There is broad support for the active involvement of the Netherlands in international cooperation. This is shown by a new public opinion survey among residents of South Holland, conducted by researchers from Leiden University.

Eduard Fosch-Villaronga and Bart Custers from eLaw - Center for Law and Digital Technologies wrote an article on Fair Medicine and AI highlighting that AI for biomedical research and healthcare should be beneficent and equitable for everyone.

Jianfeng Ge and Milan Allen of Leiden University look for majorana quasiparticles using shot noise measurements

Research master's student in history Jesse Dijkshoorn collaborated on a transcription system for medieval texts. ‘It’s nice to make the Middle Ages accessible to people.’

Tracking mucus-eating bacteria, mapping the complexity of planetary nebulae and a signalling pathway in cancer. These three Leiden projects have been awarded Open Competition Science-M funding by the Dutch Research Council.

Beads are among the oldest types of human artistic expression. Even so, the small ornaments have a bad status record regarding archaeological investigation. PhD candidate Mette Langbroek, usually at home studying early medieval beads, had the opportunity to work on a publication and exhibition on 5000…

In the context of the 2021 Day of General Discussion of the UN Committee on Rights of the Child, this time dedicated to alternative care, Defence for Children in collaboration with Leiden University has contributed with a paper on the 2019 Dutch Inquiry Committee on Historical Child Abuse in Alternative…

Amid rising polarisation and discrimination, lawyer and human rights activist Lilian Gonçalves-Ho Kang You wants to show in her Cleveringa Lecture on 26 November how dangerous exclusion is.

At the International Online Conference 'Fair Medicine and Artificial Intelligence' organised by the University of Tübingen (Germany), Hadassah Drukarch, junior researcher at eLaw, gave a presentation on how current algorithmic-based systems may reinforce biases in healthcare. This topic forms part of…

Seventeenth-century Danish scientist Niels Stensen made groundbreaking discoveries in the anatomy of the body and of Earth. This Leiden alumnus’s theories are still relevant, as an exhibition at the Oude UB shows.

For already two years, Vincent Niochet has been affiliated with the Leiden Faculty of Archaeology as an external PhD candidate. Now, he has been awarded an NWO PhDs in the Humanities grant, allowing him to continue his research as a paid PhD staff member. ‘The past two years have been quite challenging,…

In 2018 the Laboratory Efficiency Assessment Framework (LEAF) was launched in the UK. The aim of this programme was to help laboratories work more sustainably and efficiently. The initiative got a Dutch spin-off in 2021. Since then, a couple of the laboratories at the Leiden Faculty of Science have…

Leiden University and the Municipality of Leiden will develop new plans for an alternative Humanities Campus in the city centre. This means they will not proceed with the compulsory purchase of the De Doelen housing complex to facilitate the construction of the new Humanities Campus. The plans to demolish…

Trail, FGGA's internship platform, will be one year old in November. It is therefore high time to get to know the organisations and companies that use Trail. What do these organisations stand for? What work do interns do? And what do FGGA students have to offer?

The Executive Board is visiting the university’s institutes to find out what is going on. On 8 July 2025, it was the turn of the Institute of Environmental Sciences (CML), one of the fastest-growing institutes at Leiden University. ‘Our main aim is to preserve our planet for future generations.’

Graduation Ceremony of the LL.M. Advanced Studies in International Children’s Rights 2023-2024

After 14 years of chairing the Faculty Council, Associate Professor Jan Sleutels is handing over the baton. Student Susan van Grol takes over the chairmanship. Time for an introduction to Susan.

Jasper Knoester is the dean of the Faculty of Science. How is he doing, what exactly does he do and what does his day look like? In each newsletter, Jasper gives an insight into his life.

Ilze Bot wants to reduce the prevalence of cardiovascular diseases. Her research focuses on mast cells, which protect us from infections but can also make us ill.

Twice a year, Gert Renkema, Head of Financial Economic Affairs at FGGA, shares insights about the processes and financial matters for our faculty.

The Fieldwork NL report prize goes to the “Queer Joy in Motion” report, by bachelor students Dorota Olsavska, Marthe Baalbergen, Rielly Puchalski, and Rosa Graffé. Master student Imogen Cooney receives the Speckmann Award for her thesis ‘Decolonizing Faculty’.

Thijs Bosker and Paul Behrens, Professors in Environmental Sciences at Leiden University College in The Hague, have received funding from the Leiden University Fund and the Gratama Foundation to work on developing a set of Local Actions: tangible and practical exercises that students can engage in…

Pesticides can form a toxic cocktail when they occur in combination in surface water. This is the finding of research that Leiden University and the Dutch National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM) presented on Monday 14 October. The Dutch Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management…

Lawyer and human rights activist Lilian Gonçalves-Ho Kang You is the new Cleveringa professor.

Dr Mamadou Hébié, Associate Professor of International Law at the Grotius Centre for International Legal Studies, served last week as legal counsel in the world’s first advisory proceedings concerning climate change before the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS), on the one hand, and…

On August 18, 2022, Henk Bodewitz, distinguished Indologist and emeritus professor of Sanskrit at Leiden University, passed away in his hometown of Utrecht.

