Mathieu Traore
Mathieu Traore is full of praise for the time he spent at UNamur. A doctoral student in law at the Thomas Sankara University, he joined the Faculty of Law at UNamur from April to July. Main objective? To give a boost to his thesis. "I am working on the theme of legal subordination in delivery companies like Uber. Thanks to my stay at the University of Namur, I was able to meet experts in this field, such as Professor Hervé Jacquemin. I was also able to meet practitioners and I had access to the documentation of the Faculty of Law, which is much more extensive than that available in Ouagadougou. All of this is a very enriching contribution and today I am going back to Burkina Faso with my thesis almost finished," says Mathieu Traore.
I would recommend this experience to all my colleagues: for the people I met, for the resources I was able to access, for the knowledge shared, for the discovery of this region and this country.
Matheiu Traore, PhD student at the Thomas Sankara University
Gnoari Tankoano
Gnoari Tankoano also had the same experience. Like Mathieu Traore, he is currently pursuing his doctorate in law in Burkina Faso and was able to benefit from European funding to carry out a three-month research stay in Namur. "My thesis is about the responsibilities of internet intermediaries. Coming to Namur allowed me to speed up my research. Meetings with many members of the CRIDS (Centre de recherche Information, Droit et Société) and the Faculty of Computer Science, as well as access to documentary resources on his research topic, enabled him to enrich his thesis.
In addition to the benefits for the completion of their thesis, the two doctoral students also see this international exchange as a real human added value.
We met professors who were very available to us. We were particularly surprised by their simplicity and accessibility: at UNamur, there are no walls between professors, students and researchers. This is extremely enriching on a human level and it also facilitates the transmission of knowledge.
Gnoari Tankoano, PhD student at the Thomas Sankara University
From UNamur to Burkina Faso: an example of international mobility
During their stay at the UNamur, the two doctoral students were welcomed and supervised by Professor René Robaye. He knows Burkina Faso well, and more particularly the Thomas Sankara University, with which UNamur has been linked for more than 50 years (see elsewhere): he has been there on several occasions to share his knowledge. "Recently, I went there to give a lecture to law students. The aim is to share our knowledge and expertise with our colleagues in Ouagadougou. We can also provide them with legal documentation to which they have little access," says Professor Robaye. In the future, with the support of UNamur's International Relations Department, René Robaye would like to strengthen the links with the Thomas Sankara University, in the framework of programmes financed by the EU's External Policy Fund and by Belgian development cooperation, by regularly hosting PhD students for short stays.
"We also plan to organise a law seminar once a year in Ouagadougou, where professors and researchers from both institutions will have the opportunity to work together. And we would also like UNamur to participate in the creation of a documentation centre in Ouagadougou, which would allow teachers and researchers to have access to digital legal content."
This exchange between the Thomas Sankara University and the UNamur is one example among others of the international mobility policy promoted at the UNamur and made possible thanks to the support of European and international mobility funds.
50 years of links with the Thomas Sankara University
At the end of the 1970s and at the request of the Belgian cooperation, Etienne Cerexhe, then dean of the Faculty of Law at UNamur, founded the Ecole supérieure de droit de Ouagadougou. The latter became the Faculty of Law of the Thomas Sankara University. The links between the two institutions remain close, as shown by this international exchange involving doctoral students from Burkina Faso and Professor René Robaye.