Michaël Peyrot has been appointed professor of Comparative Indo-European Linguistics at the Leiden University Centre for Linguistics with retroactive effect from 1 January. He is looking forward to passing on his love for the subject to a new generation of students.

Natashe Lemos Dekker has been awarded the Distinguished Women Scientists Fund 2021. This travel grant for female postdocs allows her to spend a period as a visiting fellow at the UCLA Department of Anthropology in the United States.

In studies, it is an old acquaintance, the p-value. But mathematician Peter Grünwald wants to get rid of it. The p-value is too susceptible to fraud and can lead to a distorted picture of reality and chance. That is why he wants to work with the e-value. De Volkskrant spoke to him about it.

The ERC consolidator project "Food Citizens? Collective food procurement in European cities: solidarity and diversity, skills and scale" will organise a winter school on visual and collaborative methods in anthropological research at Leiden University’s Institute of Cultural Anthropology and Development…

Special achievements, grants and a top 10 ranking, a great calendar year for the Faculty of Archaeology! See the overview of 2023 in the hall of fame below.

The article “Anticipating an unwanted future: euthanasia and dementia in the Netherlands” by Natashe Lemos Dekker is the winner of the first Interdem Academy Publication Award. Lemos Dekker is a postdoctoral researcher in the ERC project ‘Globalizing Palliative Care’ at Leiden Leiden of Cultural Anthropology…

Political games have existed throughout history, but what is the role of 'play' in the way the American political world has developed? University lecturer Sara Polak has received an ERC Starting Grant to investigate this.

It is with deep sorrow that we share the news that our dear colleague Andrea Evers passed away on Monday, 4 August 2025. Since 2013, Andrea had been affiliated with the Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences at Leiden University as Professor of Health Psychology. She was an undeniable driving force…

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.

On 26 and 27 September, Eduard Fosch-Villaronga, Carlotta Rigotti, Mohammed Raiz Shaffique, Marie Schwed-Shenker and Antoni Mut Piña participated in the third edition of Lawtomation Days at the IE University in Madrid.

Stress and overwork are massive problems today, but relatively little is known about stress factors in the past. With a look at the deep history of stress, Sarah Schrader hopes to get a better understanding of the human stress experience. Her project application received an NWO XS grant.

Eduard Fosch-Villaronga from eLaw - Center for Law and Digital Technologies, together with Hadassah Drukarch and Carlos Calleja, explores how compliance tools could be used as data generators for policy purposes to optimise regulatory frameworks for existing and emerging robot technologies.

Over the past year, many students and staff members of Leiden Law School have been lauded for their extraordinary achievements. For instance: a grant received, an award won, or an appointment by a special committee. We have combined all these achievements in our Honours Gallery 2022:

As every academic year, the leadership team of the Young Academy Leiden (YAL) is changing. Sarah Giest, Assistant Professor at the Institute of Public Administration, will be the new Vice-Chair. Annemarie Samuels, Asssociate Professor at Social Sciences, will be the new Chair. The Young Academy Leiden…

Researchers at the Universities of Amsterdam (Uva) and Leiden together with the Netherlands Cancer Institute and Oncode Institute have received a €10,6 million ERC Synergy Grant to develop innovative therapeutic approaches to target glioblastoma. This is a deadly primary brain tumour for which no curing…

When discussing the history of Islam, the focus is almost always on the history of the Sunni majority. University Lecturer in the history of Islam, Edmund Hayes wants this to change. His new ERC-funded project , focuses on the development of the early Shia community.

Since November 2022, Veronica Tamorri has been a new face at the Faculty of Archaeology. Originally from Rome, she joined the Faculty with a two-year Marie Skłodowska-Curie post-doctoral fellowship. Here she is studying human remains from early Egypt and Nubia (Sudan) using bioarchaeological methodologies.…

Het zichtbaar maken van ongeschreven verhalen van inheemse culturen en volken van de Cariben. Dat doet de tentoonstelling ‘Caribbean Ties’ in de Oude UB.

Leiden University has a new professor. On 1 June Nadine Akkerman became Professor of Early Modern Literature and Culture, a position she feels is designed to help her help others.

Leiden physicists Carlo Beenakker and Bas Hensen receive 35 million euros in a consortium with researchers from QuTech and Delft University of Technology. They will investigate the fundamental limits of quantum physics.

