Research news – November/December 2025
Headlines – A busy start to the academic year for EUR Implanteus
On 7 July 2025, the ANR confirmed the continuation of the project, following the detailed opinion issued on 24 June 2025 by the international jury of the Committee for Teaching, Research and Innovation Ecosystems, which ruled in favour of extending the Implanteus European Research Area until August 2028. The Implanteus team would like to thank the 80 contributors who have been involved in this project since its inception and who contribute to its improvement every year.
A new name for the Master's degree
In order to better recruit international students, as the EUR's master's degree is multidisciplinary, its name IMAS, International Master in Agricultural Sciences, has become MAFEN, Master's Degree in Agriculture, Food Sciences, Environment and Nutrition, by creating major-minor options: Agronomy or Food Sciences & Nutrition.
An induction day for students
MAFEN Master's students enjoyed their orientation day on 14 October. In the morning, they explored two of Avignon's most iconic monuments, the Palais des Papes and the Pont d'Avignon, followed by a convivial lunch to share good times and strengthen team spirit in the company of the two directors of the EUR. In the afternoon, divided into five small groups, they took part in an escape game in the city.
Once again this year, the programme brings together talents from around the world, including Pakistan, Spain, Romania, Colombia, Lebanon, Nigeria and many other countries.
Implanteus at the Campus France Brazil fair
From 26 September to 1 October 2025, the Implanteus team from Avignon University took part in a mission to Brazil as part of the international student fairs held in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, where France was the guest of honour. This event, coordinated by Campus France and the French Embassy in Brazil, aimed to promote cooperation and academic mobility between the two countries.
This initiative was part of the year-long celebration of Franco-Brazilian ties, marked by the goal set by Presidents Macron and Lula to welcome 8,000 Brazilian students into French higher education.
Avignon University presented its courses and research activities, with a particular focus on the MAFEN Master's degree, and took part in institutional meetings in São Paulo and Rio. These exchanges helped to consolidate existing partnerships, explore new opportunities for cooperation and strengthen ties with Brazilian universities, both federal and state.
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Partnership chairs
LIAvignon Chair in Artificial Intelligence
The LIAvignon Chair presents its 2020-2024 activity report
This document provides an overview of the actions carried out since the creation of the LIAvignon chair: scientific advances, publications, structural projects, collaborations, theses, as well as initiatives aimed at outreach and engagement with the general public and socio-economic actors.
Created in 2020 within the Avignon Computer Science Laboratory (LIA), the chair puts artificial intelligence at the service of humans by exploring «Voice, Speech, Speaker» language technologies with applications in health, security, defence and voice services. Led by Jean-François Bonastre, Corinne Fredouille and Yannick Estève, it is supported by a consortium bringing together Avignon University, CERI and seven founding industrial partners: Orange, Airbus Defence & Space, Flandrin IT, LNE, ValidSoft, Orkis and the Cerco Group. All share the same ambition: to develop ethical, explainable and useful AI.
This report reflects the vitality of this ecosystem, through major achievements such as the ongoing development of SpeechBrain, the organisation of the Festival'IA, which has become an annual event, and a series of projects and collaborations that contribute to responsible, open and deeply human AI.
👉 View the activity report
👉 Find out more about the LIAvignon Chair
GIF chair - geodata real estate
The GIF Chair presents its 2023-2025 activity report
This document provides an overview of the work carried out since the creation of the Chair: research projects, scientific publications, participation in national and international conferences, as well as the dissemination of this work to the general public and local stakeholders.
Created in 2023, the GIF Chair explores the dynamics of land and real estate in local areas.
Conducted within the ESPACE joint research unit (UMR 7300) and co-directed by Laure Casanova Enault and Guilhem Boulay, it brings together institutional partners (Avignon University, CNRS, Région Sud and DGALN) with professional members (Adequation, MeilleursAgents – Se Loger, CEREMA, Union Sociale pour l’Habitat (USH) and Réseau National des EPF d’État) around a single objective: to combine scientific, technical and public knowledge to inform urban planning and housing policies.
