Professor of Korean Studies Remco Breuker has been awarded a subsidy from the European Research Council to study the dispute between both Koreas and China on the history of Manchuria.

In the new video series 'The World of Linguistics', alumni and academics talk about their passion for their field. Student Aline-Priscillia is particularly curious about how language is processed in the brain.

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

Linguist Wataru Uegaki received an NWO Grant of 58400 Euro for his research project 'In search of semantic universals in the modal domain'. With this money Wataru can compile a database and organise workshops. An interview with Wataru:

During the Late Pleistocene, Europe was a cold and unforgiving place to live. Even so, groups of early modern humans roamed around, just like their Neanderthal counterparts. It is unclear what kind of dwellings these people inhabited to shelter them against the elements, especially in regions without…

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.

Professor Mirjam de Bruijn will research digital warfare in the North African Sahel with an NWO Open Competition grant. The focus of the research will be on Fulani social networks in war and cultural violence.

Successful innovation requires more than technological progress alone. Every new concept must first be firmly anchored into an existing context. At least this is the hypothesis of Dutch classicists, working together in the National Research School in Classical Studies OIKOS. They intend to test this…

The world’s oldest known glue was made by Neanderthals. But how did they make it 200,000 years ago? Leiden archaeologists have discovered three possible ways. Publication in Scientific Reports, 31 August.

Andrew DJ Shield (History) and Ann Marie Wilson (Leiden University College) have been awarded a seed grant for their project, “Transnational Gay/Lesbian Activism since the 1960s.” Granted: €3000.

When are you (sexually) mature? A KNAW grant will enable associate professor Rafal Matuszewski to organise an interdisciplinary workshop on this question.

Classical and Mediterranean archaeologist Tymon de Haas is a relatively recent addition to the Faculty of Archaeology. Succeeding Tesse Stek in September 2018, he has played an important role in teaching since then, working together with colleagues from multiple research groups. ‘I have my corner of…

Storm clouds are gathering for the European grants for ‘excellent’ research. Researchers therefore need to explain how important these grants are. This is what Jean-Pierre Bourguignon, President of the European Research Council (ERC), had to say during a visit to Leiden University on Thursday 24 Apr…

Her love for China made her study Chinese and go on an exchange trip in her third year of studies. As an Outbound Student Coordinator at the Humanities International Office, Karin Aalderink (45) now supervises students who go abroad.

It is one of the most personal and simultaneously most universal experiences of human life: caring for a young child. Professor Sarah Cramsey has been awarded an ERC Starting Grant to investigate how factors such as nationality, political systems, and religion influence the first thousand days after…

Back in June, the annual Leiden Archaeology Field School took place in Oss. For a month, every week, a group of 25 first year students gets to learn the ins and outs of a professional excavation. This is what they have been prepared for in the past year. ‘It is very exciting to put all the theory into…

Two of the three nominees for the Leiden Education Prize, or best teacher of 2020-2021, work at FGGA: Els de Busser (ISGA) and Ayo Adedokun (LUC). Both lecturers are very honoured with their nomination. The winner will be announced on Monday 6 September during the opening of the academic year.

Bart Barendregt receives a Vici grant of 1.5 million euros from the NWO for his research project 'One between the Zeros, an Anthropology of Artificial Intelligence in Islam'.

In the nationalist nineteenth century, people developed an interest in medieval language and literature. The study of medieval material in one’s own vernacular was thought to reveal a great national past. But why, then, was Old English studied by Germans, Danes, Italians and many other nationalities…

Last Friday, during the ELS Academy Annual Event, Loran Kostense (VU), Sofia de Jong (Leiden University), Rieneke Stelma-Roorda (VU) and Anne Verboom (Leiden University) were awarded a €5000 research grant to carry out research on comparing the method of case law reviews versus court file studies. In…

Professor Nira Wickramasinghe will research forgotten lineages with an NWO Open Competition grant, in particular the afterlife of Dutch slavery in the Indian Ocean World.

When it comes to literature, people mostly talk about what characters see or hear. Rarely is it about what they smell. That’s a shame, thinks university lecturer Jan van Dijkhuizen. He has been awarded an Open Competition grant from NWO to expand academic knowledge about scent in literature, and to…

GIFs, memes and videos: anyone who opens a social media platform can be in no doubt that today we live in a visual culture. But the role of images in social communications isn’t new, says Associate Professor Marika Keblusek. She has been awarded a Dutch Research Council (NWO) Open Competition (Large)…

One unravels the origin of the largest black holes in the universe, the other investigates the influence of stellar wind on the atmosphere of exoplanets. Both Elena Maria Rossi and Aline Vidotto receive a Vici grant for their research into the mysteries of the universe. ‘I have no idea yet how we can…

Japanologist and linguist Martine Robbeets is going to use her newly acquired ERC Consolidator Grant to study the origins and spread of Trans-Eurasian languages, which include Japanese and Turkish. With it, she’s tackling one of the most controversial subjects in language history.

