On November 21, theoretical physicist Juan Maldacena gives the Ehrenfest Colloquium. Maldacena is known worldwide as the inventor of AdS/CFT correspondence, which might be key to a theory of quantum gravity. Maldacena is winner of the prestigious Dirac Prize and the Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental…

Although it can be a challenge at times, parents should keep communicating with their teens. Also about how they parent. Research by developmental psychologist Loes Janssen shows that parenting can be perceived quite differently by family members and mood plays an important role. Parents often parent…

‘Everyone’s talking about it, everyone thinks everyone else is doing it, but the reality is disappointing,’ says biochemist Gerard van Westen in his 3 October University lecture in the Van der Werfpark. In the full marquee, he gets a laugh with this suggestion that artificial intelligence is comparable…

Over the past few weeks the world has experienced unprecedented disruption, disorder and over all change. Leiden University was no exception. Not only did all in-person teaching get cancelled and substituted by online classes, the cancellation of open days, information sessions, experience evenings…

A consortium of international researchers comes with a unique solution to the energy problem. By mimicking photosynthesis, they aim to produce sustainable fuels out of sunlight, water, and CO2. Their secret? ‘Soap bubbles’, says Leiden chemist Sylvestre Bonnet, who is part of the consortium.

The threats from North Korea have become so serious that the US and South Korea may feel compelled to respond. Remco Breuker, Leiden Professor of Korean Studies, would like to see a European mediator.

In the period between the First and the Second World War, many Muslim intellectuals came to Europe. What impact did they have on each other’s, as well as on European thinking, and how were they in turn influenced? Leiden Islam expert Dr Umar Ryad has been awarded an ERC Starting Grant to investigate…

On 8 and 9 May 2018 the Workshop 'Challenging the Liberal World Order: The History of the Global South, Decolonization and the United Nations, 1955-2000' takes place at Leiden University.

In August 2022 we welcome our new colleague Dr Letty ten Harkel as Assistant Professor in Roman and Post-Roman Archaeology. For the past ten years she has built up an impressive track record in the School of Archaeology at the University of Oxford. Read the interview about her background and research…

As part of the celebrations around the 25th birthday of the Faculty of Archaeology, a panel discussion on the future of archaeology was organised on December 13th. For this discussion an international panel of scholars was invited to give their perspective and enter into conversation with our Faculty…

How can ‘Big Data’ be used in development and humanitarian aid, and what are the risks? Leiden University and the United Nation’s Global Pulse are organising an international expert meeting in The Hague on 23 October.

The world is autocratising. In 2022, a record number of states across all continents, including Europe, was shifting towards autocracy. But against theoretical expectations and common sense, autocratising leaders – known for their nationalist agendas and human rights violations – do not always restrict…

It matters a lot whether a fatwa is given by a female or male Islamic scholar, discovered doctoral student Nor Ismah.

It sounds futuristic, but it is possible: the creation of miniature organs of patients in order to study them and see how diseases develop and can be treated. This is what researchers from the LUMC, Twente University (UT), UMCG, TU Delft and the Hubrecht Institute hope to achieve in the next ten years…

Not many scientists can claim to have received funding from NWO to blow bubbles and play with sand, but Martin van Hecke definitely can. Van Hecke, Professor of the Organisation of Disordered Matter, delivered his inaugural lecture on Friday 4 September, under the enigmatic title of: ‘Bellen, bollen,…

The first block is almost over and that means you will soon be able to evaluate the courses you attended.

Bringing together institutes and research groups, how do you do that? The Faculty of Science set up a joint research theme and financed three PhD positions. After four years, the profiling programme Endocannabinoids expires. ‘It really brought us together, and the collaborations remain.’

On Friday 29 August, the Wijnhaven was filled with a special mix of first-year students just beginning their academic journey, and students who, after 1,089 days of intensive study, were awarded their Bachelor’s degree in Security Studies. In two festive sessions, a total of 223 students received their…

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.

From films, video games and historical novels to Nordic folk bands, Old English from the early Middle Ages is experiencing a revival in the 21st century. Together with international colleagues, university lecturer Thijs Porck (LUCAS) made a book about the 'resurrection' of this dead language.

How can I get students to collaborate more and increase their engagement? That was the question that teacher, and winner of the 2022 Faculty Teaching Award, Astrid Van Weyenberg asked herself two years ago. Her solution? A method in which the use of podcasts ensures that students actively engage with…

The team from Universidad de los Andes (Bogotá, Colombia) came out on top at the international online Moot Court organised by Leiden University and law firm Baker McKenzie.

Recently, Engin Yüksel gave a lecture on Russian military concepts from 1853 to the present day and his observations on the Russo-Ukrainian war at the Faculty of Humanities, premised on his recently completed doctoral research.

The Reformed Church removed preacher Caspar Coolhaes - Leiden’s first Professor of Theology – from office because of his advocacy of tolerance. PhD candidate Linda Gottschalk sheds new light on this controversial preacher.

Aafje de Roest turned her hobby into her job. She went from a teenager who enjoyed listening to hip hop music to a PhD candidate who focuses on how Dutch hip hop music shapes the cultural identity of young people in the Netherlands.

