Master student Marie Weijler is included in the prestigious Forbes 30 Under 30 list. Besides her studies, she also works full-time. How does she combine this and how did she also manage to get on the Forbes list?

Strengthening nature and at the same time investing in future-proof agriculture. That is the task of the Minister for Nature and Nitrogen, Christianne van der Wal. It is also the lifework of Leiden professor Jan Willem Erisman. He has been researching nitrogen for his entire career and has shown that…

With the red flag flying proudly on the Academy Building (Leiden University was on strike for the first time in its history!), the farewell event for former dean Mark Rutgers was held in the Telders Auditorium. After eight years, he has passed the baton to the interim dean, Henk te Velde.

In May 2022 Lennart Kruijer succesfully defended his PhD, which he wrote as a member of the VICI Project ‘Innovating Objects’, led by prof. Miguel John Versluys. So succesfully, in fact, that he was awarded the Cum Laude honors. Just a short time later he was awarded a grant and a fellowship to further…

From predicting Alzheimer’s to the growth of organisms: psychologist Marjolein Fokkema’s algorithms can be used in many disciplines. They also provide inspiration for her songs, theatre shows and life lessons. What drives this rocking researcher?

Astronomy can help address the problems of South Africa, while benefiting other African countries at the same time. This was the message of Naledi Pandor, South African Minister of Science and Technology, on 26 February in the Academy Building.

Researchers and clinicians at Leiden University Medical Centre (LUMC) are about to begin a milestone clinical study. It will be the first time a stem cell gene therapy developed in the Netherlands is used in a clinic. The therapy will be used to treat children with SCID, a rare disorder where children…

The corona crisis has had a major effect on research. Sarah de Rijcke, Professor of Science and Evaluation Studies, and her group research the effects of performance evaluation on the work of ocean scientists. The majority of the fieldwork was supposed to be carried out on ships and at marine labs throughout…

How do you study complex disasters like a nuclear explosion or a natural disaster? Who can help unravel the legal knot that Brexit has become? The important societal themes of the present day call for interdisciplinary collaboration. Leiden scientists pitched their research at a symposium at Leiden…

Whether a microbe is beneficial or harmful to a plant can now be predicted with high accuracy thanks to bacLIFE. This bioinformatic tool with an intuitive interface makes it much easier to unlock the secrets of bacterial genomes. A group of Leiden biologists presented it in Nature Communications.

Leo Lucassen was selected by KNAW on the basis of his academic achievements. Lucassen studied socio-economic history in Leiden, where he earned a PhD cum laude. He took up Leiden’s chair in Social History in 2005, and since 2014 he has been serving as Leiden’s professor of Global Labour and Migration…

'The kind of knowledge you gain in International Studies can take you anywhere,' says Gaby van de Wal (26, The Hague, The Netherlands), who graduated from the programme in 2018. Her own career path is proof that indeed, an International Studies degree comes with many opportunities.

The current and future board of F.D.L. Gibalaux, the study association of the French language and culture programme, talk about the association, the change of board, their experiences and plans.

As of 1 September, the Netherlands has a national action plan to promote diversity and inclusion in teaching and research. The plan was launched at Leiden University’s Wijnhaven building on its Campus The Hague.

Video conferencing from your sitting room and algorithms on social media that know your interests: new technology is an increasingly integral part of our lives. At the same time there is a growing call to protect our privacy, and this is causing friction, at the University too. In part because of the…

A team of researchers from Young Academy and the Huygens ING/NL Lab has brought a three-century-old fragrance to life based on a recipe by Constantijn Huygens. The fragrance makes the past more tangible and can help people experience history differently.

Over hundreds of thousands of years, our region witnessed the comings and goings of various types of hominin. This depended on the temperature as ice ages alternated with warmer periods. In ‘De eerste mensen in de Lage Landen’ (‘The First Humans in the Low Countries’) Leiden archaeologists Yannick Raczynski-Henk…

How does loneliness work? What sometimes makes friendships complicated for autistic people? And why can the school building be such an unpleasant place for some pupils? Pupils explored this during their pre-university classes. 'I now have a good idea of what studying psychology entails.'

During adolescence, some young people have stable best-friend relationships, while others change best friends frequently. Developmental psychologist Lisa Schreuders has studied the brains of young adolescents: ‘It seems that friendships in your early years can have consequences for your friendships…

For a long time, even many researchers thought that guide dogs were a relatively modern invention. An accidental encounter with archival material showed university lecturer Krista Milne that guide dogs helped their blind owners as far back as the Middle Ages. Milne now has received an NWO XS grant to…

At the end of 2018, the LUF announced a new annual grant: the Snouck Hurgronje Grant. This annual grant is awarded to innovative interfaculty research and teaching projects. Three project teams secured a place on the shortlist with their research proposals. They were invited to present their plan to…

An image has great powers of persuasion. It is said that ‘a picture is worth more than a thousand words’. But these days, images can easily be manipulated with severe consequences. ‘Perhaps it’s time to reconsider the value we attach to images’, says Elize de Mul, whose PhD thesis deals with ‘digital…

Eva Loeve (22), a fourth-year student of Cultural Anthropology, worked for five months at Centre for Research on Multinational Corporations (SOMO). At the end of May 2021, the report

You may have noticed this happening more often: your municipality sends you an online questionnaire to find out your opinion on the renovation of a certain area or the design plans for a new district. But how inclusive are these online platforms where citizens can participate in decisions on government…

Digital journalism is transforming the way in which information and communication technologies are used by media workers. With this change journalist practices, norms and values are also being reshaped. This is the conclusion of Tomás Dodds PhD research.

