The LUCAS Audience Award 2021 has been awarded to Nadine Akkerman. This is a prize for researchers who appeal to an audience wider than the academic community. The prize consists of 1000 euros, a trophy and eternal fame.

Anisa Nuranisa recently joined the Institute as PhD candidate in the startersbeurs project "Cultural diplomacy and the Javanese Courts (19th and early 20th century)", led by Bart Verheijden and Fenneke Sysling. Below she introduces themselves.

The European Research Council (ERC) has awarded an Advanced Grant to six Leiden researchers. It awards these significant grants to established principal investigators for ground-breaking, high-risk research.

Ten projects have been selected during the fourth call in the Seed Funding Programme launched by EUniWell. Marieke Liem, Professor Social Resilience and Security, has received a grant for the MASTERY project.

A team of international researchers led by Tomas Stolker in the Netherlands has imaged a young gas giant exoplanet near a 12-million-year-old star. The planet is orbiting a star at which planet formation has finished, while the same-aged companion star still has a planet-forming disk. The researchers…

They hurtle along at over a thousand kilometres per second: the fastest stars in the Milky Way. PhD candidate Fraser Evans conducted research into these elusive hypervelocity stars and discovered that they have a lot to teach us, about black holes and supernovae, for example.

Manuscripts that look like a comic book, that's how you could describe the manuscripts of the Dongba people from China. The manuscripts are one of the last examples of a so-called pictographic script that can only be interpreted by Dongba priests, shamans, who have knowledge of the ancient Dongba cu…

Conference

Should Leiden University cut its ties with the fossil fuel industry forthwith? This was the main question in a debate between students and staff. The answer was clearer for some than for others.

It has been just over a decade since the first students graduated with Leiden University’s unique Liberal Arts and Sciences Bachelor degree. We caught up with one of those pioneering graduates.

In his leaving interview, Martijn Ridderbos doesn’t have to think long when asked what he is most proud of. ‘Bringing people together; creating things together. Reducing the gap between researchers and the staff who support them because the latter are essential. We’ve achieved that and the seeds have…

Rector Magnificus Carel Stolker will retire on 8 February. If there’s one theme running through his career, it’s the links between the University and society. In this series of pre-retirement discussions, Stolker will talk one last time to people from within and without the University. In this first…

Last year, 15.8% of all employees of Leiden University experienced undesirable behaviour. This is one of the findings of the 2021 Personnel Monitor. ‘That number is far too high. We have to get rid of the taboo on raising this issue and addressing offenders,‘ says Martijn Ridderbos, in an open and…

Annetje Ottow is the first female president of the Executive Board of Leiden University, which means a return to her Alma mater.

Lecture, Sociolinguistics & Discourse Studies Series

Festival

Lecture, LUCIS Meets

Lecture

Lecture, This Time For Africa! series

Lecture, Ancient History Research Seminar

Lecture

Lecture, Seminar

Lecture, Book Launch Leiden University Nationalism Network

If you wish to find out about current construction projects, you will find an up-to-date overview of Leiden University construction projects below.

Adolescents with good friendships experience fewer anxiety and depression symptoms, PhD student Iris Koele discovered in her research on high school students' social relationships. 'As a psychologist, I include friends in the treatment plan: who do you call when things are not going well?'

Peter Scholten is one of the four professors that were officially appointed as Leiden-Delft-Erasmus professor last week. Apart from his appointment at the Erasmus University, he has now also been appointed at FGGA. We asked Scholten five questions about his double appointment and the collaboration between…

On Thursday 2 December, Nadine Akkerman, Reader in early modern English literature will be a guest in the online book salon of Leiden University Libraries (UBL). Head Curator Garrelt Verhoeven will interview Akkerman about her book Elizabeth Stuart, Queen of Hearts. In her biography, Akkerman describes…

Marjan van Dasselaar was appointed as the new ombuds officer for staff on 1 May. She will be working to create a safer working atmosphere within the University. 'There is a lot of pain felt by people who experience social insecurity. That pain always has to be taken seriously.'

