Organisation

At a symposium on 26 May, experts, staff and students from Leiden University will discuss what should happen with Rein Dool’s painting in the Academy Building and what the guidelines for the University’s exhibition policy should be. These issues will be explored from diverse perspectives during the…

Life returned to something resembling normal after Covid but other crises soon took its place. These great challenges are also being felt at the University and our researchers are working on solutions. The nitrogen crisis, problems with young people’s services and an increasingly urgent climate crisis:…

Can a robot help prepare cancer medication in a hospital pharmacy? That’s what hospital pharmacist Tjerk Geersing investigated in his PhD research. He compared manual and automated preparations in terms of quality, efficiency, and safety. He graduated on 19 March.

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…

Professor Antje Wessels has received an NWO Open Competition grant to research fragmentary texts.

The city centre of Leiden is covered in them: wall poems. When roaming around, you come across poetry written in the Latin alphabet, but also in scripts that might be more difficult to understand for the average person living in Leiden. In a new series of videos, Tijmen Pronk talks more about this.

To get important topics such as climate and human rights higher on the agenda of listed companies, stakeholders other than shareholders and employees should officially be given more say. This is what Professor of Business Law Harold Koster said in his inaugural lecture on 18 March. He proposes introducing…

Why is the sky blue? Why are most people right-handed? Why are spiderwebs so strong? These are just some of the questions arriving at Postbus 71, a Leiden2022 project where everyone can ask their questions. Friso de Hartog, the driving force behind Postbus 71, is busy answering as many questions as…

‘Wadden Sea Sounds’ is the name of a new project launched by the Waddenvereniging in collaboration with researchers from Leiden University and the University of Groningen. The aim is to find out how underwater noise affects marine life in the Wadden Sea.

LUCSoR is happy to welcome Verena Myer, researcher and lecturer in Islam in South and South-East Asia to the staff. In this interview she will discuss the course she is teaching, as well as her upcoming book.

The fact that scientists are increasingly better able to access molecular cell and tissue data also brings with it a new challenge: how can scientists find the information they need for research among the vast amount of data available?

A European bachelor’s degree, an enormous web of collaborations and masses of fantastic opportunities for researchers and support professionals: in two years, we as a university have come far within the Una Europa alliance, says Professor Joanne van der Leun. She rejoined the Una Europa Board of Directors…

De Leiden Lawcast: de facultaire podcast door en voor studenten. Iedere aflevering bespreken de hosts een actueel onderwerp met een interessante gast die het onderwerp belicht vanuit hun wetenschappelijke of juridische expertise. Na een mooi startseizoen in 2022 hebben Irem Çakir en Hamza Duprée het…

Martijn Manson became programme director for the Master’s in Pharmacy this month. He is a pharmacist as well as a lecturer and researcher at the LACDR (Leiden Academic Centre for Drug Research). ‘LUMC and LACDR share the responsibility for training the pharmacists of the future.’

Western countries still tend to view Africa as the periphery, says anthropologist Mayke Kaag. In her inaugural lecture, she calls for a shift in perspective: to see Africa as a mirror of global developments.

In May, the University concluded that a smaller programme of construction would be possible for the Humanities Campus. The new criteria were presented, which will have an impact on the surrounding area. During two meetings held in May and June, local residents, business owners and other stakeholders,…

On Wednesday 8 March, the 'Meet & Mix: ‘Speed dating with Traineeships’ event took place in Wijnhaven. Trainees, employees and HR advisers from different organisations got together with students from the Faculty of Governance and Global Affairs to talk doing a traineeship.

Cookware handles, electrical plugs, brake pads. Unlike other plastics, these ‘thermosets’ cannot simply be melted down and reshaped, making them difficult to recycle. Chemist Roxanne Kieltyka and her team are now exploring a way to make these materials recyclable, potentially transforming the way we…

Joachim Koops, Professor of Security Studies and Scientific Director of Leiden University’s Institute of Security and Global Affairs (ISGA) has been awarded a ‘Jean Monnet Chair’ with a focus on ‘The European Union’s Role in Security and Global Affairs’ (EURISGA).

Teachers have to find a balance between routine and renewal of their teaching repertoire. Eveline de Boer (PhD student at ICLON) investigated how didactic building blocks can help them with this. Defence on June 15.

What should you do when you fall ill? And what can you expect from your direct supervisor? As both an HR adviser and someone with personal experience, Marian van de Walle outlines the key things you need to know.

Artificial intelligence systems are smart. They can recognize patterns better than humans, for example. Yet humans are still very much needed. How can you better steer those AI systems? LIACS lecturer Jan van Rijn wrote a book about this together with a number of colleagues. We asked him a few quest…

The university campus at the Leiden Bio Science Park is flourishing. A new book tells the stories behind this remarkable metamorphosis.

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…

‘Let’s get everyone home safely!’ This was the message of an estimated 750 demonstrators as they marched through the centre of Leiden on 18 November.

