Why would someone choose to learn a language like Arabic? For Wessam Semida, teacher at the Academic Language Centre (ATC), the answer goes far beyond grammar and vocabulary. 'It really opens your perspective on life,' she explains. 'Language is a key to understanding people, cultures, and different…

Two colleagues have each received a prestigious Vidi grant. We spoke to criminologist and Associate Professor Hilde Wermink, and Eduard Fosch Villaronga, Associate Professor of eLaw, about what this grant means to them and their research plans.

Following the Beirut explosion, BBC's podcast series The Foodchain explores the chemical that caused the blast: ammonium nitrate. A compound that is widely used to produce fertilizer. Professor of Environmental sustaibability Jan Willem Erisman tells about the effects of nitrogen on the environment.

Effective innovation methodologies which lead to sustainable educational transformation require room for the development of teacher agency and at same time solve systemic problems. The Change Laboratory methodology combines both.

In this sub-project a selected number of narrative texts will be examined written in the Eurasian realm in the period 1300-1800, focusing on representations of kingship and royal authority.

What are the biological effects of Chinese herbal medicine in regulation of cancer cell metastasis?

On the university's birthday (8 February), pupils in the final year of junior schools in Leiden and The Hague will have lessons from a real professor.

The VVI seeks to advance knowledge of the formation and functioning of legal systems in their social contexts, the impact of these systems on society and vice versa, their effectiveness in governance, and their contribution to development.

How do Chinese language teachers negotiate who they are as teachers when they work abroad? This dissertation offers clear, practice-oriented answers. It examines teacher identity - the everyday answer to 'What kind of teacher am I here?' - as it is reshaped through classroom interactions, institutional…

About nine million people worldwide contract tuberculosis each year. Research into new treatment for this disease has received fresh stimulus with more efficient techniques and a new understanding of how the tuberculosis bacteria works.

They were called 'annoying brats', the group of campaigning scientists who in 1978 founded what is now an internationally acclaimed ecological research institute. Their stories and those of the current staff of the Institute of Environmental Sciences are described in the book 'Forty years of Leiden…

Citizen science has recently become a widely used term, but what does it mean exactly? How does citizen science compare to crowdsourcing? And where does community archaeology stand in this discussion?

The Mathematical Institute is responsible for the research and education in mathematics and statistics at Leiden University.

The overarching aim of this theme is to increase our understanding of the mechanisms underlying altered cognitive, affective, and social behavior in relation to mental health problems.

An estimated 17% of our university's total carbon footprint comes from the thousands of travel movements by our staff, students, visitors, and suppliers. Our aim is to reduce these emissions by a quarter in the coming years.

How can we promote more durable solutions to protracted refugee situations and which roles can connectivity and mobility of displaced people play to improve protection and resilience?

Born in Europe roughly 100 years ago, quantum physics brought forth a veritable technological revolution through semiconductors, lasers, fibre optics, and many other technologies that are today ubiquitous in our lives. Now, during the second quantum revolution, Europe can take the lead once more in…

The programme is structured along learning lines on environmental sustainability, governance and skills.

On this page, you will find the recordings of the Tuesday Talks since April 2025. Recordings of the precursor to the Tuesday Talks, This Week’s Discoveries, are also available here.

From the microscope to publication, OMERO handles all your images in a secure central repository. You can view, organize, analyze and share your data from anywhere you have internet access. Work with your images from a desktop app (Windows, Mac or Linux), from the web or from 3rd party software. Over…

In February 2026, Leiden University’s new Sport Centre opened on a prominent new site directly on the Campusplein. Its relocation brings sport visibly into the heart of campus life, with the outdoor fields seamlessly connected to the building. Substantially larger than its predecessor, the centre offers…

The volume is one-stop shopping for crisis studies and a number of closely related fields, providing a window onto the latest thinking in the field. The articles reflect cutting edge, state of the art scholarship and pose key questions for research and practical development.

Didactics

For seven years she worked at Noordeinde Palace, as the Private Secretary of Queen Máxima. Since the summer of 2021, Gabriella Sancisi (1973) has been the Dutch Ambassador in Slovakia, where the Embassy in Bratislava’s historic city centre is now her base.

ChatGPT, translation machines and bots: for Carole Tiberius, they are a piece of cake. On 1 January, she was appointed professor of Computational Linguistics. 'There ae two elements to the field: computer science and linguistics.'

To be eligible for Bio-Pharmaceutical Sciences and Education at Leiden University, you must meet the following admission requirements.

To be eligible for Bio-Pharmaceutical Sciences at Leiden University, you must meet the following admission requirements.

Getting young people excited about history is quite possible without books. Researchers from Leiden travelled to Morocco to work with schoolchildren on reconstructing cultural heritage in the popular video game Minecraft. The result: one virtual 14th-century city gate – and 20 teens with a greater appreciation…

Master’s student in Company Law Jelle van der Werff left for Melbourne in February 2025 for a six-month exchange. It turned out to be a great opportunity: ‘Getting to know so many different cultures in one place is really special.’

After nearly two years of retirement, Wil Roebroeks looks back on a career that began in a time of freedom and ended in a field that has undergone profound academic and social change. ‘I have been fortunate to always enjoy my work,’ he says. ‘That is also my advice to younger generations: above all,…

During last summer, the Faculty of Law offered an Honours Class about the theme 'Governing Crime and Migration'. Hillary Mellinger, one of the participating international students, tells us about her experiences.

Dialysis patients experience a range of physical and mental symptoms that interact and influence each otherIn her doctoral research, psychologist Judith Tommel wanted to find the optimum approach to help these dialysis patients improve their quality of life. ‘We need to make sure we avoid excluding…

Medicines can work even if they have no active ingredient. The first international scientific conference on placebos will take place in Leiden from 2 to 4 April. Placebo researcher Andrea Evers, who is also chairing the conference, answers some pressing questions.

On the occasion of the appearance of the monograph "Varieties of the Self.Peter Abelard and the Mental Architecture of the Paraclete" written by Babette Hellemans and published at Brill in 2023, a workshop will be organized concerning rules of observance as ‘texts of life’ in ascetic communities. The…