neuroscience in 2019, and which is available entirely in English. She is co-founder of the UMONS Interdisciplinary Centre for Psychophysiology and Electrophysiology of Cognition (CiPsE). She was president of the Belgian Neuroscience Society from 2015 to 2017 and has been president of the Belgian Brain Council since 2021. She is a member of the scientific committee of the Belgian Alzheimer Research Foundation and secretary of the international ALBA network promoting equity and diversity in brain sciences. Sensitive to development cooperation, she is also the coordinator of an R&D project in partnership with the University of Lubumbashi in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Specific Tasks

• Supporting the Rector and the institutional strategy for international development
• Enriching the lives of students, teachers and staff through international mobility and awareness of European and global citizenship, with the support of her advisors
• Strengthening the attractiveness of UMONS to international students, teachers and researchers, in close interaction with the members of the academic authorities
• Promoting and increasing international mobility by developing balanced exchange opportunities with our foreign partners and by fostering links between teaching and research
• Offering our students an opening to the world and access to new training courses through internationalisation “at home” opportunities and through the development of the EUNICE Alliance of European Universities
• Strengthening development cooperation and raising the profile of our relations with our partners in the South in order to make our students aware of the challenges of development and to promote sustainable action
• Supporting the International Relations Office in the implementation of international development strategies.

Contact :

Tél. : +32 65 373570 laurence.ris@umons.ac.be

Laurence RIS ( FMP )

Vice-Rector for International Relations, Mobility and Cooperation

International Mobility Advisor

Teaching Assistant at the Faculty of Translation and Interpretation since 1997, Marta Bonet Bofill is part of the Specialised Translation and Terminology Unit. Her teaching activities include translation and terminology, the language and culture of Spain and Latin America, as well as the production of speeches for the teaching of conference interpreting. Her applied research activities have led her to collaborate with the European Parliament on a terminology pilot project related to the IATE terminology bank. Outside of her teaching activities, she has supervised several Master’s translation projects in various fields, such as respect for human rights, medical prevention, and prison conditions in Spain. With the support of Wallonia-Brussels International (WBI), she has also conducted several seminars at Bolivian universities to develop the teaching of translation in Bolivia.

For over 15 years, Marta Bonet Bofill has coordinated Erasmus mobility for the Spanish department of the FTI-EII.  Influenced by her time as an ERASMUS student at the School of International Interpreters of Mons in 1992, she has always sought to encourage the incoming and outgoing mobility of students and teachers of the FTI-EII. She has also initiated more than a dozen new partnerships with Spain and, more recently, has contributed to the promotion of new agreements in Latin America, in particular with the University of Concepción (UdeC) in Chile. A new collaboration with the University of Havana in Cuba is currently underway.

Contact :

Tél. : +32 65 373613 marta.bonetbofill@umons.ac.be

Marta BONET BOFILL ( FTI-EII )

International Mobility Advisor

Conseiller pour la coopération au développement

A Pharmacist and Doctor of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Pierre Duez managed the Laboratory of Pharmacognosy, Food Science and Human Nutrition at ULB for more than 10 years. Appointed full time at UMONS in 2013, he has created the Therapeutic Chemistry and Pharmacognosy Unit. His team, specialising in the study of natural products, isolates the active principles of plants selected by ethnopharmacology and characterises them structurally and pharmacologically. He is member of the Traditional Chinese Medicines Unit of the European Pharmacopoeia, as well as a member of the Working Party on European Union Monographs and European Union List,  the Belgian Pharmacopoeia Commission, the Belgian Commission for the Registration of Veterinary and Herbal Medicines, the Good Practices in Traditional Chinese Medicines Research Association (on the management committee), and the World Federation of Chinese Medicine Societies (subcommittees monitoring pharmaceutical post-marketing and analysis).

Active since 1982 in development cooperation (Algeria, Argentina, Burkina Faso, Uganda, DR Congo, China, Rwanda, Madagascar, and Vietnam), Pierre Duez has participated in many projects and has been (co-)supervisor of theses for students from the South. He is a supervisor at the Institutional Support Department (AI) at the University of Lubumbashi and supervises a Research Project for Development (PRD) for the universities of Ouagadougou and Lubumbashi.

Contact :

Tél. : +32 65 373509 pierre.duez@umons.ac.be

Pierre DUEZ ( FMP )

Conseiller pour la coopération au développement

On-campus Internationalisation Advisor

Véronique Vitry is a materials science engineer and has a PhD in Applied Sciences from UMONS. She is currently an associate professor and a senior research and teaching associate in the Metallurgy Unit of the Faculty of Engineering. Her research is focused on metal coatings, metal matrix composites and metallurgical processes.

Her courses, many of which are taught in English using the CLIL approach, are mainly on metallurgical processes.

She is the president of the Northern France/Belgium section, and a member of the board, of A3TS (Association des Traitements Thermiques et Traitements de Surface), and is equally invested in ASM International and one of its affiliated companies, the Failure Analysis Society (president of the International Relations Committee, and Women in Materials Engineering committee member).

She is also involved in development cooperation projects and maintains collaborations with Morocco, Niger and Burkina Faso.