Jiska Ogier studied notarial law, which wasn’t always easy because she went to lectures in a wheelchair. As a student she pushed to make society accessible. And with her law degree and lived experience she has now made this her work. ‘You can achieve a lot with creative solutions.’

The rise of extremism in Europe has increased polarisation. The EU-funded DRIVE project, led by Tahir Abbas, Professor of Radicalisation Studies from Leiden University’s Institute of Security and Global Affairs, explores how social, structural, and individual factors contribute to radicalisation, offering…

Alumnus Nick Hortensius started volunteering at the Leiden International Film Festival (LIFF) in his student days. He has since grown with the festival to become head of programming. How does he look back on his student days? And what can we expect from the festival this year?

When we think of unethical medical experiments, we tend to think first of Nazi Germany. What is less well known is that experiments were also carried out in colonised areas without the explicit consent of the test subject. University lecturer Fenneke Sysling has received a European grant to research…

At the Leiden Institute for Area Studies (LIAS), scholars have been studying the Indian subcontinent with attention and expertise for more than 100 years. This part of South Asia is an economic giant with a population of over two billion. Nira Wickramasinghe, Professor of Modern South Asian Studies,…

As a twelve-year-old girl, Nicky van de Beek became intrigued by the tomb chapels in Saqqara, Egypt. Now she is doing her PhD on them, just like another Leiden Egyptologist decades earlier. Herta Mohr persevered with her research during World War II. Now she is the namesake of the first Leiden building…

The newly established Leiden Jewish Studies Association aims to bring together Leiden scholars working on Judaism. The first annual conference will take place in Leiden on 6 and 7 December. Leiden professors and co-organisers of the LJSA Sarah Cramsey and Jürgen Zangenberg talk about their plans.

More and more Leiden students are studying in China. Two of them talk about their summer course there. 'Now I understand better the kind of country Chinese students come from who are studying in Leiden.'

Another successful edition (the fourth!) of the Leiden Alumni in Brussels event took place on 23 February. With a fully booked registration list, it already promised to be a great success in advance. The event took place at the Baker McKenzie location right in the centre of Brussels. As the area was…

Is there a place for machine translation engines like Google Translate within the Faculty of Humanities? Associate professor Lettie Dorst’s new educational website aims to help students and teachers find an answer to this question. ‘The use of AI tools, such as Bing and ChatGPT, shouldn’t be seen as…

Bart Barendregt, Ratna Saptari, and Annemarie Samuels co-organised a two-day workshop on

Leiden University has secured an impressive 12 European exchange grants. This is good news for students, lecturers and researchers from home and abroad.

Senior lecturer Rick Honings has been appointed Scaliger professor with effect from 1 July 2020. In the coming years his focus will be on promoting teaching and research on the Special Collections of the Leiden University Library. Honings succeeds book historian Erik Kwakkel, who held this chair until…

The Arab women are coming! That was Kim Ghattas’s message on 6 March in the 25th Annie Romein-Verschoor Lecture. It won’t be easy and it could take a long time, but they can do it. The Arab Springs have inspired them, and they’re not letting go of that.

Theoretical physicist Luca Giomi receives a 2 million euro ERC Consolidator Grant for research into flowing cells in a strange hexatic phase, which is half fluid, half solid.

Peter Scholten is one of the four professors that were officially appointed as Leiden-Delft-Erasmus professor last week. Apart from his appointment at the Erasmus University, he has now also been appointed at FGGA. We asked Scholten five questions about his double appointment and the collaboration between…

Our university recently joined the European university alliance Una Europa. Staff from the 11 affiliated universities met in Leiden last week to discuss our collaboration.

Debates about the ‘end’ of the Roman era, how, when, and even if it ended, are still very much alive and raging. However, what happened after the (long) late antique period is a lesser-known and lesser-studied subject. The post-Roman past needs, however, as much energetic investigation and discussion.…

At the Faculty's opening of the 2019-2020 academic year, the focus lay not just on the vision for the future of the social sciences, and the opening of the refurbished library, but above all on the government's plans for university financing. The speeches included an interview between Annemarie Samuels…

‘A challenging rollercoaster, but also a very bonding and insightful experience,’ that’s how the team of iGEM Leiden 2022 wraps up their participation in the iGEM contest. The contest for synthetic biology climaxed during the Grand Jamboree in Paris. The team ended up in the top 10 of over 360 teams…

What is the Leiden Leadership Programme? And why is it a worthwhile addition to your master’s? Alumnus Ruilin Ma gained more confidence in his capabilities through the LLP – but there were things he valued even more: ‘Proud to be part of such a warm community.’

All microscopic objects, from enzymes to paint particles, are jittering constantly, bombarded by solvent particles: this is called Brownian motion. How does this motion change when the object is flexible instead of rigid? Ruben Verweij, Pepijn Moerman and colleagues published the first measurements…

Career preparation, whether or not present in the curriculum, is becoming increasingly prominent in many educational institutes. Atse Fokkens (39) notices this in his work as a career adviser and internship coordinator. He welcomes the fact that more attention is being paid to preparing students for…

'You don't have to kick the door open', Judi Mesman tells participants of the Leadership for a better tomorrow symposium. During this inspiring afternoon, students, teachers and partners will discuss leadership with Judi and each other. 'To really understand leadership, you have to look at patterns.…

Leiden archaeologists have been conducting research with students and local archaeologists in Oss (in the province of Brabant) for 50 years. An exhibition at Leiden University shows how these finds tell the region’s story.