Four green research institutes in Leiden are joining forces to integrate evolution and biodiversity research, at local and at the national level. Pivot in this collaboration is Frederic Lens.

Gerard van Westen has been appointed full Professor or Artificial Intelligence and Medicinal Chemistry. This chair has been jointly created by the Leiden Academic Centre for Drug Research (LACDR) and the Leiden Institute of Chemistry (LIC) as part of SAILS, the university stimulus program in Artificial…

Giving an incorrect answer as a student in a packed lecture hall can be nerve-wracking. But with Pharmacology teacher Rob van Wijk, you don’t need to worry about that. ‘He creates a comfortable and safe atmosphere,’ his students say. They have nominated him for the Leiden Science Teacher Award.

How do you study the growth of microorganisms, the spread of epidemic diseases or the healing of wounds, without actually performing experiments? Daoyi Wang, PhD candidate at the Mathematical Institute, worked on a specific mathematical model that can describe the growth of microorganisms and many other…

A vitamin D deficiency is often associated with smoggy English industrial cities during the Industrial Revolution, but research carried out on skeletons now suggests that the ‘English disease’ was also prevalent in rural areas of the Netherlands. Doctoral defence on 29 January.

People in motion. This is the theme of the Voice4Thought festival taking place in Leiden from 21 to 25 September. Debates, songs, art, workshops, a conference for school pupils. It's all about the encounter.

Sharing knowledge based on research within organisations presents a challenging task. How can this be done effectively? What steps should be taken to ensure that knowledge obtained from research is shared and applied in the organisation's daily practice? On 8 May, the Leiden Leadership Centre (LLC)…

The most important group of medieval manuscripts from the Special Collections of the University Libraries of Leiden (UBL), the Codices Vossiani Latini, is now available in open access via the Digital Collections. The 324 Latin manuscripts copied in medieval Europe, along with 48 post-medieval manuscripts,…

Suddenly getting lost, failing to recognise family members, or forgetting words and names are well-known symptoms of Alzheimer's disease. Psychologists have now discovered that the disease also manifests in more subtle ways: through the rhythm of finger tapping.

New results from the Kilo-Degree Survey (KiDS) show that the Universe is almost 10 percent more homogeneous than previously thought. The new KiDS map was created using the partly Dutch OmegaCAM on ESO's VLT Survey Telescope on Cerro Paranal in Northern Chile. An international team of astronomers from,…

It’s better to cut our nitrogen emissions now than to solve the consequences later at great expense. That’s the lesson we can learn from the Dutch nitrogen crisis, according to nitrogen expert Jan Willem Erisman. In Science, he shares this lesson with other countries. According to Erisman, we should…

String theory has come under fire in recent years. Promises have been made that have not been lived up to. Leiden theoretical physicists have now for the first time used string theory to describe a physical phenomenon. Their discovery has been reported this week in 'Science'.

Dr Valentina Azzarà, an honorary research fellow at the Faculty of Archaeology and an expert on prehistoric Oman, was recently invited to feature in a National Geographic documentary that aired last year. The opportunity came after a series of discussions and preparations that saw her engage with the…

Markus Altena Davidsen’s PhD dissertation is the first major study of Tolkien Religion. In it, he analyses the religion that is based on the stories by acclaimed British fantasy author J.R.R. Tolkien. He also discusses how fiction itself can become religious. Davidsen will defend his dissertation on…

On 1 October 2019 the Hazelhoff Centre for Financial law hosted its 19th guest lecture starring Paul Sharma, managing director at Alvarez & Marsal and co-head of the European Financial Industry Regulatory Advisory Services practices.

Indonesia still has a long way to go before the country can truly flourish, was the message given by Indonesian Vice President Boediono during his visit to Leiden University on 26 March. He viewed collections in the University Library and the Hortus, and was presented with the William of Orange medal…

Students from the International School Wassenaar took part in piloting a Children’s Rights module designed by Leiden Law School. They learned about their human rights and created advocacy campaigns to stand up for the rights of children around the world.

Gianne Derks is the MI’s new scientific director from 1 May. She has worked abroad longer than in the Netherlands and, after more than 27 years in Surrey, she dreams in English. Who is this new director and who or what managed to entice her to make the move to Leiden?

Yung Lin’s research explores how citizens in Taiwan and Southeast Asia actively shape public diplomacy, build trust across cultures, and address identity-based conflicts, highlighting the shift from government-led to citizen-centred diplomacy.

On Tuesday 12 January 2021, the annual Meijers prizes and thesis prizes were awarded at the online New Year’s event broadcast from the Old Observatory.

Assyriologists in Leiden have been conducting research into ancient clay tablets from the Middle East for 100 years already. What exactly do these clay tablets tell us? And why is Leiden such a good place to study them?

Africa needs a narrative that is consistent with the developments that are taking place all around the continent. In these developments, talented youth, creative tech hubs, and leapfrogging play a big role. We need to invest accordingly.

Since the disaster in Japan, professors, staff and students of the department of Japanese Language and Culture at Leiden University have regularly been contacted by the media asking for their opinion about the events taking place there. Ivo Smits and Kasia Cwiertka, Professors of Japanese, give their…

In the summer of 2015 the former Finnish foreign minister Erkki Tuomioja, together with a group of Finnish historians, took an important initiative and established the organization Historians Without Borders (HWB).

