Developmental psychologist Ili Ma has been awarded an ERC grant to investigate misinformation among teenagers, aiming to bolster their resilience against its potentially severe consequences.

BrainTrain: an initiative from Leiden University in which a team of students visit high schools to make adolescents more resilient against disinformation on the news and on their socials. In an interactive two-hour guest lesson, high school pupils discover how easily their brains can be tricked into…

Last week Russia and Ukraine met for the first time since the outbreak of the war. The talks took place in Belarus.

Dr. Elif Naz Kayran received the Best Dissertation Award from the Migration & Citizenship Section of the American Political Science Association (APSA) for her dissertation 'Political Responses and Electoral Behaviour at Times of Socioeconomic Risk Inequalities and Immigration'

‘Let’s get everyone home safely!’ This was the message of an estimated 750 demonstrators as they marched through the centre of Leiden on 18 November.

Board members Annetje Ottow and Hester Bijl recently visited the Leiden University Centre for Linguistics (LUCL, Faculty of Humanities) and the Mathematical Institute (MI, Faculty of Science). This was the start of a series of visits to institutes at our university. The focus is on talking to researchers…

'Psychologists think I’m a linguist but linguists think I’m a psychologist,' says cognitive neuroscientist Xiaochen Zheng. With the Veni grant she will be able to bring these two fields of research closer together. Read her answers to five questions.

Pigeons, zebra finches and parakeets. Carel ten Cate studied bird sounds. But not just that. Together with linguists from Leiden, he investigated parallels between birdsong and language. On 9 June, his farewell symposium was held to mark the end of his broad career. Well, the end? Carel ten Cate has…

September 26 is the European Day of Languages. There are 24 official languages in Europe but some 200 languages in total are spoken on our continent. What good are all these different languages? And should we all learn Azerbaijani or Swedish? We asked Lisa Cheng, Professor of General Linguistics.

Three PhD candidates from the Faculty of Humanities have successfully applied for funding from NWO for new PhD candidates. The three upcoming researchers will receive funding from the PhDs in Humanities programme. With the funding, NWO wants to boost the recruitment and advancement of young talent in…

Language is omnipresent: when you talk, app or meet in Teams. Understanding how we communicate with one another and what communication does to us is essential. In her inaugural lecture, Nivja de Jong will call to redress the balance between the sciences and the humanities.

Vincent van Heuven passed away unexpectedly on Friday 6 February 2026 at the age of 76 at his home in Kûbaard (Friesland), the Netherlands.

In Belgium Radio 1, Marieke Liem (professor of Violence and Interventions) gives a scientific perspective on serial killers and explains the typical Hollywood image of serial killers is not in line with reality.

In Dutch magazine Elsevier, Marieke Liem explains the issues with using the term ‘troubled person‘ in reports on homocide.

Anne-Laura van Harmelen, professor Brain, Safety and Resilience will give her inaugural lecture ‘Resilience does not exist’ (in Dutch) on Monday 27 June. In her inaugural lecture she will discuss resilience after childhood adversity.

Education, Research

It will be a summer filled with conferences at the Faculty of Humanities in Leiden. In the coming months, there will be something for everyone at the university, especially in the field of languages and cultures of Africa and the Middle East.

Nancy Kula has been Professor of African Linguistics since 1 February. Now is a good time to hear more about her field of expertise and academic interests.

Assistant professor Ronny Boogaart, associate professor Henrike Jansen and assistant professor Maarten van Leeuwen have received the popularisation award from the National Research School of Linguistics for their book Maar zo bedoelde ik het niet (That's not what I meant).

Professor Nivja de Jong has been included in the list of most influential scientists by Elsevier Data Repository. This list of scientists with the highest impact is compiled annually based on citations. De Jong appears on the annual list for the third consecutive time.

As of this October, linguist Roberta D'Alessandro is appointed as Member of the International Council for Science (ICSU) Committee on Freedom and Responsibility in the conduct of Science (CFRS).

The Executive Board has appointed Olaf van Vliet as Professor of Economics at Leiden University, specialising in social security and labour market policy from an international perspective. The chair is affiliated to both the Department of Economics (Leiden Law School) and the Institute of Public Administration…

Political scientists study topics that affect society, but their work often remains out of the spotlight. Not always: the research of Leiden political scientist Simon Otjes does have a visible impact.

Lecture

Why do some people with adverse childhood experiences develop mental health conditions whereas others do not? A Leiden research project is looking for volunteers aged between 18 and 24 to help us understand more about human resilience.

The Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW) has awarded a KNAW Early Career Partnership 2023 to Philippe van Gruisen for interdisciplinary research on (labour) migration from a broad perspective on societal wellbeing.

From research on stellar winds to sign language: an impressive seven researchers from Leiden University will receive a prestigious Vici grant from the Dutch Research Council (NWO).

Cognitive psychologists Eliska Prochazkova and Mariska Kret from Leiden University have won an Ig Nobel Prize for their research into the romantic click between people. They discovered that attraction between people can be predicted by synchrony in heart rate and skin conductance.

Migrants are expensive. Or are they? Professor Olaf van Vliet collaborated on a big research project from Leiden University to map the costs of migration. During the last episode of this season of the podcast Open Geesten (Open Minds), he talks about the initial results. Do migrants really put a lot…

The outreach and engagement platform BrainTrain consists of five enthusiastic students of the masters programme Forensic Family Science. As part of their project, the students visit high-schools to teach adolescents about the brain, make them experience that their own reality is not always the only…

For this interview, we spoke with Thomas Ansell: Head of Communications at The Hague Humanity Hub. The organisation facilitates and supports innovations geared towards peace and justice. They provide new connections, collaboration networks, and exchange of information. What kind of organisations is…

Wat gebeurt er op het schoolplein? Sensoren op kleding openbaren pijnlijke patronen

Research

JSixty researchers have received a grant of approximately 50,000 Euros during round 3 of the NWO Open Competition SSH-XS pilot programme. Two of them are working at FGGA: Jolien van Breen and Honorata Mazepus. The sixty researchers received the grant to start working on a promising concept or an innovative…

Professor of Brain, Safety and Resilience Anne-Laura van Harmelen has been nominated for the Huibregtsen Prize. The winner of the prize will be announced on the Evening of Science & Society (4 October).

Seksueel grensoverschrijdend gedrag en structurele sociale onveiligheid horen niet thuis in vrouwengevangenissen, blijkt uit onderzoek van Leidse onderzoekers Esther van Ginneken en Yara Abbing. Zij vinden dat er een ingrijpende cultuurverandering nodig is en doen aanbevelingen.

How do parents communicate anxiety to their child via body language and words? Psychologist Cosima Nimphy studied this question for her PhD research. Experiments show that children of anxious parents are not more sensitive to their parents’ signs of anxiety.

It is often thought that immigration threatens the solidarity on which redistribution relies. But looking at the post-war period, PhD candidate Emily Anne Wolff finds that this is not the case.

Many intelligence services have an outdated view of the world while the threats they should protect us from are becoming more complex. Serviceman and researcher Bram Spoor warns that NATO and member state intelligence organisations cannot always predict the dangers.

Doing a PhD can be challenging. Moving to a foreign country can be challenging too. PhD candidate Ilya Kokorin, who was born in a small town in Siberia, faced both, while at the same time having to overcome a number of additional challenges and build a future post-PhD.

The challenges of building a sustainable society are unprecedented. But the Dutch municipalities cannot be faulted for their commitment. They are working hard, conclude Professor Eefje Cuppen and Lian Merkx, programme manager for energy at the Association of Netherlands Municipalities (VNG). To exchange…

Secret services are engaging in increasingly extreme forms of cyber espionage. But nobody talks about this. Dennis Broeders knows why and is trying to have an open conversation about new forms of espionage. As Professor of Global Security and Technology, he will give his inaugural lecture on Friday…

Terrorism, crisis, violence, intelligence, diplomacy, war and peace are topics that are broadly covered in ISGA's research activities. Regularly, ISGA researchers appear in international media to discuss their research expertise. This item offers an overview of non-Dutch and non-English articles and…

Tensions are rising between Russia and the West. Can an invasion of Ukraine and an international war be avoided? Political scientist and Russia expert Hans Oversloot warns of the consequences if the West chooses a collision course. ‘Offer Russia a dignified exit strategy.’

Just a few years ago, jihadist terrorism was seen as Europe’s most pressing threat. Today, we are facing hybrid warfare and extremist groups that are undermining our safety from within. Bart Schuurman, Professor of Terrorism and Political Violence, calls for a different kind of research.

On Wednesday 9 March, a Faculty meeting about the war in Ukraine was held for staff and students in the Lorentz Lecture Hall. By the time the meeting started at 17.00 hrs, the 220 available seats in the lecture hall had been filled mainly by large numbers of students.