Various ministries started building nuclear bunkers in the seventies to shield themselves from a possible nuclear attack from the East. One of these nuclear bunkers lies below our new Wijnhaven building. This specific bunker was designed for important figures of government, and was built to function…

The work done by SUMO proteins in the cells of our body is of vital importance. Molecular cell biologist Alfred Vertegaal has been studying these proteins for nine years, first with a Veni subsidy and then with a prestigious Vidi subsidy.

Your own food truck, working from the comforts of a tropical beach in Bali, or a permanent job? Children, living together, getting married, a registered partnership? Thirty-somethings have a lot to think about. On Monday 16 April, Psychologist Nienke Wijnants gave a popular lecture to 120 young alumni…

Rychard Bouwens from the Leiden Observatory is the first scientist in the Netherlands to be assigned a Large Programme on the state-of-the-art ALMA telescope in Chile. With his team, he wants to use the unique capabilities of the billion-euro facility to investigate the build-up of massive galaxies…

Wie de Nederlandse taal spreekt, heeft betere kansen op de arbeidsmarkt. Investeer daarom in taalles van migranten, is de boodschap van wetenschapper Giacomo Boffi.

From ransomware to Citrix traffic jams: over the past few months Dutch organisations were regularly brought to a standstill by serious cyber attacks. We can only face these threats by standing as one, and universities and government should take the lead. These are the words of Leiden professors Bibi…

Niloufar Rahim, from Afghanistan, fled to the Netherlands with her family. She studied medicine in Leiden and now shares her knowledge with students of medicine in Afghanistan.

The cloud is of increasing importance in our daily lives. It is thus crucial that they work properly and are reliable. Alex Uta, assistant professor at LIACS, received a Veni grant to investigate the reproducibility of experiments in the cloud.

In our collective journey to bridge social, economic, and cultural inequality in society, we must al play a part, says Wilco van Dijk. Unfortunately, notes Carolien Rieffe, minority groups are often not included in this 'we.' This became a focal point of discussion during the fifth Psychology Connected…

A child who receives fewer nutrients in the womb than their identical twin brother or sister is more likely to have developmental problems later in life. This is what researchers from the Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC) write in The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health. This study shows that unfavourable…

The Rutte-III coalition agreement has been presented and the commentary is flooding in. Public administration experts Arco Timmermans and Gerard Breeman examined the new agreement – as they have done for every coalition agreement since 1963 - and made a systematic analysis of it: it is very much about…

He did an English-taught degree, completed a master’s abroad and now teaches on an English-taught programme at Leiden University College The Hague. Jan Meijer is the definition of an international researcher and he’s proud of it.

We are all at home in familiar surroundings. Not only is this boring but it can also have a negative influence on our learning, explains cognitive neuropsychologist Judith Schomaker. ‘Discovering new environments gets our brain learning and remembering. We are now missing this stimulus.’

The United Nations celebrates its 75th anniversary this year. With the corona crisis and rising nationalism, there’s not much cause for celebration. Which challenges will the global organisation have to overcome to be assured another 75 years of existence?

Few researchers see potential in research on glioblastoma, an incurable brain tumour. Alexander Kros brought together colleagues who are up to the challenge. European research funder ERC recently made 10.6 million euros available, a year earlier NWO provided 3 million euros. ‘In six years, we certainly…

After having been cancelled in 2020, this year the Summer School in Languages and Linguistics is going online. From 12 – 23 July, language and linguistics enthusiasts from all over the world can once again learn about a variety of rare languages and linguistics topics. Director Sasha Lubotsky tells…

During your studies you have to make a lot of choices. And there are so many possibilities, you sometimes can’t see the wood for the trees. Where do I want to do an internship? What are my options on the job market? Students Justin and Seif were also struggling with these questions, so they called on…

Leiden chemists discovered a new mechanism which might explain how multiple sclerosis shifts to a more severe form. Their findings contribute to unravelling the mysterious course of the disease. They have published their findings in the journal Biochemistry.

A new and recently started Getty Foundation project, Material Entanglements in the Ancient Mediterranean and Beyond, aims to forge connections among Mediterranean and Eastern scholars who rarely come into contact with one another’s work. Ann Brysbaert is one of the 25 invited specialists investigating…

The master thesis: for many students it is a true crowning glory. Some theses are truly excellent. Those are rewarded with the FSW Thesis Prize. This year, this award was won by Roosmarijn Goldbach (master’s Psychology) and Matija Čuljak (research master’s Psychology), who respectively researched borderline…

The Schengen Agreement has resulted in systematic border controls between EU Member States largely ceasing to apply. Solutions for the associated security risks are often sought in information technology. Tim Dekkers investigated how such technology is applied in this context and will defend his PhD…

It's the middle of summer and the lecture halls are full. Students from all parts of the world have come to Leiden and The Hague for a summer school, on subjects varying from linguistics to international criminal law and from physics to biopharmaceutical sciences. Lecturers and students talk about what…

David Versluis successfully simulated an infant gut virtually. This is crucial for research on improvements in formula milk. Currently, such research primarily relies on diaper contents, which is not optimal. Versluis defended his doctoral thesis on April 23.

Betty de Jonge is a household name in our faculty. As the person behind AskBetty, she knew how to answer every question about Office. Starting this month, she has officially retired.

Scientists regularly appear in the media. They participate in science cafés, write a popular-science book or visit school classes. In that way, they want to convey their knowledge and enthusiasm to society. But do they succeed? To answer that question, a new website is launched, with a toolbox full…

Music from a compostable cello, photographs and scents of fungi and a woven tapestry. With her upcoming multimedia project Super Organism, visual artist Suzette Bousema enables people to experience the underground fungal network with all their senses. Environmental scientist Nadia Soudzilovskaia and…

With the passing of Henk Jan de Jonge on 16 April 2022, Leiden University has lost one of its most characteristic, learned and devoted professors.

