UNIL: a university in tune with the times and the challenges ahead
Long restricted to the various fields of engineering, the vast digital universe has now become established in all areas of research at the University of Lausanne.
Digital technology has become an integral part of our daily lives, opening up a wide range of opportunities for scientists around the world. In Lausanne, this field of study is becoming increasingly important, particularly in the humanities. Thanks to digital technology, it is finally possible to conserve the remains of a vanished heritage, such as the Temple of Baalsham, with the major Collart-Palmyra project launched in 2017 by the Institut d’archéologie et des sciences de l’Antiquit;. It also gives rise to research, meetings and numerous conferences on video games, analysing, for example, their close links with history or the world and codes of cinema.
Thanks to technologies such as immersive virtual reality, digital technology offers new possibilities for understanding human behaviour and social interactions in specific contexts, such as a job interview. Research carried out at the Faculty of Business and Economics, as well as work looking more broadly at the digital world from the perspective of cyber security and social interaction, have also contributed to the understanding of human behaviour and social interaction in specific contexts, such as job interviews;curity and cyber defence, carried out by researchers hailed as some of the world's leading specialists in these fields.
A cross-section of digital cultures
In this video, four scientists discuss various facets of the digital world and the ways in which this field is studied at UNIL: Marc Atallah, a lecturer and researcher in contemporary French literature, will be examining the imaginary of the digital and the way in which today's creators use the digital to express their ideas; Professor Marianne Schmid Mast uses immersive virtual reality in her work to immerse participants in unusual contexts; Manon Jendly, a professor and criminologist, is particularly interested in the way in which digital technologies are used to achieve social control;He is interested in the way in which digital technology, via video games for example, is influencing cinematic culture at the same time as adopting its codes.
Continue the interviews: digital and...
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The social link
Marianne Schmidt-Mast
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Literature
Marc Atallah
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Criminology
Manon Jendly
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The cinema
Alain Boillat
Research centres, institutes and groups
To find out more
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Big data and the judiciary (L'uniscope 651, February 2020, pp. 4-5)
Do artificial intelligence and the justice system go well together? Criminologist Manon Jendly, associate professor at the School of Criminal Sciences, takes a critical look at the tools presented as a guarantee of an end to prison overcrowding and of more efficient and fairer justice.
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What's up, Doctor 2.0? (L'uniscope 637, October 2018, p.10)
Replicating an experiment in Bern, a team of psychologists at UNIL are setting up an online support tool for people affected by bereavement. Unlike their Bernese counterparts, the Lausanne-based team is banking on a completely autonomous programme that requires no human intervention.
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History and video games (L'uniscope 622, March 2017, p. 12)
Having become a veritable cultural phenomenon, video games are now sometimes becoming a subject of study for specialists in cinema or television series, thanks to their narrative and technological developments. It is also of interest to historians, with the proliferation of franchises that immerse the game-player in worlds such as the Egypt of the pharaohs or ancient Rome.
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Interview with Marianne Schmid Mast (L'uniscope 631, February 2018, pp. 6-7)
Marianne Schmid Mast is a professor of organisational behaviour at the Faculty of Business Administration and one of the fifty most influential living psychologists in the world. She is a pioneer in the use of technology, primarily virtual reality, to analyse social interactions.
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The digital world: one or more universes? (Watch the video of the conference and show)
A special evening devoted to the digital world was organised at UNIL in September 2019. It brought together artists and researchers from a variety of disciplines to discuss their research. Proof of the interest in this field, which today concerns everyone, with entries as broad as the number of fields of study.
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What laws for the digital age? (L'uniscope 640, January 2019, pp. 4-5)
Is the digital world a world unto itself, governed by its own laws? Not by a long shot. But is the legal system equipped to respond to all the issues and challenges posed by digital technology? In 2019, the École de droit is organising a conference on this ever topical theme.
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Digital uncertainty (L'uniscope 650, January 2020, p. 9)
Academic coordinator of the dhCenter UNIL-EPFL and assistant professor in digital humanities at the Faculty of Arts, Michael Piotrowski is conducting research to enable machines to take account of the uncertainty that characterises certain data in the social sciences. This work is supported by "Spark" funding, an instrument of the Swiss National Science Foundation dedicated to unconventional projects.
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Interview with Solange Ghernaouti (L'uniscope 633, April 2018, pp. 6-7)
Passionate about computing and networks at the start of her long academic career, Solange Ghernaouti, a professor in the Department of Information Systems, has established herself as an international expert on cybersecurity issues over the course of a brilliant career, punctuated by prestigious awards.
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Picking up the pieces (L'uniscope 639, November 2019, pp.14-15)
Whether deliberately or through the ravages of time, some of these treasures are lost every year. Thanks to digital tools, some of these treasures are sometimes reborn from the ashes. One example is the 3D reconstruction of the temple of Baalshamîn as part of the major Collart-Palmyra project.
Other resources
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