Physicist Martin van Hecke receives a 2.5 million euro ERC research grant for research into information processing materials. Starting out with a piece of rubber that can count to ten.

As Scaliger professor, Erik Kwakkel is responsible for the academic context of the complete Special Collections of the Leiden University Library. His inaugural lecture on 15 May will focus mainly on the section closest to his heart: Medieval books.

Students from the Royal Academy of Art The Hague (KABK) designed the 450 lustrum logo.

The International Day of Light (IDL) celebrates the ubiquitous role light has in our lives. From Argentina to South Africa, Japan and Pakistan, several events have taken place across all continents on May 16. The date is a token for people around the globe to connect with the importance of light in…

Simon van Hoeve is a student of the master’s degree programme International Relations. Every week, he makes a podcast episode for his study association, in which he discusses topics related to his study programme with his guests.

Jamie Korporaal, who started as a junior lecturer at Leiden Law School during her master's studies and has now joined the faculty as a lecturer, will start the Labour Law specialisation after the summer. She discusses her career and this postgraduate training course with Marije Schneider, lecturer in…

On Tuesday 6 September, the faculty year 2022-2023 got off to a great start with Leiden Law Op 1, our yearly talkshow live from the Kamerlingh Onnes Gebouw. Together with the Faculty Board, academic staff and students, we looked ahead to the upcoming academic year.

Excursions to Leiden museums, a flown-in American professor and a collaboration with PhD students from Cambridge: Leiden PhD candidates in early modern art were in luck this summer. An award from the Camino Laurent van Vugt Fund allowed the LUCAS research institute to organise a special summer school…

Claartje Levelt was appointed Scientific Director of LUCL on 1 September. We want to create new opportunities, especially now.’

Koen Bastiaans and his colleagues discovered a new quantum liquid unlike anything ever seen. They did it by using a technique that can be compared to listening to the sound of raindrops falling on a roof. Publication in Science 29 October.

A new challenge for Felix Ameka. The senior lecturer at the Centre for Linguistics has been appointed professor by special appointment of Ethnolinguistic Vitality and Diversity in the World. ‘I am looking forward to promoting ethnolinguistic diversity and vitality.’

The year 2023 saw the earthquake in Turkey and Syria, the Wagner Group rebellion and wildfires and floods as all the weather records were smashed. Our most-read stories were about the climate crisis and the elections: here’s the list.

Working for a social client during your studies: this is what happens at Urban Studies. For the course Urban Studies in Practice, third-year students carry out projects for public clients, such as the municipality of The Hague.

Many students cycle past the companies of the Bio Science Park every day, but what actually happens behind those doors? And is there a future there for students after their graduation? The Bio Science Park Excursion answers these questions.

The Leiden Bio Science Park (BSP) will become a real campus in the coming years, with more houses, and attractive places where scientists, students and entrepreneurs can meet to discuss their plans.

Romana Osman (24) knew one thing for sure: she wanted to work at an embassy in the Middle East. However, finding a position turned out to be rather challenging. But where there’s a will, there’s a way. After an internship at UNICEF, Romana now works as a trainee at the Dutch Embassy in Amman.

Aukje Beers combined theory and practice, as well as chemistry, biology, and computer models. In this way, she discovered two protein inhibitors during her master’s project that could contribute to the development of a new cancer drug. For her research, Beers received the Unilever Research Prize on…

How are you doing in these strange and unprecedented times? That is the question we are asking our colleagues in this series. Rosalinde Spitters, for instance, skills lecturer at the Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences.

More than 700 visitors got to know the Science Faculty during the Leiden Science Family Day. People of all ages could enjoy fascinating experiments, tours, interesting lectures, spectacular nitrogen shows and various workshops. It was an informative day with many (future) scientists, amazement and,…

The way that traditional hunter-gatherers roasted tubers can shed new light on how people prepared food in prehistoric times. Archaeologist Stephanie Schnorr has studied the food preparation culture of the Hadza in Tanzania.

With the emergence of social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, it’s easier than ever to share information. Including disinformation. During his PhD computer scientist Xueqin Chen developed a new way to recognise fake news and predict how messages spread within online social networks…

Harvesting rice from the same field, without planting new rice plants? A discovery may bring this scenario closer. Leiden scientists have discovered a gene that allows annual plants to grow after flowering, instead of dying. Publication on 13 April in Nature Plants.

Envoys jumping out of windows, fights, and illegal diplomacy: history student Tessa de Boer encountered them all while writing her master's thesis on Amsterdam as a diplomatic city during the 17th and 18th centuries. For her thesis, she was awarded the Uitgeverij Verloren/Johan de Witt thesis prize…

When alumnus Jonathan Katzman started his master's programme in Russian and Eurasian Studies, he didn't foresee how useful those skills would be in the near future. Now, he manages a refugee centre for Ukrainians who have fled their war-torn country.

