When can a patient be discharged from intensive care? Artificial intelligence can help answer this and other questions. But using such revolutionary technology in healthcare is not easy, as Anne de Hond has discovered.

Three fundamental research projects at Leiden in physics, chemistry and medical science have received funding from the Dutch Research Council (NWO). They involve research on magnetic fields in the universe, the role of myeloid cells in cancer immunotherapy and the evolution of ancient proteins.

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.

The starting point of human-induced landscape changes has been under permanent debate. It is widely accepted that the emergence of agriculture strongly increased human impact on their environments. However, foragers can and do actively transform land cover and ecosystems. Ethnographic observations,…

It was a remarkable trend in 19th-century London: middle-class bourgeois bohemians falling in love with anarchism and its assassins. University lecturer Michael Newton has been awarded a NIAS subsidy to reconstruct the lives of three of these families.

Jasper Knoester started on 1 January as our new dean. How is he finding it, what kinds of things is he doing and what does his day look like? In every newsletter Jasper gives us a peek into his life as dean.

Juan Masullo J., Assistant Professor at Leiden University’s Institute of Political Science, has been named a 2025 Harry Frank Guggenheim Distinguished Scholar. His research with Nicholas Barnes on public security policy preferences in Rio de Janeiro's favelas has been recognized for its innovative approach…

The Russian threat to Europe, pro-Palestine protests, the passing of psychologist Andrea Evers and speculations on extraterrestrial life. These were among our most popular articles of the year.

What makes young people susceptible to misinformation? And how do their friends influence this? Psychologist Jiemiao Chen aims to find out by using eye-tracking to monitor where young people focus their attention while watching TikTok videos.

From lectures by Robbert Dijkgraaf to a telescope on the ocean floor: during his double bachelor’s in Physics and Astronomy, Jelle Oonk discovered that the path to big cosmic answers sometimes runs through the smallest, hardest-to-catch particles—neutrinos.

A big performance by André Rieu, food trucks in The Hague and more contact with the Royal Family: grand plans were announced in April to make the State Opening of Parliament (Prinsjesdag) a real ‘crowd puller’. For this year, however, we will just have to make do with slight differences in emphasis.…

175 years ago, the Netherlands took great strides towards parliamentary democracy with a revamped Constitution. Where does the Constitution stand today?

Facility, Organisation

They have known each other since they were small but Rianne and Tom first fell in love when working together at the university. That love culminated in a fairytale wedding amid all the revelry last 3 October.

A team of European astronomers has found a silicate-based weather system on a cloudy gas planet around the star WASP-107. It is the first time astronomers have found silicate clouds and rain. They also conclude that temperatures deeper in the atmosphere are rising rapidly. 'The presence of clouds has…

The fifteenth Annual Convention of Austria Centers took place in Berkeley, California, USA in May 2023.

Since 1 October 2022, Sarah Nelson is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Institute for History. Below she introduces herself.

Organisation, Research

The SENSYN project has found a solution to few public datasets for criminological research: synthetic datasets. Marieke Liem talks about this unique innovation

What is the state of democracy in developing and transition countries in 2024? Terrible, according to the BTI Transformation Index.

Astronomers at Leiden University have detected rare isotopes of carbon and oxygen in our neighbouring stars for the first time, providing a new window to better understand the chemical evolution of the cosmos.The results are published today in the journal Nature Astronomy.

Alumnus Sam van Raalte followed his passion into freelance journalism.

The European Commission adopted a proposal regarding common rules promoting the right to repair for consumers.

More autocracies, less gender equality and growing anti-liberal sentiment. These are just some of the developments Professor Sarah Wolff will highlight in her inaugural lecture on the future of Europe. ‘The liberal world order as we know it in the West is at stake.’

On 14 September, the Leiden Essay Film Festival will kick off. This three-day festival, organised by the Academy of Creative and Performing Arts, marks a first for the Netherlands. Never before has there been a public event entirely dedicated to the exceptional genre of the essay film. The festival…

‘If it rains later, then I’ll take the car.’ In order to reason, we use sentences containing ‘if’ every single day. But how does that work exactly in the Dutch language? Alex Reuneker wrote his 628 page dissertation on the subject. Ceremony on 26 January.

Sustainability researchers can play an important role in the energy transition. But what if their partners are not (yet) sustainable and science itself has adverse effects? This is the subject of an online talk by researcher Thomas Franssen on 16 December with a discussion afterwards. ‘Clean energy…

A week after the kick-off of the Healthy University Let's Walk Week 2021, colleagues together already have made 7276 'ommetjes'. The Let's Walk Week was entirely devoted to getting and staying active for our personal, physical and mental health.

