Some 5000 years ago the people of the corded ware culture exchanged ideas about death on a continental scale. There were strong gender differences in these ideas: men were buried in an international style, and women in a local style. This discovery was made by archaeologist Quentin Bourgeois.

No criticism is allowed in Turkey of the mass murder of Armenians that took place a century ago. PhD candidate Alaettin Carikci examined how contemporary artists, authors, film directors and museums have nonetheless found indirect ways of expressing their criticism.

The Leiden Bio Science Park (LBSP) is eager for new talent. Therefore, as a member of the core group, Miranda van Eck is committed to improving cooperation between the faculty and the business community. How do we make sure we know how to find each other better? And how do we show our students what…

There are times when an administrator has too weighty a role in settling bankruptcies. This is the message of Professor Reinout Vriesendorp's inaugural lecture on 24 June.

Associate Professor of Physical Geography Paul Hudson at Leiden University College was interviewed by TIME Magazine on the Mississippi floods that have been harassing the United States this year.

If a pill containing no active ingredients still helps, this positive expectation is called a placebo effect. A negative expectation is called a nocebo effect. Both can be produced by verbal suggestions and conditioning. According to Andrea Evers’ research group, combining these is the most promising…

In the coming years, Asghar Seyed Gohrab receives an advanced European Research Council grant of two and a half million euros to spend on his research into non-conformism in Islam. ‘Hopefully I can use this to contribute something to society, to pass something on to future generations.’

Prof. Arnold Tukker, Scientific Director of the Institute of Environmental Sciences Leiden (CML), visited the Center for Sustainable Development Goal Studies (SDGs Center) as part of a trip to Asia. The SDGs Center is a Center of Excellence at Padjadjaran University in Bandung, Indonesia, with which…

Physicians and researchers of the Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC) and Leiden University are working on therapies for restoring damaged organs such as hearts and kidneys. They are even trying to construct tailor-made organs. Read more on this topic in the new science dossier on Vascular and Regenerative…

Great news! From Whit Monday at noon, the oldest botanical garden in the Netherlands will be open for visitors again. After twelve weeks of closure, visitors will be able to come and enjoy everything that grows and blossoms in the heart of Leiden's city center. In order to offer all visitors and staff…

An international team of astronomers have become the first in the world to detect isotopes in the atmosphere of an exoplanet. It concerns different forms of carbon in the gaseous giant planet TYC 8998-760-1 b. The research will be published in the scientific journal Nature on Thursday.

The new Neurodiversity Platform supports staff who need better working conditions because they have ADHD or autism, for instance. Stefan de Jong, who is organising the Platform’s first online meeting on 15 November, tells us about the initiative. Register now if you’re interested.

On January 25th, artist Jonas Staal will defend his dissertation which explores the development of propaganda art from the 20th to the 21st century.

An international team of astronomers led by Violeta Gámez Rosas (Leiden University) has observed a supermassive black hole hidden in a ring of dust. This discovery fits the idea that the so-called active centers of galaxies are much more similar than observations show, because the viewing angle from…

‘If we don’t start talking about this, who else will?’ This is what Arjan Lankester, paediatrician/immunologist at the Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC) and Professor of Paediatrics, thought when it seemed that various extremely effective gene therapies for rare diseases would no longer be available…

The idea that prejudices about the (Middle)-East came to be during the colonisation of North-Africa in the 19th century is false. Mounir el-Badri wrote a cum laude bachelor thesis about orientalist judgments with which 18th century slaves in Morocco much earlier characterised their captors with.

Amidst today’s armed conflicts, authoritarian governments, cyber-attacks, organized crime, economic insecurity, and ecological destruction, it can be hard to imagine peace. What do we mean by ‘peace’, beyond the absence of war? What kind of peace are we seeking? What makes people and society at peace?…

On Saturday 9 March 2019, Dr. Eduard Fosch-Villaronga got his first publication for his Marie Skłodowska Curie project on the Legal and Ethical Aspects of Healthcare Robot Technology.

Researchers at Leiden University have made a breakthrough in the study of the hereditary Pompe disease. Together with colleagues in York, they have developed a molecule that binds to the enzyme that is key to the progress of the disease. The findings have been published in ACS Central Science.

Vibrating carbon monoxide molecules adsorbed at the surface of a salt crystal stop moving after a few milliseconds. Scientists now discovered this is dominantly due to the emission of electromagnetic waves. The role of the chemical bond at the surface thereby appears to be less important than previously…

What do we owe to future generations? And how do we fairly share the costs of complying with these obligations , knowing that the world is full of inequality and injustice? Tim Meijers, philosopher and university lecturer, will formulate a fundamental answer to this question using a Veni grant of 250,000…

PhD candidate Manon Wintgens is using an algorithm to trawl through thousands of international tax treaties. She hopes to detect a system in the dizzying interplay between countries, businesses and documents. It is a unique research project.

Het strategisch plan van de faculteit wiskunde en natuurwetenschappen (FWN) werd gepresenteerd tijdens de opening van het academisch jaar 2023-2024.

Cyber Security challenges are dominating the international agendas. Therefore, the Cyber Security Academy (CSA) enthusiastically and proudly announces that on Thursday 18th January a fourth group of 26 professionals from a variety of public and private organisations will start the executive Master’s…

Leiden astronomer Tim de Zeeuw has been appointed Knight in the Order of the Dutch Lion. He received the distinction on 14 May to mark his departure as Director General of the ESO European Astronomy organisation. The celebration took place during the 2018 Dutch Astronomers Conference in Groningen.