Every year the international leadership course of the Leiden Honours Academy, the International Leiden Leadership Programme (ILLP), attracts master’s students from all over the world. In June, this year’s 25 students will get their certificates, but that is not the most important part, according to…

Children who lost their fathers in early modern England ran the risk of being sold to the highest bidder. Although Shakespeare wrote about it in his plays, the practice disappeared from collective memory for a long time. University lecturer Lotte Fikkers is bringing it back to light in a new Vidi research…

On Monday 2 March at 16:00, the Faculty of Archaeology opened the travelling exhibition Archaeo‑Sexism. The exhibition will be on display throughout the month in the F0 corridor of the Van Steenis Building, as part of Women’s History Month and International Women’s Day on 8 March.

‘The Hague is rapidly developing to become a knowledge city and Leiden University is making an important contribution to this development.' These were the words with which alderman Joris Wijsmuller opened The Hague Day of Architecture on Saturday 20 May 2017. Wijnhaven was the focal point of the day…

Nadia Bouras will give the Annie Romein-Verschoor Lecture on 6 March. She will call for academic freedom for everyone.

Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC), as a partner in the reNEW consortium, is once again receiving tens of millions of euros for research into new treatments based on stem cells. The collaboration will receive a total of €150 million to develop new therapies in regenerative medicine.

When a foreign book is translated for the Chinese market, there is a good chance that not all of the text will make it into the new version. With an NWO XS grant, university lecturer Svetlana Kharchenkova will investigate how foreign authors deal with this censorship.

What happens when you ask students and staff how they’re really doing? On Tuesday 14 April, FGW members were able to share what was on their minds at the (s)Tattoo pop-up studio. Three artists turned their stories into drawings or poems.

They are only a few tens of micrometres long — far smaller than the width of a human hair – yet these robots can swim, sense, navigate and adapt in ways that look surprisingly life-like. And all this without having a brain.

LDE-FISIP UI Joint Minor students brought various issues in the Greater Jakarta Area to their final assignment in the form of policy briefs. The policy briefs are based on a month of research on the topics of waste management, the myth of the Jakarta dream of the younger generation, urban farming, energy…

University lecturer Dario Fazzi and postdoctoral researcher Gaetano Di Tommaso set up a virtual collaboration with the United States last year thanks to a VIS grant. And it was a such a success the project will be repeated next year. Fazzi is looking forward to once again offering his students a multicultural…

Mirjam de Baar has been Vice-Dean of the Faculty of Humanities and portfolio holder for education of master’s and research master’s programmes since 2016. As a result of her reappointment, she will continue to fulfil this role for an additional four years. ‘Being asked by the Vice-Rector and the Dean…

The biweekly Lunch Time Seminar is an online only event, but it is not publicly accessible in real-time. If you would like to attend one of the upcoming sessions, please send an email to sails@liacs.leidenuniv.nl.

When Russia attacked Ukraine in the night of 23-24 February, alumnus Joost Bunk, who was working as a diplomat in Russia, knew that everything would change.

Almost all the western countries were too late responding to the outbreak of Covid. Why was that? Three governance experts, including Leiden professor Arjen Boin, have written a book about the response to the pandemic. ‘Our current system isn’t geared towards identifying and managing a long-term crisis,’…

The Leiden Leadership Centre (LLC) aims to connect science with practice when it comes to public leadership. The Centre, founded by, among others, Dr. Ben Kuipers and Prof. dr. Sandra Groeneveld, is collaborating with a number of organisations. A recent result was a research assignment for a new vision…

So much has happened this year! 2023 was an eventful year in which several wars raged about which our experts could offer interpretation. It was also the year in which the government made apologies for the slavery past. Leiden humanities scholars were at the forefront of this with their research on…

Jan Zaanen, Professor in Theoretical Physics of condensed material, has been awarded a Spinoza prize. His pioneering ideas about the collective behaviour of quantum particles and high temperature superconductivity have often given him the reputation of being something of a rebel.

2023 was another year full of highlights and special moments for the faculty of Governance and Global Affairs. Find out what the year was like in this year overview: we take you through the most important moments and news items month of each month.

Dutch and international students brandishing bows and arrows fire at each other on the fields of the University Sports Centre on 11 May. This is the aim – not the shooting each other, but the act of getting together.

...What does seem clear, though, is that there is a great deal of room for improvement in the process of out-of-home placement. The FSW's social and behavioural scientists give their views.

The magazine New Scientist selected 25 nominees from candidates proposed by all Dutch and Belgian universities for the New Scientist Science talent 2015 election. One of these nominees is dr. Marieke Liem, who works at the Centre for Terrorism & Counterterrorism.

It doesn’t take long before Tim van Lit has told us what interests him: problems that shake the nation. This 28-year-old Criminology alumnus heads a team of 25 at Royal Netherlands Marechaussee. Location: Schiphol Airport.

In light of the changes made to face to face teaching by Leiden University, LUC student association Fortuna rose to the challenge by coining a virtual Well-Being week and facilitating it online.

The celebration of Leiden's Dies Natalis on Monday 9 February in the Pieterskerk was extra special this year and was attended by many prominent guests. This was the kick-off of the special 88th Lustrum (five-year) celebrations in 2015.

Milou Deelen (24) rapidly rose to prominence as the Dutch advocate of frank talk about women’s sexuality. It has cost her dear, but she has received so much assent, praise and support that she won’t be giving up anytime soon. In the Annie Romein Verschoor Lecture on 5 March, Leiden University’s celebration…