Previous OSCL events and member initiatives include:

At the start of the new year, we celebrate the release of a new selection of collection items into the Public Domain. This year, Leiden University Libraries (UBL) is making approximately eight hundred items freely downloadable via Digital Collections.

We are pleased to announce a call for papers for a workshop within the project 'Human Development and Its Outliers' on 26 and 27 March 2026 at Leiden University.

In the eighteenth century, the Dutch East India Company (VOC) housed its enslaved people on ‘Slave Island’ in Colombo, the capital of Sri Lanka. Today ‘Slave Island’ is under serious threat from property developers. Senior lecturer Alicia Schrikker, together with her Sri Lankan colleagues Iromi Perera…

Three years ago, Associate Professor Alicia Schrikker published 'De vlinders van Boven-Digoel', in which she chronicled several stories about colonial life in present-day Indonesia. Now there is a translation, by Rianti Manullang, who is also an assistant professor at Universitas Indonesia and doing…

Together with students and local residents, historians Ariadne Schmidt and Alicia Schrikker researched the Leiden Transvaal neighbourhood. They will present their findings on Thursday 20 October, at a specially organised mini-festival in the neighbourhood.

‘By cleverly combining new techniques for analysing DNA at the level of individual molecules, we can achieve real breakthroughs in research into conditions such as dementia,’ predicts Professor John van Noort. Together with four leading biophysics research groups, he has written a review article in…

From cities that sometimes deviate from national foreign policy to the direct influence of geopolitics on local developments, PhD candidate Pieter Jeroense, director of VNG International, examined seventy years of the internationalisation of Dutch municipalities and observed notable trends.

We invite proposals for the conference entitled ‘Ruins and Memory in the Muslim World: Typologies and Motifs (622-1800 CE)’ to be held in Leiden between 14-16 September 2026.

Attention to the colonial past may be increasing, but many aspects of it are still underexposed. Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant, in collaboration with, among others, Leiden researchers Anne-Marieke van der Wal-Rémy and Alicia Schrikker, therefore created a 'Canon of the Dutch Underexposed Past', which…

The decolonisation war in Indonesia was violent partly because the Dutch military operated on the conviction that ‘an uprising had to be forcibly suppressed.’ This what historian Christiaan Harinck from the KITLV discovered in his PhD research.

On 26 November historian Jan Grabowski and sociologist Barbara Engelking will both give the Cleveringa Lecture. They wrote a book about the Holocaust in Poland and were taken to court for defamation.

Connecting as the magic word. Seeking new collaborations, presenting ourselves to the outside world with an open attitude and showing what we do. During the opening of the academic year on Tuesday afternoon, Dean Jasper Knoester emphasised that change and connection are necessary for the university…

Four years of war in Ukraine have transformed the nature of warfare, with drones, digital defence systems and improvised solutions shaping the battlefield. At a recent symposium, Dutch and Ukrainian experts discussed frontline conditions. What lessons do they see for Europe?

The title of European City of Science was officially handed over to a delegation from Leiden in the Italian city of Trieste on 6 September. Leiden will be the science capital of Europe for the year 2022. The EuroScience Open Forum (ESOF), the largest interdisciplinary science conference in Europe, will…

Since criticising the war in Ukraine, Russian author and cardiologist Maxim Osipov has fled Russia. Come September, he will be Leiden University’s writer in residence and teach a course on Russian literature.

In the Netherlands, euthanasia has no longer been a criminal offence since 2002. The practice is governed by very strict conditions. Nonetheless, the legal issues surrounding it are still the focus of heated discussion, according to Leiden professors. They are discussing the issue on 18 March during…

Leiden ecotoxicologist Martina Vijver helped shake a European policy proposal in a single weekend. Not with a new experiment, but with years of research on pesticides – and an urgent letter that reached Brussels.

Most students do not have to deal with death on a daily basis. A Bachelor Honours Class about this specific topic seems to be a special experience: the discussions about end-of-life care are tough, and students are broken out of their comfort zone. They nevertheless agree upon one thing: these are all…

During the Bachelor Honours Class ‘The world is quantum’, students from various disciplines learned about the rules of nature on the smallest scale: quantum mechanics. What opportunities and dangers do they see for their field of study?

Based upon an academic partnership between the Universities of Birmingham in the UK and Leiden in the Netherlands, Universities and Society at the End of Empire and Beyond (UniSoc) uses these two global seats of learning as a starting point to examine the role of universities in the transition from…

The ERC has awarded a Starting Grant to five promising researchers from Leiden. Two are from the Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences, one is from the Faculty of Humanities/Governance and Global Affairs, one from the LUMC and one from the Faculty of Science.

As of 1 December 2024, Uta Wehn is professor by special appointment of the chair 'Citizen Science and Sustainability' within the Focal Area Engagement and Inclusion at the Centre for Science and Technology Studies (CWTS) at Leiden University. The new chair has been established jointly by CWTS and IHE…

The radio telescope LOFAR, with a major contribution from Leiden Observatory, has produced the most detailed radio map of the Universe ever made. Never before have so many cosmic radio sources been captured in a single survey: 13.7 million.

With the municipal elections in the Netherlands just around the corner, an intensive period is beginning for council adviser Kirsten van Adrichem. Behind the scenes, this political science alumnus and her colleagues work to ensure a smooth political transition.