ULB, UCLouvain, Université de Montréal
" OBJ: 1) Observe interprofessional and interorganisational collaboration "in the making" in crisis situation: how professional groups organize and collaborate (within and between professional groups) in different organizational contexts (liberal practice, primary care delivery services, hospitals, nursing homes, etc.) especially for vulnerable groups. 2) Analyse the role of regulatory bodies governmental agencies, professional associations) in managing healthcare professions and interprofessional collaboration in crisis situations 3)Improving future care and the resilience of health systems METH: Collection and analysis of documents (instructions, tools, etc.), qualitative interviews, in situ observations. Developing Grounded theory "
Funding: Research team is part of BeHive - Interdisciplinary primary care Chair, funded by the King Baudouin Foundation (Fund Dr. Daniel De Coninck)
Contact: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

ULB

Sphère publique, sphère privée : Impact du port du masque sur la reconnaissance des personnes et de l'expression émotionnelle de leur visage. " Le déconfinement approche. Bientôt la population belge sillonnera à nouveau les rues, les transports et l'ensemble de l'espace public mais munie de masques. Quels retentissements sur la capacité des personnes à en reconnaître d'autres sur base de leur visage et à en extraire l'expression émotionnelle ? Sera-t-on toujours capable de juger, de manière efficace, de l'intention d'autrui à notre égard même si cette dernière porte un masque ? A tous les âges ? Ou, au contraire, a-t-on raison d'avoir la suspicion que le port du masque pourrait nous empêcher de reconnaître quelqu'un sur base de son visage et d'en lire les émotions de manière efficace ? "
Publication References: de Heering, A., & Rossion, B. (2008). Prolonged Visual Experience in Adulthood Modulates Holistic Face Perception. PlosOne, 3(5): e2317. de Heering, A., &amp...

Read more: Adélaïde de Heering, Post-doctoral Fellow

ULB - Royal Academy of Sciences, Letters and Fine Arts of Belgium
"The study is conducted within the framework of an international project on communication (production and reception of scientific, media, political discourse) on COVID-19. It aims to outline the role of semiotics in understanding the meaning of the social and cultural changeover the citizen is experiencing with the pandemic. A special attention is paid to the relationship between sign systems and axiologies.
Funding: Journal Degres ReSic (Research Center of ULB)."
Publication References: Special Issue of the journal DEGRES to be published in the summer 2020
Contact: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

UNamur - FNRS
" Professors and researches from the Department of Mathematics and the naXys research institute of complex systems at UNamur gathered their skills and expertise in mathematical modeling, dynamic systems, statistics, control theory and numerical optimization to develop prediction and unlockdown monitoring models of the Covid-19 epidemic. They set up a consortium in mathematical modeling of the Covid-19 epidemic bringing together all the universities of the Wallonia Brussels Federation, in synergy with its equivalent in Flanders. "
Contact: Annick Sartenaer (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.) Alexandre Mauroy (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.) Nicolas Franco (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.) Sébastien Clesse (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.) Morgane Dumont (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.)

ULB
" https://learning-from-the-curve.netlify.app "
Funding: ULB
Contact: https://learning-from-the-curve.netlify.app

ULB
"Our objectives are: • To study maternal and neonate COVID-19 information in the Belgian-Obstetric Surveillance System database: clinical presentation and natural history of disease, pregnancy-related basic information, pregnancy outcomes, birth characteristics, infant morbidity and mortality. • To study the core socio-demographic information to potentially identify groups at higher risk of complications • Build a more informative dataset thanks to data mining of public databases This study will enable us to understand the impact of COVID-19 on pregnant women and their offspring in Belgium, and in the world via the contribution to the INOSS multicenter study. It might allow us to define an at-risk population among pregnant women and their offspring, and tailor epidemiologic and clinical interventions for these more vulnerable individuals."
Funding: Pending (FNRS)
Publication References: "1. The International Network of Obstetric Survey Systems study of uterine rupture: a...

Read more: Caroline Daelemans, Professor

ULB
" COVerT Our aim is to delineate more accurately the prevalence of the infection in the pregnant population and study vertical transmission in the cord blood of babies born to mothers with confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection. Determination of prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 infection in mothers by combined universal screening: presence of antibodies (IgG and IgM or IgA) in their blood and/or a positive RT-PCR in the nasopharyngeal swab. We intend to detect evidence of vertical transmission by the identification of SARS-CoV-2 specific IgM or IgA in cord blood samples. If there is evidence of vertical transmission, the analysis of the consequences depending on infection timing during pregnancy will enable us to guide management more precisely. "
Funding: pending FNRS
Publication References: "1. Delforge ML, Costa E, Brancart F, Goldman D, Montesinos I, Zaytouni S, Marchant A, Donner C Presence of cytomegalovirus in urine and blood of pregnant women with primary infection might be associated...

Read more: Caroline Daelemans, Professor

ULB - Fablab ULB
" A multidisciplinary team at the Fablab ULB (Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium) has developed and produced different open-source emergency protective solutions against Covid-19 for hospitals and caregivers. Most of these solutions have been developed within the global fablab network using digital fabrication machines (laser cutter, 3D printers,...) and open-source documentation which allowed other fablabs in the world to develop and produced these solutions locally. Face Protective Masks Face Protective Masks have been developed to protect caregivers from aerosol projection. Thanks to a lot of help (other fablabs, architectural offices, students, volunteers,...), we have produced more than 50 000 Protective Face Shields and distributed them in hospitals and to other caregivers. This project was made in collaboration with Fab-C (Charleroi), fablab Yourlab (Andenne) and the Hospital CHU Saint-Pierre in Brussels and supported by the Michel Crémer Foundation. Swabs...