During last summer, the Faculty of Law offered an Honours Class about the theme 'Governing Crime and Migration'. Hillary Mellinger, one of the participating international students, tells us about her experiences.

Tijdens het symposium ‘Transdisciplinary Study of Just Public Algorithmic Systems’, op vrijdag 24 maart in Den Haag, staat onderzoek naar het gebruik van algoritmische systemen in de publieke sector centraal. Een actueel onderwerp dat de laatste tijd veel in de belangstelling staat. Vijf vragen over…

As of 1 May 2018, Nicole de Voogd has been appointed as Professor by special appointment Global change and marine ecosystems at the Institute of Environmental Sciences (CML). She is currently senior researcher at Naturalis Biodiversity Center in the field of tropical marine ecosystems.

With the new academic year, the Honours Academy welcomes a new assessor: Maarten Kolpa. What does an assessor do? And what can he do for honours students? Maarten talks about it in an interview.

Historian Marjan Schwegman is the new Cleveringa Professor. Her lecture on 27 November will focus on Eduard Meijers, the Jewish professor who was dismissed by the Nazis. Schwegman's previous posts include Director of the NIOD Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies.

Examining cybercrime from criminological, legal, administrative, and technical perspectives. The new Bachelor's programme in Cybersecurity & Cybercrime addresses the growing demand for versatile cyber professionals..

In donut-shaped buildings, particle accelerators take super-detailed X-ray images. Yet those images are not good enough to learn how to drive on hydrogen for example. Mathematics PhD student Allard Hendriksen has developed an algorithm that improves the images without having to learn from data from…

Imagine: you are at the end of your fieldwork in Peru and ready to go home when all flights get canceled because of Covid-19. It happened to master student Visual Ethnography Mark Lindenberg. By now, four months later than scheduled, he is back in the Netherlands. How does he look back? And what was…

Mountains of pepernoten, shelves full of chocolate letters and adverts showing the perfect Christmas table. With the holidays approaching, supermarkets are trying to entice us to buy all sorts of treats. Cognitive neuropsychologist Judith Schomaker researches how by directing consumers’ attention, you…

Each year, the Dutch government publishes its Budget Memorandum on Budget Day, or Prince’s Day as it is known. The economy is doing well, and elections will be held at the start of 2021, so it’s most likely that many a rose-tinted plan will emerge from the briefcase on Prince’s Day on 17 September.…

‘To be honest, I knew very little about the Netherlands when I arrived in 1998. But studying law in Leiden was a very enriching experience.’ Nathalie van den Berge grew up in a number of different European countries, and now works at a UN office in Tanzania, where she lives with her Dutch husband and…

Healthy lifestyle campaigns are often unsuccessful. It is hard to get people to eat healthily or do more exercise. Behavioural science expertise should be drawn on at a much earlier stage in policy development, say twelve behavioural scientists in a position paper. They will present the paper to Maarten…

Leiden astronomers and ecologists are developing an instrument that lets people measure the quality of surface water with a smartphone.This international citizen science project, MONOCLE, is a collaboration between scientists and local people in Tanzania, Brazil and four European countries.

Author and political scientist Mounir Samuel has spent recent years delving into the many ways that language can exclude people and bring them together.

About 90 per cent of Austronesian and Papuan languages are under threat of soon becoming extinct. Marian Klamer is the only professor in the world who researches both these language groups. She records languages before they disappear and sheds new light on the history of Indonesia. Inaugural lecture…

How can Ronald Mulder run his skates across an ice layer at 60 km/h? His skating blades get help from a lubricating layer of meltwater. In Leiden, physicists found this explanation to be incomplete. Theoretician Hans van Leeuwen and experimental physicist Tjerk Oosterkamp searched for a deeper answe…

The Netherlands Institute in Morocco, part of Leiden University, is open for students from all academic and applied sciences universities in the Netherlands. Four students talk about the added value of studying in Rabat. 'I was surprised that Rabat is so modern.’

Automated government decisions can be cost-effective. But using algorithms also makes understanding the reasons behind decisions particularly complicated. Dr Melanie Fink, Assistant Professor at Leiden Law School, has received a Veni grant to fund her research into this.

Delft, Nov. 15th, 2022 – Today, eight professors were simultaneously inaugurated as ‘Medical Delta professors’ at Leiden University, LUMC, TU Delft, Erasmus University and/or Erasmus MC. With an appointment of two or more of these five academic institutions, they combine technology and healthcare in…

The European Research Council (ERC) announced the awarding of 494 Starting Grants to young scientists across Europe. One of these scholars is Corinna Jentzsch, Assistant Professor of International Relations at the Institute of Political Science. She received this grant for her research project ‘Countering…

Physicist Martin van Exter works with light at nanoscale, at the forefront of nanocomputer research. But as Director of Education he also has a vision for physics teaching. Inaugural lecture 18 November.

Research on flora and fauna with attention for economic interests and partnership with the local population. This is all bundled in a cooperation programme of the Anton de Kom University of Suriname and Leiden University. Working together on the basis of equality is key. ‘A thorny challenge, but one…

The annual commemoration of the nation’s war dead on Dam Square and at Waalsdorpervlakte, the Dutch apologies for historical slavery and the Cleveringa Lecture itself: our relationship with history is often ritualistic, Cleveringa Professor Frank van Vree will say in his inaugural lecture on 27 Nove…