Amsterdam painter Dirk Valkenburg (1675–1721) produced some of the earliest depictions of Indigenous and enslaved people on Surinamese sugar plantations – idealized images that conceal the violence of colonialism.

On Friday 7 March 2025 Adam Knight successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated.

Elise Sarton is using her inaugural lecture to give her field of anaesthesiology a chance to take the limelight for a change.

How does the criminal justice system in Indonesia safeguard the rights of and access to justice for witnesses and victims?

Deficiency of glucocerebrosidase (GBA) underlies Gaucher disease, a common lysosomal storage disorder. Carriership for Gaucher disease has recently been identified as major risk for parkinsonism. Presently, no method exists to visualize active GBA molecules in situ. We here report the design, synthesis…

'More than visual: The apprenticeship of skilled visions' is written by Cristina Grasseni and published in Ethos.

Located in the small Kingdom of Commagene at the upper Euphrates, the late Hellenistic monument of Nemrud Daǧ (c. 50 BC) has been undeservedly neglected by scholars

PhD defence

Virtual reality is increasingly being studied in therapeutic contexts. While most studies have focused on adults, children may also stand to benefit. PhD researcher Nina Krupljanin is investigating how young people experience virtual environments – and the findings are encouraging.

The authors compare assumptions about normative utility of the term 'environmental refugee' with empirical evidence compared to 'environmental migrant'.

Zou je graag een hoofdstuk uit je proefschrift in informele setting willen bespreken? Heb je een onderzoeksidee dat je graag zou voorleggen aan vakgenoten? Neem dan contact op met ozsmed@hum.leidenuniv.nl. De Onderzoekschool organiseert sinds kort een seminarreeks waarin dergelijke onderwerpen in een…

In a creative assignment as a part of the bachelor's course Visual Culture, students explored the impact and complexity of visual culture by means of visual culture. The resulting artworks were of such a high quality that it was decided to present these in an exhibition.

The increasing Technological opportunities of Virtual Reality (VR) increasingly resemble the real world (and more). In Japan VR holidays are very popular and VR porn is emerging.

On Tuesday 14 February 2017 defended Kees van Gageldonk his doctoral thesis ‘Op zoek naar onderzoek. De totstandkoming van de onderzoekfunctie in het hoger beroepsonderwijs' at the Academy Building of Leiden University. Supervisor of the research is Prof.dr. W. Otterspeer with co-supervisor Dr. P.J.…

This dissertation presents the results of the importance of creativity for ICT-students of Dutch universities of applied sciences (in Dutch: hogescholen), and the functioning of training courses that aim to promote creative abilities is highlighted.

Mirjam Sombroek-van Doorm heeft in samenwerking met de interventie ‘Nu Niet Zwanger’ een derde geldstroomonderzoek gegund gekregen. Het betreft advisering over gezondheidsrechtelijke kwesties binnen de betreffende interventie.

From idea to tangible ‘pretotype’: during two new workshops, psychology students brought their innovative concepts to life. Using simple materials and plenty of creativity, they presented solutions at the intersection of neuropsychology and entrepreneurship.

Always had an interest in working with children and then doing a masters focusing on the elderly. Sounds strange? Not for Medicine master's student Anna Suurmeijer. With the knowledge she gained during the waiting period for her fellowships, she developed a broader view (and not only in the medical…

Als vertegenwoordiger behartig je de belangen van promovendi en ReMa-studenten binnen de Onderzoekschool Mediëvistiek. Zo krijg je onder meer de kans om mee te denken over het verbeteren van de onderwijs- en onderzoeksactiviteiten van de onderzoekschool. Interesse? Nog vragen? Neem contact op…

A virtual hand that feels as if it is your own. Feeling happier because a virtual face is smiling with you. Cognitive Psychologist Ke Ma discovered using virtual reality that the way we experience our body is more flexible than we thought. Ma: ‘We can think up some fantastic applications.' PhD defence…

Leiden researchers from the departments Company Law and Business Studies will be collaborating with SEO Economisch Onderzoek on behalf of the WODC. The subject of their research project will be the financing of the insolvency administrator.

