'We are very happy with this recognition! The great thing about this prize is that it celebrates team effort', Joanne Mouthaan responds to the Casimir Prize for the education project 'E-learning Suicide Prevention'. Colleague Maartje Schoorl calls the prize the icing on the cake of good education in…

Three weeks into intelligent lockdown and more to go. An extraordinary situation in which we are now working from home. How do our colleagues do that? Meet ups 'in the flesh' at the printer, having lunch and coffee in the FSW cafe or conferring live and lecturing in the Pieter de la Court Building are…

Health policy in the Netherlands is increasingly based on Positive Health. This approach sees health as much more than simply not being ill. There are more and more initiatives to promote Positive Health. But how do you know if these initiatives and policy are actually effective? LUMC researchers are…

For a lot of students, the covid crisis means that a sense of community is hard to find during their studies. Lettie Dorst, university lecturer of translation studies and English linguistics, explains how she tries to create a 'community of learners’.

Can politicians say whatever they want? What is the limit and when can the Public Prosecution Service act? PhD candidate Jip Stam examined the limits of free speech in criminal law. 'Intervening too soon can threaten democracy and the rule of law,' he warns.

Universities are there for future generations; how can we make sure we pass them on intact? Leiden academics responded to the address given by Cambridge professor Stefan Collini at the opening of the academic year.

A design created by student Jill Stoelinga has won our 450 mural competition! From May 12, you can help us paint the artwork. Read on to learn all about what the painting represents and how you can help.

In een goedgevuld Teldersauditorium vond op maandag 24 juni het symposium ‘Het Erfgoed van Meijers: 70 jaar waardering en inspiratie’ plaats. Vanuit verschillende perspectieven werd gereflecteerd op de omvangrijke nalatenschap van de Leidse hoogleraar Eduard Maurits Meijers, die precies zeventig jaar…

In the past decade many academic journals have started to require that researchers provide evidence of ethical review when submitting papers, for example when working with human participants or human remains.. In order to support researchers to ensure their projects are able to meet these expectations,…

How can I align science, society and myself to address today’s major challenges? That’s what students of the Honours College track ‘Science, Society and Self’ aim to find out. How do their classes at honours differ from their regular education?

Gianclaudio Malgieri, Associate Professor of Law & Technology at eLaw, was interviewed by EUobserver and Al Jazeera English on the European Commission’s newly unveiled Digital Omnibus package – a set of proposals that would amend the GDPR, the AI Act, cookie rules and parts of the EU’s cybersecurity…

The European Research Council (ERC) has awarded chemist Dr Alexander Kros a Starting Independent Researcher Grant of 1.4 million euro. He will be using the grant to study how molecules penetrate the natural barrier of a cell membrane. If his research is successful, it will in time bring about a revolution…

On December 1st, Maria Vasile attended the annual meeting of Wallonia’s Mouvement d’Action Paysanne (MAP) (Peasant Action Movement). The members of the MAP gather on this particular day to celebrate St. Eloi, who is recognized as the saint patron of farmers and of the working class, more generally.…

Call for proposals for a new Forum on Theorizing Culture in Global Relations in The Hague Journal of Diplomacy.

Over 100 Leiden University alumni gathered in the heart of Brussels for the annual Leiden Alumni in Brussels Event on 29 February. The European Banking Federation (EBF) generously hosted the event for the second time at their premises on Avenue des Arts.

Scientists widely agree that we must limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius to avoid catastrophic climate impacts. Environmental scientist Laura Scherer investigates how we should change lifestyles to achieve this temperature goal. Her research is part of the 4.8-million-euro Horizon 2020 project…

Leiden has been designated European City of Science 2022. The city's achievements as a city of science and innovation will be celebrated throughout the year, with as a highlight the international EuroScience Open Forum conference. The members of the core team that will organise this mega-event introduced…

Een subsidie aanvragen voor je onderzoek, dat lijkt veel werk en klinkt saai. Zeker als je hier nog niet zoveel ervaring mee hebt. Gelukkig staat Tjeerd Rijpma, subsidieadviseur bij FGGA, voor je klaar.

Diplomatica addresses the broad range of work being done across the social sciences and the humanities that takes diplomacy as its focus of investigation. The journal explores and investigates diplomacy as an extension of social interests, forces, and environments.

‘In Hong Kong, the elderly found our popular nature routes boring, so they now cycle our action-packed routes through New York.’ What once started as an assignment for the Master Programme Media Technology, has grown into the international market leader in the field of virtual reality exercises for…

How adolescents perceive parenting is related to their mood. Differences between the perspectives of parents and adolescents are also of importance for adolescents’ mood. That is what research by Loes Janssen and her Leiden University colleagues in Clinical Psychology shows. Open Access publication…

The EU is aiming to deter economic coercion with a new legal instrument. Freya Baetens will elucidate this in her inaugural lecture on October 27th.

The new minor 'Cyber Security Governance Essentials' will start in September 2021. Third year bachelor students of The Leiden Institute of Advanced Computer Science (LIACS) and of the BSc Security Studies of the Institute of Security and Global Affairs (ISGA) who would like to deepen their knowledge…

Violette Defourt came to Leiden for her master’s just before Covid hit. Four years later, she is leading her own biotech company, which aims to radically speed up diagnostics.