Read more: Denis Terwagne, Professor - Victor Lévy, Professor - Alain Delchambre, Professor - Nicolas De Coster

UMONS 
" Development of a Covid-19 serum library within the UMONS biobank. Collection and storage of samples (serum, blood or urine samples as well as nasopharyngeal samples) from patients diagnosed with Covid-19 positive or negative by an RT-PCR test. Collaboration between UMONS and Ambroise-Paré hospital (Mons) as well as Epicura hospital network (Baudour, Hornu). "
Funding: UMONS logistic and fiinancial supports
Contact: UMONS Biobank Prof. A. legrand, Manager Dr. F. Journe, Coordinator

UCLouvain
" We have ran two quantitative surveys (500 respondents, each) on employees experience of organizational communication during the covid-19 crisis. These two data collections will be followed by a collect of qualitative data through interviews. The aim is to measure the employees satisfaction during the crisis in contrast with a "normal" situation. This comparison will help to understand and identify key factors explaining employees satisfaction with communication practices. "
Funding: Déborah Horlait is funded by a doctiris grant. We have also the support of Moodfactory, the company hosting the doctiris research.
Contact: Déborah Horlait This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

ULB
" Learning from the curve is a voluntary and open source research project on COVID-19 and economics. It is a joint initiative of researchers in economics at ECARES, Solvay, ULB. Our mission is to provide detailed and real-time information and visualizations on COVID-19 and economics for the general public and the press, to serve as a platform for research collaboration on these topics, to understand the impact of COVID-19 on the economic tissue of countries and regions, to provide policy recommendations based on scientific arguments supported by data analytics. Learning from the curve started as a voluntary effort of faculty and students in empirical economics at ECARES. We are also very grateful for funding from the Special COVID-19 ULB grant. None of this would be possible without either. We call data from various sources, which are referenced in the respective dashboards and articles. We provide data sources and code on our Github organization. All publicly available data, code...

Read more: Glenn Magerman, Professor - Mathias Dewatripont, Professor - Bram De Rock, Professor

UCLouvain - FNRS
" Our interdisciplinary project (communication science, psychology, medical science) aims at measuring the evolution of the Covid-19 infodemic in Belgium through quantitative surveys and qualitative interviews. One work package of the project focus on French-speaking Belgium only (three waves survey, interviews). Another work package covers all Belgium (two waves survey) as part of an international comparison project in 8 countries. "
Funding: None at the moment.

Publication References : ORM Research report (May 2020) : Analyse de « l’infodémie » de Covid-19 en Belgique francophone URL : https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/wsuj3/
Contact : Grégoire Lits, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. https://uclouvain.be/fr/instituts-recherche/ilc/ilc-covid-19.html

UCLouvain
" This research project aims at studying the conditions under which the modern welfare state could build a kind of epidemics insurance, while paying a particular attention to the issue of fairness. The global objective of saving lives may be associated to policies that have undesirable distributive effects, against ideals of social justice. The project aims at finding ways to make mass prevention and equity compatible. "
Funding: This project will be part of my research load at UCLouvain, within the Hoover Chair in Economic ans Social Ethics.
Publication References: Fleurbaey, M., Ponthiere, G. (2013). Prevention against Equality ? Journal of Public Economics. Fleurbaey, M., Leroux, ML, Ponthiere, G. (2014). Compensating the dead. Journal of Mathematical Economics. Fleurbaey, M., Leroux, ML., Pestieau, P., Ponthiere G. (2016). Fair retirement under risk lifetime. International Economic Review. Leroux, ML., Ponthiere, G. (2018). Working time regulations, unequal lifetime and...

Read more: Gregory Ponthiere, Professor

UCLouvain - FNRS
" Through partnerships with Universities in South countries, information on available techniques and support to local trainings obtained from several national and international colleagues and platforms will be made available to health services in these institutions. "
Contact: Prof. J.-P. Coutelier de Duve Institute Universite Catholique de Louvain SSS/DDUV - ICP Av. Hippocrate 75, bte B1.74.05 1200 Woluwe-Saint-Lambert Belgique tel 32 2 764 7437 fax 32 2 764 7430 e-mail This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Comment: Support will be provided at the request of health services from South countries and differs therefore from one country to another. Funding is provided by ARES-CCD

UMONS
" The 2019 coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic is a public health emergency of international concern. Authorities and population are facing a global health crisis which pose a challenge to adapt quickly and effectively. The aim of this preliminary study was to survey the general public in Belgium to better understand their levels of psychological impact, anxiety and stress during the initial stage of containment. The data also explored tips and tricks immediately adopt by the population to manage containment. From 20 March to 28 March 2020, we conducted an online survey using snowball sampling techniques on social network. The online survey collected information on demographic data, stress level in the past 7 days, knowledge and concerns about COVID-19 and the impact of using technologies for taking information and stay connected to others, precautionary measures (tips and tricks) during the beginning of containment, and additional information required with respect to...

Read more: Jennifer Denis, PhD in psychology research and teaching associate