Imparting students with a critical attitude and cross-curricular skills. That is what Rawi Ramautar wants to strive for as the new programme director (OD) of the bachelor of Bio-Pharmaceutical Sciences. 'A programme director has to create a programme of which students say: I find it challenging and…

From 2020 to 2023, Professor Miguel John Versluys and his research group will participate in an international consortium co-funded by the Creative Europe programme of the European Union in the framework of the international project “Alexandria: (Re)activating Common Urban Imaginaries”. This ERC project…

Lecturers Marjo de Graauw and Malte Riemann have both received a Comenius Teaching Fellowship.

How do games help shape our perception of the past? Associate Professor Angus Mol receives a Vidi grant to answer this question.

At one time, the railway from Kimberley to Kambove in Southern Africa symbolised prosperity and progress. Today, the exhausted mining towns along its route are marked by decay and pollution. Professor Jan-Bart Gewald has been awarded an NWO L grant to investigate the long-term global consequences.

Dr Mariana Françozo has been awarded a prestigious NWO Vici grant for a five year research project that brings together Indigenous communities, museum collections and interdisciplinary scholarship. Her project focuses on the histories and contemporary challenges of two Indigenous peoples in South America:…

University lecturer Andrew Gawthorpe comments on The Conversation on Trump’s statement that the war in Iran will end ‘very soon’.

Aphroditi Zoulfoukaridis is the manager of LeidenGlobal, a partnership of several faculties at the University and other academic and cultural institutions in Leiden. In her free time, she enjoys visiting cultural events and loves to travel.

Niels Broekman did an internship at the Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality, where he worked on, among other things, biodiversity advocacy. After his internship, he decided to go in a different direction: ‘An internship can be very enlightening in helping you figure out where your interests…

Dr Amanda Henry has secured a prestigious Vici grant for her groundbreaking research project, Hominin FoodWays: Changing Diet and Food Processing Across Climate Frontiers. This five-year study, set to begin in September, aims to unravel the dietary adaptations of Eurasian hominins between 1.8 and 0.9…

Psychologists Fenna Poletiek and Erik de Kwaadsteniet have received a grant from the FNV trade union to research people’s attitude to work if they receive a basic income. How do they plan to find answers?

Jonathan Powell came to Leiden from England to conduct research into the role of women in early modern court cases. In addition to all kinds of exciting documents, he also discovered the biscuits from the Water & Bloem bakery and the wild flowers at the Groenesteeg cemetery.

The History programme has been working for several years to make the curriculum more diverse and inclusive. With a Comenius grant, university lecturer Kim Beerden wants to take the next step.

From memorials to the armed forces to memory stones for individual victims. It was only later that the Holocaust took a central role in Western remembrance culture, Cleveringa Professor Frank van Vree notes. ‘Nationalists and human rights activists both invoke the experience of the Holocaust.’

On Thursday 19 September, the first ILS Lunch Seminar of this academic year took place. Clare Fenwick and Ilya Kokorin gave two very insightful presentations in this very well visited edition of the Lunch Seminars.

How can the law provide legal safeguards for the save introduction of quantum technology for consumers, and how can these safeguards be examined and interpreted through interdisciplinary collaboration?

Bachelor's students Kirsten S. Barink, Milène van der Geest, Claire van den Helder and Pim L. Ruhe are granted the Speckmann award for their Fieldwork NL report 'If it would have been a colour it would be pitch-black', a report on people suffering from the phenomenon of 'Electrohypersensitivity'.

At the Faculty of Science, forty per cent of the employees are of a non-Dutch nationality. Amongst PhDs that is even sixty per cent. How are they doing in a time of working at home in a different culture, when travelling is not possible? Clinical pharmacologist Lu Chen is the third in this series to…

Professor of Molecular Astrophysics Ewine van Dishoeck is portrayed as a heroine in a pictorial children's book. ‘It starts with a dream' tells the stories of twenty exceptional Dutch women who have had a positive impact on society. The book aims to give young girls role models and encourage them to…

Phage therapy is a novel yet unmatured therapeutic approach in the face of the crisis of antimicrobial resistance (AMR). Dr. Tingjie Guo received a grant from the Elise Mathilde Fund and the LUF to develop innovative phage-antibiotic combination treatment strategy for combating AMR.

For already two years, Vincent Niochet has been affiliated with the Leiden Faculty of Archaeology as an external PhD candidate. Now, he has been awarded an NWO PhDs in the Humanities grant, allowing him to continue his research as a paid PhD staff member. ‘The past two years have been quite challenging,…

Peter Webb is one of the four young Leiden Humanities researchers to receive a Veni grant from the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO). Webb will use the funding for his project EPIC PASTS: PRE-ISLAM THROUGH MUSLIM EYES, to reevaluate the ways in which Muslims in early Islam remembered…

The ILS Lunch Seminar of April will take in a slightly different format, as we have the honour of receiving Dr Leandro Mancano from the University of Edinburgh. He will present his most recent monograph on the European Union and the deprivation of liberty.

Archaeologist Quentin Bourgeois received an NWO Vidi grant to investigate the emergence of a pan-European culture in the third millennium BC. ‘We see ideas being shared across the entire continent in pre-literate societies. And not only that, for a thousand years, the same cultural ideas persist.’