👉 View the activity report
👉 Find out more about the GIF Chair
Geeaude Chair – Groundwater Resource Dynamics
Steering committee
On Monday, 6 October, the second Steering Committee meeting of the GeEAUde Chair was held., in the presence of the founding members (Avignon University, IFP Energies nouvelles and INRAE) and partner members (ATEC Hydro, Vaucluse Department, DRIM SAS, Ginger, ASA du Canal Saint Julien, Maison régionale de l’eau, Alpilles Regional Nature Park, Luberon Regional Nature Park, South Region – Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, Société du Canal de Provence – SCP, Syndicat RAO, Syndicat Mixte des eaux de la région Rhône Ventoux, SYMCRAU, Syndicat Mixte du Bassin des Sorgues (SMBS), SUEZ, Veolia). This meeting provided an opportunity to take stock of the actions carried out, share scientific and operational advances, and discuss research prospects and synergies within the GeEAUde Chair.
Three key points:
- The operational tools developed and now available to partner members: AvigNappe, MapGeEAUde and DataWater, with special mention to Guillaume Cinkus for his exceptional work.
- Monitoring groundwater quality in France, presented and analysed with insight by Leïla Serene.
- The concepts and methodological approaches in modelling, enriched by the contributions of André Fourno and André Chanzy, who brilliantly lead this scientific area.
A big thank you to everyone for the rich discussions! They reflect the vitality of the partnership and the collective commitment that are the strength of the GeEAUde Chair, working towards sustainable and equitable groundwater management.
A new doctoral student at the GeEAUde Chair
Welcome to Clara Pisciotta The chair is delighted to welcome Clara Pisciotta as a new doctoral student at the GeEAUde chair at Avignon University. Under the supervision of Adriano Mayer and Marina Gillon, her work will focus on The hydrogeological functioning of the Miocene aquifer in Comtat Venaissin: isotopic tracing, dating and groundwater renewal rates. We welcome him and wish him every success in this new scientific and human adventure!
Doctoral Schools
The 2025 academic year for doctoral schools
On 18 and 21 November, the back-to-school meetings for Doctoral Schools 536 and 537 took place. Following the presentations of the ED and PhD programmes by the directors, there were several presentations:
- Doctoral student representatives
- University Library
- PEPITE Provence
- Research and Innovation Support Department: scientific culture, promotion, international relations, EUR Implanteus, etc.
- Human Resources Department
Thank you all for attending, and thank you to the speakers.
Happy return to school, everyone!
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Thesis defences
Avignon University congratulates all doctoral students who have defended their theses over the past two months. Below is a list of the most recent defences.
Doctoral School 536
- 19 December 2025 – Ahmed Njifenjou : «Open-domain conversational agents based on transformer-based language models: towards multilingualism and personality» (UPR LIA)
- 17 December 2025 – Javier Belinchón Moreno : «Genetic and functional diversity of the NLRome/resistome in melons» (UR GAFL)
- 16 December 2025 – Louna Rizzi : «Effect of introducing and managing service plants on volatile organic compound emissions and aphid control in fruit growing» (UR PSH)
- 16 December 2025 – Grace Tessa Masse : «Cyber deception and resilience with distributed machine learning» (UPR LIA)
- 12 December 2025 – Nathan Griot : «Robust text-dependent speaker verification by temporal alignment, multitask learning, adversarial and self-supervised learning» (UPR LIA)
- 11/12/2025 – Moustapha Dieng : «Real-time monitoring of apple purée quality attributes during processing: physicochemical mechanisms and statistical modelling» (UMR SQPOV)
- 11/12/2025 – Nicolas André : «Real and hyper-complex representations and activation functions in neural networks for signal processing» (UPR LIA)
- 10/12/2025 – Lindsay Mas-Normand : «New analytical developments for metabolomics and annotation of dye plant extracts: Applications in a cultural heritage context» (UMR IMBE)
- 9 December 2025 – Pierre Le Bivic : «Water resource conservation in honey bees (Apis mellifera): quantitative and qualitative aspects» (UPR Bees and Environment)
- 5 December 2025 – Estelle Bridoux : «Effects of planting flowering cover crops on bee exposure to pesticides and apple tree pollination.» (UR Bees and the Environment)
- 27/11/2025 – Léa Saby : «Evaluating nature-based solutions for restoring Mediterranean grasslands» (UMR IMBE/EECAR)
- 26/11/2025 – Andrea Fox : «Reinforcement learning for resource allocation in Edge/Fog computing systems» (UPR LIA)
- 25/11/2025 – Margaux Darnis : «Identifying the probable trajectories of dissemination of insect vectors of plant pathogens for better prophylaxis» (INRAE – PV)