What does it mean to be a migrant in a big city? According to assistant professor Kamila Krakowska Rodrigues, artists have the answer to that question. In a new ERC-funded project, she will explore the representation of contemporary urban diversity in films, performance art, written literature and spoken…

If you had something important to write down in ancient times, you would usually write in Greek in the eastern Mediterranean. University lecturer Joanne Stolk has been awarded an ERC grant to explore the kinds of spelling mistakes that were made in these scripts. And, more importantly, what improvements…

Fifteen hundred years ago, the north-west of what we now call China was a jumble of peoples. How did those Indians, Khotanese and Tocharians influence each other and each other's languages? Associate professor Michaël Peyrot has been awarded an ERC grant of almost two million euros to unravel this 'web…

Nadine Akkerman, associate professor of early modern English literature is receiving the Dr Hendrik Muller Prize 2021 for her work.

Lecture

Psychologist Myrthe Jansen conducted research into the performance monitoring that constantly takes place in our heads. People with obsessive-compulsive symptoms are more afraid to make a mistake that harms others, than when they make a mistake that only harms themselves. Jansen received her PhD on…

What if seriously ill patients do not want to hear their diagnosis? Does a clinician always need to provide a patient with all available information? Communication researcher Liesbeth van Vliet, medical anthropologist Annemarie Samuels and research intern Fiona Brosig will put these questions on open…

Bacteria carry countless hidden treasures in their DNA: fragments that could hold the key to new medicines. But how do you pick out the most promising ones from millions of options? ‘Look at the switches that turn genes on and off,’ says molecular biologist Gilles van Wezel.

Connecting worlds, enhancing research and teaching, and providing innovative solutions to complex social issues: that is the idea behind interdisciplinary research. In that respect, a huge amount happened at Leiden University in 2023.

Three quantum-safe cryptography methods have been standardised for worldwide use since this week. Léo Ducas co-designed the two primary PQC methods selected for this standardisation. Ducas is part of the Cryptology group at Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica (CWI) and is also professor of Mathematical cryptology…

In her teaching and research, Mosquera primarily seeks the connection between tax law and other disciplines. Her appointment is effective as of 1 November 2021.

Monday 6 February the Faculty of Archaeology had the honour to receive the e Ambassador of the Dominican Republic, H.E. Dr. Juan Bautista Durán. The motive of the visit was to discuss the collaboration between the university and the Dominican Government after the signing of a new Memorandum of Understanding…

Gilles van Wezel will step down as Scientific Director (SD) of the Institute of Biology Leiden (IBL) as of June 17th. He has held this position since September 2018. Van Wezel will be temporarily succeeded by Hubertus Irth, the current SD of the Leiden Academic Centre for Drug Research (LACDR). Irth…

In the Netherlands, when we talk about the United Nations, the conversation is almost always about the member states from the northern hemisphere. But the most interesting players come from the ‘Global South’, Professor Alanna O'Malley and her team argue in a podcast.

If a forged Vermeer or Rembrandt is discovered, it is world news. Yet tracing fakes has long been a low priority in art history. University lecturer Anna Tummers will receive an ERC grant of almost two million euros to change that.

With his clever measuring methods Ignas Snellen – together with his team – was the first to detect carbon monoxide in the atmosphere of exoplanets. For his pioneering work the Leiden astrophysicist has been awarded the Spinoza Prize, the highest academic honour in the Netherlands. The prize of 2.5 million…

In medical and psychological sciences, little research has been specifically conducted on women. Hormonal fluctuations were considered too intricate. Yes, research into sex and gender differences is complex, acknowledge neuroscientists Ellen de Bruijn and Lara Wierenga, but that’s precisely why it's…

Conference

Course, Terra Incognita Masterclass

Lecture, Faculty Lecture

Annetje Ottow is stepping down as President of Leiden University’s Executive Board on 1 September 2025 after almost five years in the role. She looks back at the highs and lows – and ahead to what’s next.

After ten years and one day, Leiden Observatory has a new director. As of 1 September, Ignas Snellen will set the course for the astronomical institute. In this interview, you will get to know Ignas. Or at least a little. That is why we gave him five dilemmas and asked the people around him who he really…

Professor Marc Koper researches how you can use electrical energy to make or break chemical bonds. He has just been awarded a Spinoza Prize, the Netherlands’ highest personal science award, for his fundamental research into how this form of electrolysis works.

Debate, Roundtable Conversation

Here you can find some examples of previous projects and output.

Whilst 2020 has been an unusual and taxing year for colleagues at the Institute of Security and Global Affairs (ISGA), the Institute nevertheless can look back on an impressive range of successful grant applications during the previous year. This impressive result was achieved on top of excellent results…

Lecture, LUCIS What's New?! Series

Lecture, Tuesday Talks: Science Insights