De overheid moet in een democratie openbaarheid nastreven, maar soms is geheimhouding noodzakelijk om belangen als veiligheid of privacy te beschermen. De Wet open overheid (WOO) bevat daarom een recht op overheidsinformatie, maar staat ook uitzonderingen daarop toe om in de wet gespecificeerde belangen…

Evaluaties en onderzoeksrapporten bieden waardevolle inzichten na crises, maar hoe zorgen we ervoor dat deze lessen daadwerkelijk leiden tot verbeteringen in crisisbeheersing en rampenbestrijding? Dit vraagstuk staat centraal tijdens de bijeenkomst Leren van crises: van onderzoek naar verandering, op…

Leiden University computer scientists Yu Liu, Yanming Guo and Michael Lew are a step closer to their ultimate goal: search engines with visual recognition. Their publication of a new algorithm for fusing multi-scale deep learning representations has been received with great enthusiasm. No other algorithm…

This project investigates how the first generation of Dutch printed books (the incunabula, 1473-1501) affected late medieval spirituality, religious practice and visual culture in the Low Countries.

The aim of the project is to contribute to the process of archive formation ongoing in Post-Apartheid South Africa through the inclusion of photographs that have been either unacknowledged or excised from the national canon.

Early December, lecturer Joris Timmermans gave the first virtual reality lecture at the Institute of Environmental Sciences. Together with the Centre for Innovation, he developed an innovative teaching method for the master's course Methods in Biodiversity Analysis. The first results look promising.…

Materials with strongly correlated electrons show some of the most mysterious and exotic phases of quantum matter, such as unconventional superconductivity, quantum criticality and strange metal phase.

D.P. Kok defended his thesis on 10 October 2017

This book systematically evaluates the empirical evidence for legitimacy decline in established democracies, the explanatory power of theories of legitimacy decline, and promises new routes in investigating and assessing political legitimacy.

Wat als je advies zou kunnen krijgen van je toekomstige zelf? Jean-Louis van Gelder en zijn collega’s ontvangen een ERC Proof of Concept-beurs voor het project YourFutureU, waarin deelnemers gecoacht worden door een virtuele AI-versie hun toekomstige ‘ik’.

The World Data Visualization Prize for 2019 was awarded to Dimiter Toshkov, Associate Professor at the Institute of Public Administration, for his work on the theme of small states and good governance. The prize is a good way to raise awareness about the value of good data visualization.

De minister van BZK heeft op 17 oktober het onderzoeksrapport ”Openbaarmaking van overheidsinformatie. Een rechtsvergelijkend onderzoek naar wetgeving in Zweden, het Verenigd Koninkrijk, Duitsland, Frankrijk, Slovenië en Estland” aangeboden aan de Tweede en Eerste Kamer. Het rapport is geschreven door…

Student Marieke van der Heijden wandelt wekelijks met senioren bij het project Leren met de Stad. Zij doet onderzoek naar sociale cohesie in de wijk De Kooi.

For the first time, physicists have visualized the ‘melting’ of electrons inside a special class of insulators. It allows electrons to move freely and turns the insulator into a metal and possibly later into a superconductor. Publication in Nature Physics.

The ERC project Rethinking Disability has been selected to participate in the ERCcOMICS scheme which exploits the power of visual storytelling to innovate the way in which European science is communicated.

The master's specialisation in Visual Ethnography offers students the possibility to graduate by producing their own ethnographic film. The films 'Living Art', by alumna Tina Krüger, and 'Across Gender', by alumna Anouk Houtman, have received two awards.

Alzheimer’s disease and cancer are two examples of diseases that are related to malfunctioning cellular patterns. The examination of cell tissue, however, takes a lot of time and generates a lot of data. To make the analysis of data easier, Antonios Somarakis of the Data Science Research Programme (DSRP)…

Central to this research is the Urban Future-project, which consists of a large archive of artworks made from 2002 until now.

With tomography it is possible to reconstruct the interior of an object without destroying.

This research hopes to contribute to social awareness of the consequences of colonialism for Indigenous Peoples, to the deconstruction of still existing colonial and discriminatory notions and to a better appreciation of Indigenous art and thought.

Our Winter School alumna Ginevra Montefusco defended her Master thesis this March with the title Food in the Margin: a feminist analysis of sense of place in Barriera di Milano, Turin (supervisors: Alessia Toldo and Egidio Dansero).

Military veterans with posttraumatic stress disorder often have symptoms that are both chronic and complex. Professor by Special Appointment Eric Vermetten is looking for new ways to help them deal with these. One possible medicine: party drug MDMA.

Eva Michaels & Monika Sus examines European Strategic Autonomy (ESA) as the EU’s response to the fragmentation of the Liberal International Order.

Lecture

March 21 is International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. We spoke to Leiden University’s Diversity Officer, Aya Ezawa, and asked her how we can combat racism and discrimination.