Véronique Vitry has held several positions at UMONS as the representative for scientific staff. She has also been the artistic director of the UMONS Student and Staff Band (USSB) since 2010.

Contact :

Tél. : +32 65 374438 veronique.vitry@umons.ac.be

Véronique VITRY ( FPMS )

On-campus Internationalisation Advisor

Vice-Rector for Education, Lifelong Learning and Work-related Training and Academic Partnerships

Laurent Lefebvre obtained his PhD in Psychology and Education from the University of Mons-Hainaut (UMH) in 2006, became first assistant in 2008 and full-time associate professor in 2012, creating the Cognitive Psychology and Neuropsychology Unit, of which he heads. In the same year, he became Vice-President of the newly created Health Institute until 2018. Elected Dean of the Faculty of Psychology and Education in 2014, a position he still holds, he became an Ordinary Professor in 2016. He is also co-founder of the UMONS Interdisciplinary Centre of Psychophysiology and Electrophysiology (CiPsE). His teaching and research activities focus on neuropsychology, and more particularly the language and communication difficulties presented by people suffering from a neurodegenerative pathology, and more specifically by those with Alzheimer’s disease. He is currently involved in several international and regional consortiums on this subject, via numerous partnerships with the hospitals of Hainaut.

Specific Tasks

• Promoting the transition to university, through increased collaborations with secondary and higher education institutions, through activities aimed at discovering the university world and actions aimed at integrating into university life
• Continuing the actions in the field of “support for success”
• Guiding and supporting students during their university studies and post-graduate career
• Encouraging the use of innovative pedagogical devices for teaching (E-learning, MOOCs, flipped classrooms, interactive tools) through the training of new academic and scientific staff and by ensuring techno-pedagogical support
• Developing quality continuing education in line with society’s expectations
• Promoting flexible and inclusive educational provisions that take into account the diversity of the student body
• Strengthening our partnerships both within the Pôle hainuyer and the EUNICE European Alliance
• Increasing the range of courses offered at UMONS, with priority given to creating Master’s degrees for the Bachelor’s degrees already on offer at UMONS
• Offering a training environment adapted to the evolution of the institution and society
• Continuing to enhance the pedagogical quality of teaching
• Acting as the academic point of contact for educational issues
• Representing UMONS in the CREF Education Council (Vice-Rectors for Education) and in official bodies, such as ARES.

Contact :

Tel : +3265373128

laurent.lefebvre@umons.ac.be

 

Laurent LEFEBVRE ( FPSE )

Vice-Rector for Education, Lifelong Learning and Work-related Training and Academic Partnerships

Conseiller pour la formation continue et en alternance

Willy LAHAYE est Philosophe et Docteur en sciences psychologiques et de l’éducation. Il est professeur ordinaire à l’Université de Mons où il dirige le service de pédagogie et andragogie sociales et le centre de recherche en inclusion sociale (CeRIS). Ses recherches et publications sont orientées sur la co-éducation, les relations école-famille-communauté ainsi que les formes et mécanismes de la précarité. Dans ce dernier axe de recherche, Willy Lahaye développe une expertise dans les domaines de la pauvreté infantile et la précarité énergétique. Ces deux domaines d’étude et d’intervention impliquent Willy Lahaye et son équipe de recherche dans le cadre de relations internationales tant au niveau universitaire qu’en lien avec les entreprises publiques et privées. Avec l’Université de Gand et l’Université d’Anvers, il a coordonné la publication de sept éditions de l’Annuaire « Pauvreté en Belgique ». Il préside également le Groupe belge interuniversitaire de recherche en pauvreté (GIREP).

 

Contact :

Tél. : +3265373158 willy.lahaye@umons.ac.be

Willy LAHAYE ( FPSE )

Conseiller pour la formation continue et en alternance

Digital Strategies for Teaching Advisor

Bruno De Lièvre is a full professor at the UMONS Faculty of Psychology and Education. He manages a teaching and research unit, the focus of which on digital technology to facilitate learning. Within the field of Education Sciences lies the sub-field of Education Technology, which questions the conditions for effective learning to take place. What is analysed is the interaction between pedagogical methods, technological tools and those involved in the educational process, which mainly implicates teachers and learners. Technologies in perpetual evolution (virtual reality, social networks, digital tablets, Web 2.0, etc.) lead to constantly questioning emerging pedagogical practices (MOOCs, mobile learning, hybridisation of training, edu-labs, etc.) and essentially the learning processes that are implemented in these devices (collaborative activities, remote interactions, peer-evaluation, ubiquity, space management, etc.). Bruno De Lièvre actively collaborates with many universities in the South on these topics and has coordinated the “Successful Digital Transition” working group for the Pacte pour un enseignement d’Excellence (pact for excellence in education) in the French Community of Belgium. He interacts with these different objects via different digital platforms, such as Scoop-It, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and ResearchGate.

Contact :

Tél. : +32 65 373122 bruno.delievre@umons.ac.be

Bruno DE LIEVRE ( FPSE )

Digital Strategies for Teaching Advisor