Should we ban snack bars from neighbourhoods where residents are overweight or have diabetes? At the Common Sense about Health knowledge festival, scientists, civil servants and other professionals discussed how South Holland can become healthier. The Healthy Society Map makes it clear where there are…

How does ICT affect society? Mirjam van Reisen, professor Computing for Society at the Leiden Centre of Data Science, is intrigued by this question. We speak with her about innovation, changes in health care, and mobile human trafficking. ‘Innovation has many benefits, but it can also be very disrup…

‘Teaching is not merely a profession; it’s a calling.’ These were the words of Ayo Adedokun on winning the LUS Teaching Prize at the opening of the academic year on 6 September. The prize is for the best lecturer of the year.

‘What I find most alluring about soil life is that you can steer it,’ researcher Martijn Bezemer of the Institute Biology Leiden (IBL) reveals. ‘You can ask: What do you want? And then I can transform the soil into something you need. At least, that is what we thought.’

In this ‘Educatips’ column, Psychology lecturers share their most important lessons about teaching. This month: Zsuzsika Sjoerds and Sebo Uithol teach students critical thinking with their app 'Family Dinner'. With success: 'The old exams have become too easy.'

Dear colleagues and students,

How do you set up a successful collaboration between science and practice? That was the main theme of the final meeting of a triptych of symposia on how Leiden University can improve inter- and transdisciplinary collaboration.

Leiden2022 is a 365-day science festival for everyone who has a sense of curiosity. Scientists from Leiden University will be making a major contribution. On 10 November, Leiden2022 presented the programme for the coming year, when Leiden will be European City of Science.

When we talk about the Kingdom of the Netherlands, it is not just about the Netherlands. On the contrary: our Kingdom consists of no less than four countries, three of which are Caribbean islands. This structure is complex, to say the least. Although all countries are officially equivalent, in practice…

‘I could hardly believe my ears when I heard that we had been awarded the Gravitation grant,’ says Berna Güroğlu, professor of the Neuroscience of Social Relations. This grant is awarded by the state, via NWO, to pioneering scientific top research. In terms of grants, this really is something special,…

The intake of bachelor’s students from classic immigration countries whose prior education was in the Netherlands does not reflect the growing diversity in society. This is according to data from Statistics Netherlands.

All countries have turned into a global no-go zone and in the Covid-19 crisis flying citizens back home is an unprecedented logistical operation. More hidden from view is that helping people is one thing, but getting through to an elusive public with the objective of inducing behavioural change, is…

In the spring of 2024 the Faculty of Archaeology welcomed a new postdoc. Dr Adam Benfer, originally from the United States, occupies a double position as a researcher in the project of Alex Geurds and as the Faculty’s Data Steward. ‘It is pretty much what the title says: I steward data. Essentially,…

‘My lectures have to be as enjoyable as possible for the students, even when they're about the drier parts of maths.' Robert-Jan Kooman is one of the nominees for the LUS Teaching Prize.

Memory loss and confusion are signs of Alzheimer’s disease. Physicists Serge Rombouts and Martina Huber have developed new methods to help medical science get to the bottom of this insidious disease.

Passionate, innovative lecturers are the driving force behind our education. Janine Geerling, former assistant professor of the Bio-Pharmaceutical Sciences programme, obtained her Senior Teaching Qualification (STQ) at the end of last year. ‘You have to make time for educational innovation, and not…

Hanneke Hulst has held the new Leiden chair in Neuropsychology in Health and Disease since 1 September. From 1 January she will also be chair of the Health, Medical and Neuropsychology (HMN) unit. ‘HMN is my new base. I’m curious to find out about the people who work here, what they do and what motivates…

In May and June of 2021, Bachelor 1 and 2 students of the Faculty of Archaeology joined in the excavation at Oss. After the fieldwork itself, a second post-excavations week started in Leiden where each of them participated in small groups conducting archaeological find processing and working on creative…

Dr. Bakhtiyar Babadjanov is the first Erasmus Fellow within the Erasmus Mobility Plus Project between Leiden University and the Tashkent State Institute of Oriental Studies, in particular the Al-Biruni Centre of Oriental Manuscripts. The two-year project (2016-2018) envisages exchange of teaching staff…

Mathematician Stéphanie van der Pas, winner of the C.J. Kok Jury Award for her PhD thesis in 2017, divides her time between research and education, and between pure mathematics and practical application.

Teaching during the corona crisis, the high workload and the challenges faced by the Faculty of humanities. In an online working visit to Leiden University on 12 October, Minister for Education, Culture and Science, Ingrid van Engelshoven, discussed the hot topics of the day with the Executive Board,…

During a symposium in honour of his 60th birthday, statistician Aad van der Vaart received the royal award of Knight in the Order of the Lion of the Netherlands. Colleagues talk about his significance for their field and how they got to know him. ‘The collaborations with Aad have been one of the great…

Leiden University has an active open science community. Open science means transparency in all phases of research by precisely documenting every step of the way and making this publicly available. ‘It’s time to be open,’ say psychologists Anna van ’t Veer and Zsuzsika Sjoerds. There is increasing awareness…

Edith Schippers, Minister of Health, will be investing six million euros over the coming four years to boost research on new antibiotics. The programme will be set up by several different parties, including the Leiden Centre for Antimicrobial Research.