Exactly 5 years ago LUC The Hague officially opened its doors with a ceremony in Theater Diligentia. This year we will celebrate our first lustrum in the same theatre on the 10th of October but we shouldn’t forget that today, the 29th of September, is LUC’s official birthday. Our Educational Director,…

‘Violence as a Population Health Problem’ is one of 33 interdisciplinary projects that have been launched thanks to a Kiem grant. The project team will analyse a large patient database to identify links between violence and other health problems. ‘Violence can also be an expression of other factors,’…

Two radio telescopes in Green Bank, West Virginia have brought together a few remarkable people. A new photo exhibition in the Old Observatory visitor centre gives an insight into the remote community. Due to the corona crisis, the Observatory is not open to the public. That’s why we’ve selected a few…

Bastiaan Rijpkema has been appointed Professor by special appointment of the new chair Tolerance at the Faculty of Humanities with effect from 1 July 2021. The chair was established by Stichting Leerstoel Uytenbogaert.

Vanessa Frodermann, a PhD student at the Biopharmaceutical department of the Leiden Academic Centre for Drug Research, has discovered that arteriosclerosis could be inhibited by cellular therapy. Arteriosclerosis is one of the leading causes of the development of cardiovascular disease. Her PhD defence…

From Friday 29 till Sunday 31 March 2019, the third edition of the Ian Fletcher International Insolvency Law Moot (Moot) was held at the Singapore Management University in Singapore. For the first time, a team from Leiden University took part in this prestigious competition. With success, the team qualified…

Op de dag van de duurzaamheid van 10 oktober startte de 'Billiecup' pre-pilot op de Faculteit der Rechtsgeleerdheid. Aanwezig waren 'plastic soup surfer' Merijn Tinga, Bart Hemmes van het Leiden University Green Office (LUGO) en Esther Kentin, docent bij instituut Metajuridica & projectleider Leiden…

Jildau Bouwman has been named as professor by special appointment of the chair ‘Remote Health Monitoring’ at Leiden University. The systems biologist and TNO Digital Health Innovation figurehead will investigate how digital solutions can contribute to better healthcare at home. ‘Home care is often more…

The fact that corona has created a wave of creativity is evident when walking around in the lab of pharmacologist Coen van Hasselt from the LACDR. Suddenly there were far fewer master's students permitted in the lab for their research. So Van Hasselt came up with smart solutions to enable lab work to…

In December 2023, Mr. Max Farasat (B.A. Religious Studies) was announced as Co-Winner of the

Coen van Hasselt’s pharmacology group collaborated on a study recently published in the renowned Lancet Infectious Diseases. The international team mapped the antibiotic treatment of the life-threatening inflammatory reaction sepsis in newborn babies. They did this for low- and middle-income countries,…

With a €1.5 million European grant, industrial ecologist Stefano Cucurachi will work on more sustainable production methods for the pharmaceutical industry. The Italian company Angelini Pharma intends to use the resulting knowledge to make its production process more sustainable.

Yusen Yu wins the prestigious Graduate Student Prize of the Middle East Medievalists (MEM) with his article

The Epic of Gilgamesh was a lifelong inspiration to artist Harry van Kruiningen. This tale from Mesopotamia about the adventures of Gilgamesh, the legendary king of Uruk, and his friend Enkidu is one of the oldest surviving epics in world literature. Despite its almost 4,000 year age, it still captures…

Didi van Trijp started her PhD project at LUCAS in October 2015. Her PhD project is part of A New History of Fishes. A long-term approach to fishes in science and culture, 1550-1880, a project directed by prof. dr. Paul Smith.

Margrethe Vestager, European Commissioner for Competition, will deliver the Europa Lecture on 14th June 2017 in the Grand Auditorium of the Academy Building at Leiden University.

Native women are invisible in Mexican society. This is the conclusion Barbara Ortiz draws in her dissertation. PhD defence on 23 February.

From the research Terrorist threat in the Netherlands, the risk perception and opportunities for risk communication (Leiden University) shows that the Dutch respond relatively sober to attacks in neighboring countries and the possible risks of a terrorist threat. Half of the respondents believe that…

Minute nanoparticles are bringing about a completely new industrial revolution. But little is known about the possible dangers to the food chain. An international group will be examining this issue, and Leiden researchers will be playing a key role.

A Dutch-led team of astronomers has discovered that high-mass stars are formed differently from their smaller siblings. Whereas small stars are often surrounded by an orderly disk of dust and matter, the supply of matter to large stars is a chaotic mess. The researchers used the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter…

The Dutch Research Council (NWO) has, within the framework of Research along Routes by Consortia (NWA-ORC), awarded the research project Next Generation Immuno-Dermatology (NGID) with a prestigious grant of 11.7 MEuro. NGID is a nationwide, large-scale project to unravel novel biomarkers for six different…

Last year the research program Teaching and Teacher Learning of ICLON Leiden University Graduate School of Teaching had its recurrent external review.

Students searched for MSc Internships under the following topics: 1. Understanding temporal variability in functional biodiversity and 2. Characterization of engineered nanoparticles in aquatic organisms: Gold nanoparticles and carbon nanotubes

When professor Frank Israel graduated at Leiden Observatory some forty years ago, little did he know that one of his theories would be making headlines in 2018 - in the form of a 3D animation on the Internet, no less.

Prof.dr. Rozenberg, emeritus professor in Theoretical Computer Science at the Leiden Institute of Advanced Computer Science (LIACS), received a royal decoration from the deputy mayor of Leiden on December 15th 2017. He has been appointed Knight in the Order of the Netherlands Lion.