- 12/11/2025 – Meriem Hamrani : «Development of alternative and innovative strategies for sustainable and resilient management of biotic and abiotic stresses in citrus fruits» (UPR ERIT PSII)
- 24 October 2025 – Lucas House : «Robustness of neural models for automatic speech processing» (UPR LIA)
Doctoral School 537
- 19 December 2025 – Michel Mouléry : «Analysis of interactions between short supply chains and morphological complexity of urban boundaries: application to fruit and vegetables in Provence (France)» (UMR ESPACE)
- 17 December 2025 – Hadrien Di Costanzo : «Drought and its uncertainties in the Mediterranean context. A Bayesian model for proactive management of water resources and their uses: application to the Gardon d'Anduze and Galeizon basins.» (UMR ESPACE)
- 15 December 2025 – Sarah Kubien : «Avoidance in environmental law: an introduction through environmental assessment» (UMR IMBE)
- 12 December 2025 – Moulay Ali El Bouamraoui : «The teaching of Amazigh in Morocco and serene identity» (UPR ICTT)
- 5 December 2025 – Thibaut Lecourt : «Five million hectares of communal land ownership: statistical and spatial characterisation of a development resource across mainland France (2009-2021)» (UMR ESPACE)
- 28/11/2025 – Marc-Antoine Racicot : «Towards more effective legislation for the conservation of wetlands and water environments in Canada: from an Avoid-Reduce-Compensate sequence to a conservation sequence» (UPR JPEG)
- 20/11/2025 – Louisette Garcin : «From trajectories to possibilities: spatiotemporal convergences of plural mobilities – Modelling individual daily mobility trajectories to estimate spatiotemporal clustering potential» (UMR ESPACE)
- 20 October 2025 – François Grunewald : «Facing uncertainty and danger: the role of the «knowledge-experience» pairing in crisis management decision-making» (UPR JPEG)
The portraits
December 2025 – Simon Marcellin
Simon Marcellin is a senior lecturer in physics at the EMMAH joint research unit.
The ground, a particularly heterogeneous medium, poses a real challenge: radar waves, although non-destructive, see much of their energy reflected at the air-ground interface, significantly limiting ground imaging capabilities.
Simon Marcellin's objective is to optimise ground-penetrating radar imaging by designing a metasurface capable of maximising wave transmission into the ground.
Like the gel used in ultrasound to facilitate wave propagation, this metasurface aims to improve the coupling between the radar antenna and the ground, a key challenge in obtaining more accurate images.
Simon has just been awarded an ANR Young Researchers Grant (JCJC) for the period 2025–2029. This funding will enable the launch of the METINVERSE project, dedicated to the optimisation of metasurfaces.
👉 Discover his portrait
November 2025 – Laure Antunes
Laure Antunes is a doctoral student in Information and Communication Sciences at the Norbert Elias Centre.
She explores the dilemmas posed by the display of ancient human remains in museums, a subject at the crossroads of law, ethics and museology.
Title of thesis :
«MUMMY: Exhibiting Egyptian mummies in museums: Tensions between «legal standards» and «museum ethics». What contributions can 3D imaging and scenographic techniques make?»
His advice to students who wish to pursue research? Be passionate!
👉 Discover his portrait
October 2025 – Matthieu Ménager
Matthew Ménager is a senior lecturer in archaeometry within the EECAR team at the IMBE (Mediterranean Institute of Marine and Terrestrial Biodiversity and Ecology) joint research unit.
His work aims to answer archaeological questions using tools from physical chemistry and statistics.
Alongside Chloé Andrieu, he coordinates the MAYACOSTA project, funded by the ANR (French National Research Agency), which studies the exchange and transfer of prestige goods between the Mayan and Costa Rican regions between 300 BC and 700 AD.
Cultural and creative industries
A look back at the Culture Europe relay day - A collective effort to strengthen European projects in the cultural field
The 14 November 2025, Avignon University hosted the Relais Culture Europe Dayan event dedicated to highlighting European opportunities for players in the cultural sector. Organised with the support of PUI ProvenceThe day brought together a large number of teacher-researchers, cultural professionals and institutional partners from the region, illustrating a strong collective dynamic around the development of European projects.
The Research and Innovation Support Department (DARI)
The Research and Innovation Support Department (DARI) supports the research activities of its laboratories.
It participates in the implementation and operational management of the University's scientific policy and supports research players in their relations with the various partners in the socio-economic world.
👉 The Research and Innovation Support Department (DARI)
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Updated on 12 December 2025