Freddy Dumortier, born in 1947, emeritus professor at Hasselt University, is former president of the Belgian Mathematical Society and is currently permanent secretary of the Royal Flemish Academy of Belgium for Science and the Arts. He is the author of many papers and his main results deal with singularities and their unfolding, bifurcation theory, Liénard equations, Hilbert's 16th problem, slow-fast systems and the wave speed in reaction-diffusion equations.
Robert Roussarie, born in 1944, is emeritus professor of the University of Bourgogne-Franche Comté. After a career at the CNRS he was professor at the Institut de Mathématique de Bourgogne. He worked on the theory of foliations, of singularities in differential geometry, bifurcations of vector fields and finally slow-fast systems. He also contributed to applied research on ferro-resonance in electrical networks, systems of ecological populations, systems in control theory and free interface problems in combustion theory.