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…

Vivian van der Linde completed her masters Crisis & Security Management in the summer of 2020 by writing a thesis on Dieselgate. Freshly graduated, she felt she wanted to do more with her research. But how do you go about that, having just finished studying? Together with her thesis supervisor Wouter Jong…

Erik Bähre has been elected to the board of the Society of Economic Anthropology of the American Anthropology Association. On top of this he has joined the scientific advisory board of the NIAS-Lorentz Program.

From September 2024, Berber Verhalle is the new assessor of the Faculty of Science. She thus takes over from Nalani Verwoord. Berber completed her bachelor's degree in Biology this year. Next year, she will start the master's in Biology & Business.

A new website has been set up that provides information about the government funded Law Sector Plan in the Netherlands, including the plans of the participating universities and developments within the agreed themes.

This interview features Drs. Peter Bisschop (Leiden University) and Yuko Yokochi (Kyoto University) and their work on the monumental Skandapurāṇa project.

Never before has so much research been carried out on the therapeutic effect of psychedelic drugs. Researchers at the LIBC Public Day are happy about the effect the drugs can have on depression, anxiety and PTSS, but at the same time they have some doubts. ‘The hype is bound to crash before long.’

Education, Organisation

Education, Organisation

Biophysicist Alireza Mashaghi and his collaborators are taking up the fight against muscular dystrophy: genetic disorders that cause muscle weakness. They want to inhibit the clumping of proteins that results in toxic aggregates. For this, the team receives 550,000 euros from Health Holland. The team…

Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC) and Leiden University will start a new two-year English-taught master’s programme in Population Health Management (PHM) on 1 September 2021. The programme, which has been given the green light by the Accreditation Organisation of the Netherlands and Flanders (NVAO),…

Facility

The development of the Humanities Campus is entering a new phase. On 13 June, the Municipal Council approved both the zoning plan and the visual quality plan. This means that the university can now go forward with developing the new construction and the central green square on the Doelen side of the…

The Dutch Heart Foundation will fund a new nation-wide consortium, AtheroNeth, consisting of preclinical and clinical scientists in the field of atherosclerosis research. AtheroNeth aims to identify novel biomarkers that can be applied to stratify patient groups at risk for acute cardiovascular events…

Organisation

We are pleased to announce the creation of a new committee dedicated to data management practices at the LACDR. With the increasing amount of data being generated by our institute and the implementation of the newly acquired Electronic Lab Journal RSpace, it is essential to manage and organize our research…

Professor Sjef Barbiers will be appointed Managing Director of the Institute for the Dutch Language (INT) with effect from 1 September 2025. He will step down as scientific director of LUCL as of that date.

Conference, Histories Connected: Faculty Roundtable

Almost two months have passed since the negotiation agreement was reached on the new CAO. Employers and unions have now signed there are still some unanswered questions. We are curious to know the latest status, so we got together on Teams with our HRM Director Heleen Cocu.

Organisation

Organisation

A peer educator intervention can give pupils more knowledge and awareness about their LGBT peers, and sometimes also a more positeve view. This is the subject of Marieke Kroneman's dissertation. Defence on 15 September.

LUC historian Jacqueline Hylkema unmasks forgeries from the early modern Dutch Republic in the research project "Mapping the Fake Republic".

Corona travel restrictions and increased political pressure: research into China has become considerably more difficult in recent years. University lecturer and China researcher Rogier Creemers does not let this put him off. He receives an NWO grant to screen policy documents using digital technique…

Give Nikki IJzerman a football and she’s happy. The midfielder was named Player of the Year by ADO Den Haag last season, as well as obtaining her master’s degree in Journalism and New Media.

On the brand-new Leiden Teachers Blog, Leiden teachers share their experiences with educational innovation. They show colleagues, students, and everyone else who is interested the different facets of creating university education.

On 1 January Irma Mosquera Valderrama succeeded Jean-Pierre van der Rest as PhD Dean, completing the changes to the team of PhD deans at Leiden Law School.

Jildau Bouwman has been named as professor by special appointment of the chair ‘Remote Health Monitoring’ at Leiden University. The systems biologist and TNO Digital Health Innovation figurehead will investigate how digital solutions can contribute to better healthcare at home. ‘Home care is often more…

Education

Archaeology has always been at the forefront of innovation. Now, an inventive collaboration between archaeologists Tuna Kalayci and Alex Brandsen brings together the winning combination of robotic technology with an archaeological AI. While an impressive new step in the archaeological technology, this…

Religious studies specialist and historian Tom-Eric Krijger talks about the new pope. Will he be a mediator or someone who dares to take a stand?

Library

Herman Paul (professor of History of the Humanities) has been elected a member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW). He will be officially installed on 30 September.

A lot has happened at Cluster Zuid since the highest point of the building was reached in December. See the photo report below.

Through the use of artificial intelligence, the executive is gaining in efficiency. At the same time, however, the judiciary is trailing behind in the process of digitalisation. Is this a problem, and what can we do about it?

Six Leiden University members of staff recently received the Erasmus+ International Credit Mobility grant for exchange projects with non-European partner universities. The total award of around 357,000 euros is used for approximately 50 international mobilities.

‘The climate crisis is the greatest threat we face,’ says Leiden University environmental scientist Paul Behrens. ‘And yet, there is hope. In the near future, I think we will wonder why we didn’t make these changes earlier.’

Last Saturday, Wijnhaven Campus and the Anna van Buerenplein were the setting for the first 'on campus' Experience Days in The Hague since the restrictive measures in higher education were introduced in March 2020. Spread over the day, some 200 students visited the campus to delve deeper into the 3…

As of 1 November 2025, Professor Luc Sels will assume the role of President of Leiden University’s Executive Board.

In the academic year 2022-2023 the Social Resilience and Security interdisciplinary programme will offer a new minor for students who are interested in studying interpersonal violence and who are entering the third year of their Bachelor's degree. The announcement went down well with students: the available…

How do you detect people at high risk of heart attacks and strokes? And how can we improve the treatment of atherosclerosis? These are the questions that keep LACDR researcher Marie Depuydt busy. She is investigating the immune cells that contribute to the worsening of atherosclerosis. ‘It's a challenging…

Gijsbert Rutten has been appointed professor of Dutch Linguistics with effect from 1 July. In this position, he will focus on language change and language variation, with a particular emphasis on historical sociolinguistics.