The government spends millions regulating companies that work with large quantities of hazardous substances. But we don’t know whether this is making the industry safer. The number of violations and incidents remains constant. This is the conclusion of external PhD candidate Rob in ’t Veld in his dissertation.…

For her research into migration policy under different political regimes, Katharina Natter has been awarded the Gratama Science Prize for young, talented researchers.

On 11 February 2019 the Women in International Law Network, established in 2017 as an informal network for midlevel to senior female officials, experts, advisers and academics working in international law in the Netherlands, organised a panel discussion and the book launch of ‘Frontex and Human Rights’,…

Astronomy departments at Dutch universities is among the top of the world rankings for astronomical institutions. This is the conclusion drawn from a recent evaluation of the Netherlands Research School for Astronomy (NOVA) and the astronomy institutions of the University of Amsterdam, the University…

Are you keen to beat your friends or colleagues and win the European Championship football pool? Statistician Marjolein Fokkema has some tips that might increase your chances.

Annick Dezitter from Belgium celebrates 3 October with heart and soul: she has become a fanatical Leidener. Her portrait is part of Leiden meets Europe: an exhibition of 28 portraits of EU citizens in Leiden. City photographer and third-year Cultural Anthropology student Wilke Geurds explains.

This international conference, held in Leiden form 22 to 24 May 2017, focused on adat law in Indonesia a century after the Adat Law Foundation (Adatrechtstichting) was set up in Leiden by the famous professors Van Vollenhoven and Snouck Hurgronje. In the decades that followed the Adat Law Foundation…

Each year, the Institut français and French Embassy award the Bourses Descartes, which are designed to support students or PhD candidates who intend to study at a French educational institution or would like to finance a research partnership. In February, the Institut announced that part of a scholarship…

Meniere’s disease, a disorder of the inner ear, was first described back in 1861, but there’s still no good test or treatment for it. Tjasse Bruintjes, Professor by Special Appointment of Ear, Nose and Throat Surgery, wants more attention for this mysterious disease. And he wants to tell his fellow…

Researcher and lecturer Susana Valdez investigates how migrants make use of online translation technology in medical situations. Her research suggests that they often encounter obstacles when using machine translation in these settings. Potential problems include a lack of understanding or trust.

On November 17, the Leiden Anthropology of Asia Network held its second Anthropology of Asia at Leiden Update. At Leiden University, anthropologists are not at all confined to the Institute Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology (CADS).

On Monday 11 December, human rights activist Ms. Wai Wai Nu will deliver the seventh Raymond and Beverly Sackler Distinguished Lecture on Human Rights at Leiden Law School. This events marks the annual celebration of International Human Rights Day, which was proclaimed in 1950 by the United Nations…

The shock wave triggered by one of the five galaxies making up the iconic Stephan’s Quintet appears to be less disruptive than previously thought, with the shock likely being cushioned by dust particles in the surrounding gas. This is according to the analysis of the first scientific observations of…

Successfully completing a master’s thesis in Political Science is no small feat. Not only is this for most students the most extensive and in-depth research report they have ever written, the work is also held to very high standards. Yet, every year students manage to impress their instructors and demonstrate…

The way age is determined by the IND is being questioned as a result of several court rulings. The problem is that it is difficult to determine whether a young asylum seeker is just over or under the age of 18. So far there is no suitable way to determine exactly how old someone is, Mark Klaassen, associate…

Register now for the World Press Freedom Conference 2020 digital edition (9 – 10 December 2020)!

In its new Annual Report 2023, Leiden University reviews its research and teaching, as well as its ICT, staffing, finances, real estate, impact and knowledge transfer.

A marvelous mosaic synagogue floor has been discovered at the Israeli excavation site of Horvat Kur. The timeworn stones of the mosaic clearly form the name ‘El’azar’. Leiden University researcher Jürgen Zangenberg and a group of Leiden students played a role in the excavation. ‘El’azar was likely an…

The EU-funded project SKIES (SKilled, Innovative and Entrepreneurial Scientists) will train astronomy graduate students in transferable skills for academia and industry. SKIES integrates open science, social innovation and entrepreneurship topics. The project kicked off on 1 March and will run for…

Niall Hodgins, master student Biology and Science Based Business, has earned the right to call himself the best student entrepreneur in Leiden. On June 15th 2016 he won the finals of Gulliver and the associated 10,000-euro prize for his company NADES to continue developing solvents for use in preclinical…

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,…

Catherine Harwood joined the Grotius Centre in The Hague a few years ago. She received her Advanced Master’s degree in Public International Law in 2012 and continued her PhD studies at Leiden University.

A research team led by Dr. Yannick Veilleux-Lepage (Institute of Security and Global Affairs) in collaboration with Emil Archambault has secured funding from the Canadian Department of National Defence’s Mobilizing Insights in Defence and Security (MINDS) program to study the use of drones by violent…

On Friday 13 July, fifty Philippine crocodiles (Crocodylus mindorensis) bred in captivity were released into a lake in the Northern Sierra Madre Natural Park on the northern Philippine island of Luzon. Researchers at Leiden University are hoping this will help speed up the recovery of the crocodile…

A delegation from various Serbian universities and government institutions will visit the Faculty of Governance and Global Affairs from Monday 27 to Wednesday 29 May. They will discuss the development of an educational programme in public policymaking and analysis in Serbia. An interview with Serbian…

Associate Professor of Physical Geography Paul Hudson at Leiden University College was interviewed by TIME Magazine on the Mississippi floods that have been harassing the United States this year.