A group of united astronomers have successfully convinced Europe’s leading astronomy journal Astronomy & Astrophysics to institute a name change policy for transgender people and others. ‘It’s really frustrating that such a large organisation needed an initiative from outside to adopt a more inclusive…

The two instruments of ESA's space telescope Euclid have taken their first test images. The first images indicate that the space telescope will achieve the scientific goals for which it was designed - and possibly much more. Euclid will create a 3D map of a third of the sky, allowing scientists to study…

Being rejected always hurts, but so does having to reject someone. Social psychologists have discovered that at interviews to select suitable housemates students dehumanise candidates to make it easier to reject them. That may sound harsh but, according to the researchers, it is also logical.

From underground heat exchangers at the Bio Science Park to drinking taps to replace water coolers. With its new environmental policy plan, Leiden University will become greener in the coming years.

Why do innocent people sometimes spend years in prison? EUREX is a registry of miscarriages of justice in Europe that ultimately led to exonerations. The aim is to prevent such mistakes being made in future. One of the initiators is Leiden legal psychologist Linda Geven.

In our rapidly evolving and interconnected world, the study of International Relations has expanded beyond conventional disciplinary boundaries. Leiden University’s MA in International Relations program (MAIR - Humanities), with its emphasis on humanities-oriented and multidisciplinary perspectives,…

A packaging-free shop, small mobile homes, solar panels on all Leiden's roofs… Jeroen Schrama, alumnus of Public Administration, is a creative world improver. ‘If we really want to save the world, we have to make much more radical choices.’

Who will win this year’s Teaching Prize in the Faculty of Humanities? Who will the students honour with this coveted token of their appreciation? Read on to get to know four passionate teachers – about minds working at top speed, experimental teaching styles and that satisfying moment when the penny…

The ‘Stans Prize 2016' (for the best thesis, report or article produced by a CML student) has been awarded to Carlos Felipe Blanco Rocha. Other CML prizes were awarded to Henrik Barmentlo, Arnold Tukker and Coen van der Giesen.

Three enormous maps of China, created during the reign of three different emperors of the Qing dynasty, have now been made available in open access and are downloadable via Leiden University Libraries’ (UBL) Digital Collections. The rich maps are an early example of academic collaboration between the…

Last week, Humanities Lab honours students presented their research through creative posters and pitches at the Capstone Conference in PLNT Leiden. It was a special edition, where alumni and teachers reminisced over the programme’s 10-year history.

From 16 to 20 June 2025, the Institute of Security and Global Affairs of Leiden University hosted the annual Summer School The European Union, the United Nations and Global Governance in The Hague. The programme brought together recent graduates, PhD students, and young professionals from a variety…

eLaw - Center for Law and Digital Technologies at Leiden University, hosted the first Horizon Europe BIAS Project co-creational workshop geared towards defining the requirements for identifying and mitigating diversity bias in AI systems used for recruitment purposes.

The Board of Leiden University has appointed Armin Cuyvers as a full professor of European Law, specifically EU Constitutional Law and Comparative Regional Integration, effective per 1 September 2021.

Children are perfect scientists: they are bursting with curiosity, they want to know how the world works and they go exploring every day. Yet many children barely get a chance to be engaged in science. A number of scientists from the Young Academy want to change that. They have received 150,000 euros…

Suddenly everyone is at home, but this is not a holiday – far from it. Because work and school are ‘simply’ carrying on remotely. How can parents and children keep a cool head? Lenneke Alink, Professor of Forensic Family Studies, gives her advice.

On the first weekend of June a plot of land in Lutkemeerpolder, West Amsterdam, was occupied in order to host the Food Autonomy Festival. The event was organized in solidarity with local farms to protest against the development of Schiphol airport-oriented business park. Two of our PhD's, Maria Vasile…

From a new generation of antibiotics and more-effective vaccines to a map of dark matter and new light on Hindu traditions. Four researchers from Leiden University have received a prestigious €2.5m ERC Advanced Grant to develop their research.

On 2 June 2023, the Liber Amicorum – 'The EU and the WTO: Ever the Twain Shall Meet' – in honour of Marco Bronckers will be officially launched at Leiden Law School. To mark this special occasion, an interactive discussion on 'Five future challenges facing the EU and the WTO in the next 50 years' will…

An international collaboration, including Leiden physicist and computer scientist Vedran Dunjko, showed that quantum technology can speed-up the learning process of artificial intelligence (AI). To prove this, the physicists and computer scientists used a quantum processor for single photons. Their…

Annually, the Dutch Palynologische Kring invites nominations for the Florschütz Award for best MSc thesis in Palynology and Palaeobotany. This year, the thesis of Archaeology alumna Oda Nuij was deemed to be the best one. Oda was surprised to hear she won, since she was not sure that the thesis would…

The research profile area Interaction between Legal Systems has a multidisciplinary approach and aims to inspire innovative research. Out of all the proposals put forward, three winning projects have been selected for the forthcoming research period 2016-2020.

What is the relationship between humans and nature like? And how can we use it to tackle climate problems? In the Master Honours Class ‘Planet in Peril’, students approach climate issues from the perspective of the humanities. ‘Things are not always as one-sided as they seem.’

New results from the Kilo-Degree Survey (KiDS) show that the Universe is almost 10 percent more homogeneous than previously thought. The new KiDS map was created using the partly Dutch OmegaCAM on ESO's VLT Survey Telescope on Cerro Paranal in Northern Chile. An international team of astronomers from,…

Marliese Vollebregt (BA International Studies, MA International Relations) works at JINC, a Dutch NGO focusing on equal opportunities for children. After graduation, she first became a ski instructor for kids in Austria, something she had dreamed of for a long time. “My biggest advice for all of you…

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