How do young zebra finches learn to sing? A research team led by researcher Katharina Riebel has developed a ‘RoboFinch’ to study just that. She and colleagues in the 'Seeing voices' research consortium have spent the past four years designing the robotic bird. And with success: young zebra finches…

As part of the TerraNova project, a European research initiative on the study of landscape histories and futures, a Massive Online Open Course (MOOC) was developed. Anastasia Nikulina was one of the main chapter coordinators who worked on this course, and she worked on the part about modelling in landscape…

The University urgently needs IT talent. The ISSC has therefore started a pilot refer-a-friend scheme: if you recommend someone you know for a hard-to-fill IT job and they are hired, you will receive a 1,500-euro (gross) bonus. ‘So hit us with your golden tips,’ says ISSC director Joop van der Born.

Claire van den Helder (fourth-year Cultural Anthropology student) and Orestes Kyrgiakis (second-year Cultural Anthropology student) won the Pieter de la Court Medal 2021. The Pieter de la Court Medal is an initiative for students by students and is awarded annually to students who voluntarily contribute…

Digitalisation can make a huge contribution to a greener future, but it must also be as sustainable as possible. To make significant progress, more collaboration and national leadership will be needed. Leiden University has therefore signed the Digital Sustainability Manifesto, which was presented on…

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.

A deliberate attack on a tangible element of a culture, such as a temple, is often also an attack on intangible elements: the religion or religious customs. Equally, the intangible can be attacked without the involvement of the tangible, for example the brutal curtailment of rights. How are these reflected…

Planning the timetables in FGGA is a challenging process. To offer a look behind the scenes, we spoke to Quino - functional administrator, Mandy and Ric - the faculty's timetable makers.

To truly understand Dutch literature, we have to look beyond borders. At least, that is the view of Sander Bax. From 1 August, he will be Professor of Contemporary Dutch Literature and Culture in a Transnational Dynamic.

Who assembled the collections of museums? The answer to this question seems to point to men as collectors. Apart from for rare exceptions, female collectors hardly seem to exist. Yet there were indeed women collectors. For the project Museums, Collections and Society, researcher Holly O'Farrell will…

Research

What if AI doesn’t just support engineers, but actually works alongside them? A large consortium, including Leiden University, gets 3.7 million euros. They will explore novel synergies between engineers and AI, in industrial engineering design areas such as automotive engineering.

On 15-16 June, Jos Gommans, Marieke Bloembergen, and Carolien Stolte will organize an international conference entitled “India in the Making of the Global Esoteric: 1200-2000”. The conference asks: why is it always India that has been imagined as a wonder, and what did that wonder mean, intellectually…

Leiden University has designed a new Urban Development Plan for the Humanities Campus. This plan incorporates participation from the immediate environment (neighbours and nearby residents). The plan will be available for viewing at the Leiden city council offices from 22 December for six weeks.

The right medicine in the right dosage for every patient, that is something medical science aspires. 'Personalised medicine' is the term for that. But it does require a lot of research with patient data and that can be hard to get due to privacy legislation. Researchers Laura Zwep and Coen van Hasselt…

New archaeological research into grave goods and skeletal material from the oldest grave field in the Netherlands shows that male-female roles 7,000 words ago were less traditional than was thought. The research was conducted by a multidisciplinary team of researchers led by Archol, the National Museum…

The Digital Lab is open! This new lab is meant for staff and students who are looking for a place to work, experiment, and find support for their digital research. There’ll be a kickoff event, with live digital demos and a roundtable on “the Humanities in a Digital World” on Friday October 29 in the…

On January 1st Jasper Knoester started as our new dean. How is he doing? What exactly does he do? And what does his day look like? In each newsletter Jasper gives a peek into his life as dean.

In a world where bacteria are increasingly resistant to antibiotics, Emma van Groesen set out to find a solution. This month she obtained her PhD, after four years of research into new variants of the antibiotic vancomycin. With success.

The Leiden municipality wants to make the city centre climate-proof and combat heat stress by greening it. But they want to do this in a way that does justice to the city’s heritage. Researcher Fenna IJtsma delves into historical greenery to offer inspiration.

On March 1 2022, Professor Ann Brysbaert will succeed Dr Winfred van de Put as director of the Netherlands Institute at Athens (NIA). Having been a regular at the institute for several decades, she will combine her new appointment with teaching at the Faculty of Archaeology. ‘Visits at the NIA were…

Always wanted to go to a real art auction? Now’s your chance! On 15 February over a hundred works from the LUMC’s art collection will go under the hammer. ‘It’s great fun just to be there, regardless of whether you buy anything,’ says dean and auctioneer Pancras Hogendoorn.

At Leiden Law School’s first Faculty Research Day, scholars were invited to consider the ongoing war in Ukraine from their own perspectives and expertise. Various aspects surrounding this topic were addressed during lectures, discussions, and workshops.