In the eighteenth century, the Dutch East India Company (VOC) housed its enslaved people on ‘Slave Island’ in Colombo, the capital of Sri Lanka. Today ‘Slave Island’ is under serious threat from property developers. Senior lecturer Alicia Schrikker, together with her Sri Lankan colleagues Iromi Perera…

On Friday 9 July 2021 the graduation of the two-year Advanced MSc International Relations and Diplomacy (MIRD) programme took place in the Academy Building in Leiden. The ceremony was opened by Professor Madeleine Hosli.

Young Academy Leiden (YAL) will change its board this month and welcome seven new members. Outgoing chair Julia Cramer and incoming chair Rachel Plak look back at the highlights of the past year and discuss YAL’s plans for the coming period.

Ships are still emitting too much nitrogen oxide. Till now it has been impossible to measure this at sea, but that is set to change. Solomiia Kurchaba combined satellite data and developed algorithms to identify which ships are emitting too much. Kurchaba received her PhD on 11 June.

‘If you want to implement open science, you at least need someone at each faculty who can help researchers to solve practical problems.’ Dorien Huijser spent two years managing the transition to a new working method at the Institute of Psychology’s Brain and Development Research Center.

Leiden University Libraries holds an internationally unique collection of unofficial poetry from China. Produced outside the System over the last fifty years or so, this poetry is hugely influential yet hard to find beyond the informal networks through which it travels. To address this paradox, the…

Infecting each other with viruses and bacteria while protecting yourself with medicines and vaccinations. Sounds like a fun evening, right? Master students Life Science & Technology Rafael Jezior and Dennis de Beeld certainly think so. Together, they developed ImmunoWars: an exciting card game based…

The annual Korean Screen Culture Conference (KSCC) is dedicated to exploring all aspects of Korean screen culture, including television, K-pop, internet, computer gaming, webtoons, and film from both North and South Korea.

Rafal Matuszewski is an assistant professor at the Institute for History since 1 August 2023. Below he introduces himself.

Exploring logging's real impact: Insights from Anthropologist Tessa Minter in the Solomon Islands.

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…

A team of three students affiliated with Leiden University is shedding new light on the lives, diets, health, and mobility of individuals buried at the historic church site in Koudekerke, Zeeland. The project, a collaboration with the Walcherse Archeologische Dienst and funded by the Municipality of…

Behind the scenes people are working hard on the vision and strategy plan of the Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences: a manifest of our priorities and ‘a pamphlet for change,’ according to Dean Paul Wouters and Board Secretary Jordi Kerkum. The faculty-wide conversation about our collective future…

There’s a lot that goes wrong in the treatment of patients with PTSD caused by childhood trauma. Endowed professor Maartje Schoorl wants to resolve this by bringing scientific research closer to the practice. Inaugural lecture on Friday 29 April.

Delve into the depths of black hole imaging as anthropologist Rodrigo Ochigame unveils the human decisions shaping its portrayal. Explore four alternative color choices at the 'Towards the Black Hole' exhibit, now showing at Rijksmuseum Boerhaave, Leiden.

Greenhouse gas emissions related to pharmaceutical consumption increased by 77 percent over the past 24 years, according to a Leiden University study published in The Lancet Planetary Health. Moreover, efficiency gains have stalled since 2008. ‘Our best option is reducing consumption and minimising…

Working towards resilient communities, transparency in science and connecting with the employment market – these are the three key themes being addressed by the departments of Social and Behavioural Sciences at Dutch universities. On 11 February, they presented a joint sector plan to Marcelis Boereboom,…

Are you a Leiden researcher looking for opportunities for interdisciplinary research and collaboration in the fields of local communities, health and disease prevention? If so, Health Campus The Hague is the right place for you. Take a look at these four examples of current research.

The academic year 2021-2022 is already past the halfway mark. That also means that the current members of the Faculty Council have been at work for more than half a year. Time for an update with staff members Evelien Wolthuis and Kiki Zanolie.