During the annual Teaching Fair, teaching staff in the Faculty of Humanities met up to exchange tips & tricks and attend workshops.

If we want to solve the complex issues now facing us as people and as an organisation, leadership is an absolute necessity: and then not only from supervisors and managers, but from everyone. You can use the set of cards and the animation developed specially for this purpose to gain insight into your…

Psychology teacher of the year is Evelien Broekhof. The Master Thesis Awards are for Yanna Naeije and Arian Memarpouri. Mirjam Wever wins the PhD Paper Prize; Jip Aarts wins the PhD Wild Card: Academic Citizenship. Congratulations!

With the rise of AI, interest in computational linguistics and language models has taken flight. But machines are far from being able to go it alone. In her inaugural lecture, Professor Carole Tiberius will stress the importance of research on word combinations. ‘We know a great deal but there is a…

Grootschalige productie van batterijen voor elektrische auto’s zwakt de emissiereductie die door elektrisch rijden wordt behaald af.

Antibiotic resistance is an economic problem. Pharmaceutical companies cannot earn much from antibiotic research, so they do not invest in it. This makes it important that universities do so, says Ned Buijs.

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.

A cover over your drink in the pub, deodorant as pepper spray or headphones to avoid hearing catcalling: many women use everyday objects to feel safer in public spaces. Student Anne van der Linden made an online exhibition about this.

From Thursday-Friday 28-29 April 2022 the Stichting Bob Wessels Insolvency Law Collection (BWILC) invites PhD students from Europe and beyond to participate in a fourth edition of the PhD workshop on European/International Insolvency Law.

PhD candidate Wouter Verschoof-van der Vaart has received the Stichting Elise Mathilde Fonds grant from the Leids Universiteits Fonds (LUF) to work on a research project focusing on the landscapes of the Second World War. ‘We will combine citizen science with deep learning to uncover traces of the c…

De Universiteit Leiden is al 25 jaar stevig geworteld in Den Haag. Dat werd zichtbaar tijdens de feestelijke bijeenkomst rondom de foto-expositie Universiteit Leiden in Den Haag: Onderzoekers van de stad.

Political scientist Kevin Köhler (Leiden University) has been awarded a Consolidator Grant by the European Research Council (ERC). This prestigious grant enables him to set up a research group in the coming five years. Köhler and his team will examine how elite conflict affects processes of regime change…

The final design of the Aleida Nijland has been completed. The spaces in the new faculty building have been allocated to the future users, and several sessions have taken place in which staff and students were able to contribute ideas about the interior. With each step, the Aleida Nijland is taking…

After many years of preparations, CERN has approved a groundbreaking new experiment: the Search for Hidden Particles (SHiP). Physicist Alexey Boyarsky was involved from the start. ‘We know there is physics that’s missing and we aim to find it.’

In April 2025, Ms. Esther Rachow from The Hebrew University in Jerusalem presenting her ongoing doctoral research at an Austria Centre Leiden lunch-time talk. She answered a few questions about her visit below.

Young people being deployed to carry out explosive attacks: how do they come into view, and what motivates them? The podcast 'Action/Reaction: From Attack to Approach' by the research project Close Protection and Surveillance and researcher Sheila Adjiembaks takes a closer look at why and how young…

Are you passionate about peace, justice, and democracy, and keen to get involved in The Hague’s vibrant international community? This is your chance! The Global Transformations and Governance Challenges programme is leading Leiden University's participation in the Just Peace Festival!

From 11 to 17 September, Leiden will be all about art and science. What can the combination of these two domains do for us? And how can cooperation between them be strengthened? Several public events and a brand new symposium for specialists should answer these questions.

The Lucia de Berk case or the suicide of Slobodan Praljak at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia: certain trials keep popping up in media. In her dissertation, Tessa de Zeeuw examines the cultural appeal of such cases and analyses artistic responses. ‘Artworks sometimes have…

Many children experience trauma and if they are unable to deal with it properly, it can have a huge personal and societal effect. Building resilience in vulnerable children and young people should therefore have the highest priority. This is the message of Anne-Laura van Harmelen, Professor of Brain,…

Healthy and active Leideners and a smoke-free generation. These are the main ambitions of the Leiden Health and Wellbeing Agreement that was signed online by 40 partners on 19 April. Leiden University will also be drawing on its broad expertise to help realise the ambitions.

Can a robot perform a religious ritual just like a monk? And what exactly is a religious ritual? Robots and religion seem to be two different subjects, but according to university lecturer Elpine de Boer, both can make us think about what it means to be human and what we consider to be of value. Together…