‘Wonder is the beginning of insight. Don’t let that academic curiosity erode.’ This was Jan Anthonie Bruijn’s call to administrators and funding bodies in his valedictory lecture.

Artificial Intelligence is likely to have far-reaching consequences for all actors in the realm of academic publishing, including authors, editors, researchers, and readers. This symposium aims to foster the conversation about the various ways in which we evaluate, enrich, and disseminate academic knowledge,…

The representation of women in science is improving, also at the Faculty of Science. On 8 March – International Women's Day – we highlight the work of female scientists from our faculty.

Max van Lent, Aris Politopoulos, Emily Strange, Claire Vergerio and Astrid Van Weyenberg have joined the Leiden University Teachers’ Academy. Lecturers at the Academy exchange experiences, develop their skills and share their knowledge and expertise with the rest of the university, for example via the…

From telescopes to science fiction: in just one semester, students with no background in physics or astronomy get to explore the universe. The first group of students started last month in the new minor Our Universe.

On Wednesday 4 September, Queen Máxima opened the renovated tropical greenhouse complex of the Leiden Hortus Botanicus, an event that attracted wide public interest. Thanks to this renovation, the greenhouses are even better equipped for scientific research.

A meeting place for singing parrots. That is one of the ambitions of Michelle Spierings’ new project. With her awarded NWO XS grant, she wants to test the parrots’ hearing ability. ‘I am curious to see how they can recognise and imitate changing melodies. And it would be amazing to test that with a…

Associate professor Alice Twemlow introduces a new elective which will start in September, called: Design and the Deep Future. We asked her to tell a little bit about herself and the elective she will be teaching in the first semester of the next academic year.

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.

To what extent can global issues be solved by multistakeholder collaboration, a relatively new type of organisation? Jan Aart Scholte, the coordinator of the Global Transformations and Governance Challenges (GTGC) interdisciplinary research programme, has received a Dutch Research Council (NWO) grant…

By looking at what is different, researchers often discover the special, the unusual. And that has already brought a wealth of highlights – also in Leiden.

Can the academic year be structured in such a way to give students, lecturers and researchers a bit more breathing space? To find out, Leiden University is taking part in ‘smarter academic year’ pilots.

Packages of DNA strands containing silver, measuring just two or three nanometres in size. Leiden physicists Donny de Bruin and Dirk Bouwmeester create these packages, which can enter living cells on their own. They then activate the silver with light, causing the cells to break down. This could, in…

The Leiden University Shii Studies Initiative (LUSSI) is hosting a two-day online conference on Islam and Evolution.

A consortium of research groups, including that of LACDR professor Erik Danen, will use an NWO Perspective grant of nearly five million euros to build a universal standard for organ-on-chip models. They aim to stimulate the application of these chips in the biomedical and pharmaceutical industry. Danen…

As of November 1st 2019, Professor Anthonya (Thony) Visser will become Dean of the Faculty of Arts at the University of Groningen and will leave LUCAS.

Matthias Barz has been appointed full Professor of Biotherapeutics Delivery at the Leiden Academic Centre for Drug Research (LACDR).

Cyber-attacks, privacy-related problems or failures in functioning: many technologies that are used every day have security issues that are solved when the software is already in use. A new interdisciplinary project, in which Olga Gadyatskaya, Harry Wijshoff, Alex Uta and Kristian Rietveld from the…

Claire Vergerio, political scientist at Leiden University, has been awarded a VENI grant by Dutch research organisation NWO. This will allow her to conduct an in-depth analysis of the legal rights and duties of non-state actors involved in warfare. The aim is to tackle some persistent blindspots in…

The discovery of a planet far too large for its sun defies models about the formation of solar systems and planets. In a paper in Science, researchers, including Yamila Miguel of Leiden Observatory, report the discovery of a planet more than 13 times heavier than Earth orbiting the ultracool dwarf star…

JUSTREMIT and the Institute of Security and Global Affairs at Leiden University will host a conference on 12 and 13 October on Global Regulatory Regimes and Remittances. invite paper and panel proposals for consideration for the third JUSTREMIT Conference. Academics, practitioners from the regulatory…

For the cyber specialization within the master program Crisis and Security Management, the Institute of Security and Global Affairs (ISGA) seeks to provide two online courses (SPOCs) to ensure that all students will be on the same page when it comes to prior knowledge of the technicalities of cyber…

Collaborating in drug discovery and health research was the goal of a visit to the Leiden Bio Science Park on 14 May by a Swedish delegation including His Majesty King Carl XVI Gustav of Sweden. The delegation visited Leiden University’s Faculty of Science.

Een uitbreiding van de NIMAR collectie van de Universitaire bibliotheken Leiden.