How can we make Sinterklaas inclusive as a national holiday? And what does this mean for our University community and Dutch society as a whole? These questions were the focus of the first edition of ‘Come Talk to Us’, a series of online dialogues organised by the Diversity & Inclusion Expertise Office…

A devastating tsunami engulfed large coastal areas in Asia and East Africa in 2004. With over 170,000 dead, the Indonesian province of Aceh was hardest hit. The survivors proved to be remarkably resilient as they returned to everyday life. Anthropologist Annemarie Samuels went to live in Aceh, and has…

In the new ‘Educatips’ column, Psychology lecturers share their most important lessons about teaching. This month: Elise Seip wants to help students get out of their head and into their body. She starts every work group with mindfulness.

Chaos in the Lipsius building! Master's students zigzag through the classroom, write on whiteboards and discuss tensely. In a simulation of the Leiden Leadership Programme, they experience what it is like to deal with a crisis as an office holder.

André Leliveld has won a grant of 100,000 euros within the Comenius Senior Fellow programme for the project ‘Learning globally, acting locally: co-creation of an international multidisciplinary online learning environment around Frugal Innovation'. André is academic coordinator of the Leiden-Delft-Erasmus…

Decision makers are faced with dilemmas as result of the corona crisis. Dr. Jeroen Wolbers, Assistant Professor Crisis Governance at the Crisis Research Center explains the existing dilemmas and what makes the corona crisis unique when compared to other crises.

In the ‘Educatips’ column, psychology lecturers share their most important insights on teaching. This month: Anouk van der Weiden, together with a team of colleagues and students, developed a module on critical reading, application, and writing. 'Students often think: who am I to criticise a published…

The new SSH labs will offer great opportunities for FSW and FGW staff engaged in experimental research. The labs will be a place of inspiration, not only because of the state-of-the-art equipment, but also as a result of the increased interaction with colleagues in other disciplines.

The launch meeting of the Leiden Islam Academy on 7 December in the Academy Building drew just the right audience: a diverse group of people who were all in some way engaged with Islam. This was just what the directors of the Academy, Maurits Berger and Fatiha Azzarhouni, were hoping for.

Organisations like the UN and the EU should be given more powers to combat transboundary problems. This is the message of a report published by the Swedish SNS Democracy Council, whose authors include Prof. Jan Aart Scholte of Leiden University. The researchers also wrote the following article.

Good, accessible and affordable healthcare is increasingly difficult to provide. Martin Schalij from the LUMC understands that this can keep people awake at night.

LUC historian Jacqueline Hylkema unmasks forgeries from the early modern Dutch Republic in the research project

We are delighted that our annual "Science to Experience" exhibition will again take place, hosted by the V2_ Lab for the Unstable Media. Students were challenged to communicate their own science-inspired statements as experiences within the exhibition, this year along the theme "MUTATE".

The Academy of Creative and Performing Arts (ACPA) recently appointed a new academic director. Erik Viskil is taking over from Henk Borgdorff, who held the post for the past four years. What has been achieved in those years? And what does ACPA’s future look like? In this double interview we discuss…

Joris Larik has been appointed Director of Education at Leiden University College The Hague (LUC). The timing is perfect: this year marks his tenth anniversary at LUC. After a decade full of experiences and challenges, he now looks ahead. ‘How do we keep innovating?’

In traditional style, 2025 was ushered in at our faculty with the Meijers Lecture followed by the New Year's Reception. On Thursday 16 January 2025, the Meijers Lecture took place in the Lorentz Lecture Hall where the Meijers Prizes and the Van Wersch Springplank Prize were also awarded. At the New…

Originally from Romania, Catalin Popa has been working at our Faculty as a Postdoc for two years now. He is a landscape archaeologist with a deep interest in the role of archaeology in society. “We should also produce a message for non-academics. One that is shaped for people that don’t have the time…

Professor Marc Koper researches how you can use electrical energy to make or break chemical bonds. He has just been awarded a Spinoza Prize, the Netherlands’ highest personal science award, for his fundamental research into how this form of electrolysis works.

Echoing corridors, chaotic lessons and the obligatory chit-chat in the playground: for pupils with autism, an average day at school is exhausting. As a result, many of them feel lonely. Elijah, an expert from personal experience, says: ‘In the breaks, I’d sit on my own in a room.’

Can David Bowie’s death be seen as a carefully staged hype, just one last version of the musician’s ever-surprising public persona? Cultural Studies researchers Gerlov van Engelenhoven and Bram Ieven look into it.

Streptomycetes are similar to moulds, but these bacteria live in the soil. They are very popular in biotechnology because they produce a great many antibiotics and enzymes. Gilles van Wezel will be using his Vici subsidy to study ways of increasing their production.

In the Faculty of Archaeology depots, many artefacts, accumulated after decades of fieldwork across the world are stored. The Leiden Inventory of the Depot (LID) project aims to unlock the door to this wealth of information. Elizabeth Hicks, a Research Master’s student at the Faculty, will be re-evaluating…

Leiden-Delft-Erasmus (LDE) has been in existence for almost six years and will be entering its second phase in 2019. What course will the alliance take, what opportunities are out there and what is its mission? LDE Magazine spoke with Carel Stolker, rector magnificus of Leiden University and a member…

Frans de Haas started his work at the MI with a clear mandate. Listening and talking are what he will mainly be doing ‘My role is to make sure that everyone feels comfortable in the new situation.’

The knowledge held by indigenous people is essential if you want to study the history or the language of a particular region. Leiden archaeologists and linguists are now looking for ways of involving local people more systematically in their research.

The people behind the Leiden University Libraries aim to maintain the level of their services to clients as much as possible. They are making thankful use of internet, but not everything can be put online.