Dutch influencers like Romy Boomsma and Nina Pierson have a huge following on Instagram and are increasingly sharing book tips there. Researcher Aafje de Roest wants to find out more about the reading culture they are promoting and its effect on the reading habits of their mostly young female follow…

The JEDI Fund supports projects that promote diversity and inclusivity within the university. One of these projects is the card game called ‘What’s Your Story?’, developed by university lecturer Tingting Hui.

The celebration of our up-and-coming science talent, that is the Psychology Science Day. Students stand proudly by their research posters and enrich the insights of fellow students, PhD candidates, postdocs and faculty with their explanations.

Many members of Chicago's P'urhepecha community did not even know they lived a stone’s throw from some of their own historical heritage. Researcher Kate Bellamy organised a meeting to introduce them to books hundreds of years old.

Hoe kan het dat universele mensenrechten wereldwijd niet hetzelfde in de praktijk worden gebracht?

At a festive gathering, 25 projects were awarded a Kiem grant 2025 - 2026 of 10,000 euros. Interdisciplinary teams from Leiden University will conduct innovative research into horror, international payments and fungi in historical collections, among others.

Four researchers from Leiden University’s Institute of Political Science have been awarded a grant to jointly investigate attitudes towards Venezuelan immigrants among youths in Ecuador. Combining their expertise and collaborating with the Universidad San Francisco de Quito, they will focus on school-going…

Every week, Uwe Hensch walks past the Old Observatory in Leiden. In corona times, he decided to make a LEGO design of the historic building. His design is now finished and might go into production. You can help to make it happen.

After the lockdown, it was again possible to receive graduates and guests at the University. In recent weeks, BSc and MSc graduates from various study programmes were festively awarded their diplomas in a special corona-proof setting in the restaurant of the Gorlaeus Lecture Halls building. This resulted…

A consortium, led by Erik de Maaker (CADS, Leiden), has under the NWA scheme (Dutch National Science agenda) been awarded 98k€ for Localizing Global Garment Biographies, a two-year project to research the different ways by which users and producers attach value to garments.

Last year, LUCSoR welcomed a new colleague: Yves Menheere. At the start of his position at LIAS, he applied for and received a starter grant. Read in this interview what he plans to do with the grant and learn more about his research on Taoist priests. Yves has also shared some photos from his field…

Neeltje Blankenstein receives an LUF grant to conduct research on online risk behaviour among young people. What risks do young people take online and why? 'With this research, we not only want to help prevent serious risk behaviour, but also understand what drives young people to it.'

Since the beginning of September, urban criminologist Marianne Franken has been the linchpin of a special partnership between Leiden University, the municipality of Leiden and the police. As a PhD candidate she will spend four years conducting research into how safe the people of Leiden feel.

Are you thinking of applying for a Kiem grant but still tinkering with your idea for an interdisciplinary project? Let your Leiden colleagues inspire you! Dario Fazzi successfully applied for a Kiem grant with his workshop ‘Understanding the threat of the Anthropocene’.

If you end up in prison somewhere in the world, the chances are you won’t be allowed to vote. If it were up to researchers Tom Theuns and Andrei Poama, rather than disenfranchise felons, we would oblige them to vote. That would be a better way to express democratic values.

An incredible quantity of archaeological reports are stored in digital archives. If you want to search for information in them, you have to do this manually. And that is a real chore. Archaeologist Alex Brandsen has now used deep learning, a form of artificial intelligence, to develop a search engine…

Leiden University’s Executive Board has appointed Erwin Muller as Vice Rector of Organisational Development. In this role, he will help further professionalise and improve the university’s organisation as per the Strategic Plan.

Climate interventions do not lead to more climate action among Dutch, but they do raise awareness about climate change.

With her Veni research, investigator Rosanne Baars from the Institute of History aims to demonstrate that women played a role in the eighteenth-century diplomatic circles of the Ottoman Empire. ‘We already know that one woman led the entire embassy.'

On 15 February 2022, Irma Mosquera Valderrama, Professor of Tax Governance, holder of the EU Jean Monnet Chair on EU Tax Governance EUTAXGOV and Principal Investigator of the ERC funded project GLOBTAXGOV, participated in the High-Level Webinar Taxation and Business in Africa.

Understanding what our buildings and cities are made of is an important step in making them more sustainable. Industrial ecologist Tomer Fishman (CML) has received an ERC Starting Grant to map the construction materials used in buildings in the Global South. 'Without the data, you can't formulate po…

On 16 May 2022, Professor Michel Wouters from the Department of Biomedical Data Sciences at the Leiden University Medical Centre (LUMC), will deliver his inaugural lecture titled ‘Quality of Cancer Care: why the real world matters’. Wouters will use the opportunity to describe how quality registries…

What do people wonder about on social media? University lecturer Matthijs Westera is the recipient of an NWO grant to investigate what people are curious about online.

Sander van der Horst recently joined the Institute for History and the Royal Institute for Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies (KITLV-KNAW). He is a PhD candidate in Cultural Histories & Decolonization in Southeast Asia. Below, he introduces himself.