Dr. Mikihiro Moriyama was born in Kyoto, Japan in 1960. He first came to Leiden for a year in 1988, and then stayed from 1992 to 1995 and was back again in June 2003 for his PhD. 'I’d never heard of the Sweat Room until I heard about it at a Leiden alumni meeting in Jakarta. When I visited Leiden in…

In the last five years the Dutch children’s ombudsman has developed into a full-fledged supervisory body monitoring compliance with children’s rights in the Netherlands. A fuller engagement with its statutory tasks, greater involvement of children and strengthening the autonomous position of the children’s…

NWO is funding three partnership projects with the industry sector. The projects relate to speeding up the search for new medicines, studying the changes in proteins as medicine and developing analytical techniques for research on the building blocks of life.

With support of several companies, including Brill Publishers, Elsevier and private foundations, Leiden University Libraries (UBL) and the Scaliger Institute welcome around 15 to 20 Fellows and guest per year to consult and examine material in the Special Collections. The Scaliger Institute received…

As part of the course 'Masterclass at the Court of The Hague', twelve law students spent several days at the court with judges, court lawyers and legal advisers over the course of seven weeks. At the final session on 13 March, they presented their experiences.

Who knows more about environmental governance: a professor of natural resource governance or a local shaman in the remote uplands of Myanmar?

The norms, institutions and power relations that have defined the last decades of international political and economic relations in the European Union are undergoing major transformations. With the return of competition between great and ambitious powers, like the US, China, EU and Russia, the need…

Wat gebeurt er op het schoolplein? Sensoren op kleding openbaren pijnlijke patronen

Fascinated by science since high school, Alireza Mashaghi Tabari is driven to explore new ways of thinking in medicine. With a strong academic network, he educates students and gives public lectures. For his research at LACDR, he won the C.J. Kok Public Award 2018, making him the Faculty of Science's…

An international team of astronomers has published the most sensitive images of the Universe ever taken at low radio frequencies, using the International Low Frequency Array (LOFAR). ‘LOFAR is unique in its ability to make high-quality images of the sky at metre-wavelengths’, said Huub Röttgering, Leiden…

It was long thought that the early development of Japanese children's books served mainly as a propaganda tool of the state: the literature was supposed to have been written to shape children into perfect citizens. PhD student Aafke van Ewijk nuances this image. Children's book writers wanted to have…

Since May, Assistant professor BioTherapeutics Lu Su works in our faculty. Although she is still young, she already worked in many different fields and co-operated on two publications in big scientific journals. How did she become so successful and what motivates her to keep researching the possibilities…

During the opening of the academic year, true to tradition the LUC Teaching Prize will be awarded to the University's best lecturer. Get to know the nominees. This week: Florian Schneider.

In supermarkets, consumers are drowning in a sea of sustainability labels. Confusing for them, but also farmers can't see the forest for the trees. Obtaining these labels demands an enormous amount of time and effort. Berent Baris is investigating ways to simplify this process, benefiting both farmers…

The 2017 Nobel Prize in Physics has been awarded to Rainer Weiss, Barry Barish and Kip Thorne for their work on the measurement of gravitational waves. Thorne was Lorentz Professor in 2009 in Leiden. Physicist Jan Willem van Holten explains why this is such an important discovery. ‘A new branch of astrophysics…

A pill can make you better, but how exactly does it work? Primary school children from The Hague found out during a visit to the Centre for Human Drug Research (CHDR) as part of a new teaching module ‘The journey of a pill’.

Several years ago, two amateur archaeologists from Brabant discovered over a hundred Roman coins near to Berlicum in the north of the province. After years of research, it now appears that the location, close to a ford in the river, was a site for offerings. Another interesting fact is that the coins…

How did you get to where you are now? This is a key question in the Academic Life Course board game, developed by and for academics. ‘In a normal working week we hardly ever talk about the career choices we make, but with this game, we do.’

The four thousand war victims buried at the Netherlands Field of Honour at Loenen include a number of Leiden students who were in the Resistance. The War Graves Foundation is looking for volunteers to take part in a special event to honour the deceased.

On a wintry Wednesday evening, big issues were the topic of conversation at Grand Café de Burcht. Young Academy Leiden (YAL) was holding a round table: Next444. Now the 444th anniversary of Leiden University is over, it’s time to look once again to the future. What issues will we be facing over the…

What does it mean to be Aruban, Bonairian or Curaçaoan? In the Traveling Caribbean Heritage project historian Gert Oostindie studies this question together with PhD candidate Joeri Arion and heritage specialist Valika Smeulders. Other researchers and the islanders themselves are also collaborating…

Paleobotanist Menno Booi discovered that 250 previously described fossil tree species are objectively not distinguishable; they belong to only one single species.

In 2019 the ENIS Spring School takes place in Granada from 18 March until 22 March 2019. The Spring School will be organized by ENIS (the European Network for Islamic Studies), consisting of: CNMS (Marburg University), CSIC (Institute of Languages and Cultures of the Mediterranean and Escuela de Estudios…

The team of Alireza Mashaghi at the Leiden Academic Centre for Drug Research has found a way to determine and classify the shape of proteins. Their new theory defines the topology of proteins as a simple and precise barcode that allows the identification of all types of folds. ‘This barcode enables…

We are saddened by the news of the unexpected passing of prof.dr. Pieter Sjoerd van Koningsveld on 28 July 2021.

Bachelor’s students Dana Huisman, Marleen Kop, Sam Wichers Schreur and Adriënne de Zoeten were granted the Speckmann Award for their Fieldwork NL report ‘Samen Verder: een project gefocust op vrouwen, taal en integratie'. Alumna Shirley van der Maarel received the Master's Speckmann award for her innovative…