Because the last Elfstedentocht celebrates its twentieth anniversary, New Scientist spoke with physics professor Tjerk Oosterkamp about his research on the slipperiness of ice and his passion for skating on natural ice.

Leiden physicists have developed a way to address how accurately a superconducting single photon detector (SSPD) can be characterized by detector tomography. SSPDs are not fully understood, and tomography is a key element to determine how these devices detect light. A better understanding of these detectors…

The European Research Commission (ERC) has awarded Advanced Grants to two Leiden researchers. Joke Meijer will be researching the effect of the biological clock on our health and Carlo Beenakker will be looking for Majorana fermions in superconductors.

Packages of DNA strands containing silver, measuring just two or three nanometres in size. Leiden physicists Donny de Bruin and Dirk Bouwmeester create these packages, which can enter living cells on their own. They then activate the silver with light, causing the cells to break down. This could, in…

Australian cell biologist Melissa Little and Dutch physicist Robbert Dijkgraaf will each be awarded an Honorary doctorate at the Dies Natalis of Leiden University in February 2019. They are receiving these awards for their services to science.

Optical detection of a single electron using a single molecule has never been done. Leiden physicist Michel Orrit and his team have now identified a molecule that is sensitive enough to detect an electron at a distance of hundreds of nanometers. The results are published as a cover article in ChemPh…

From chilling on the beach to a speech by the mayor. HOPweek is a speedy way for hundreds of ‘Leiden’ students who are going to be studying in The Hague to get to know each other. Many of them come from abroad. ‘I actually dare to cycle here.’

Various consortia in which Leiden University is represented are beginning interdisciplinary research, which will bring scientific and societal breakthroughs within reach. Knowledge institutions, government and private parties are working closely together on the projects.

The project has been done in the Quantum Matter Optics under the supervision of Dr.ir. Sense Jan van der Molen and Dr. Johannes Jobst. The title of the presentation is:

On Thursday 3 November, Leiden University celebrated the official opening of two wall formulas in the Leiden city centre. Snell's law and the formula for the Lorentz force shine on two walls in the heart of Leiden. TV channel Omroep West interviewed the initiators Sense Jan van der Molen and Ivo van…

The project has been done in the Quantum Matter and Optics group under the supervision of Prof.dr.ir. T.H. Oosterkamp and Dr.ir. S.J. van der Molen . The title of the presentation is: ''Friction of ice skating.

The project has been done in the Quantum Matter Optics group under the supervision of Dr.ir. Sense Jan van der Molen. The title of the presentation is: ''A Technique for Studying Surface Profiles of Two-Dimensional Materials in LEEM.

The project has been done in the Quantum Matter & Optics group under the supervision of Prof.dr.ir. Tjerk Oosterkamp.The title of the presentation is:

Several consortia in which Leiden University is involved have been awarded Dutch Research Agenda funding. Leiden is the coordinator of five of these consortia. These five consortia will receive grants worth a total of almost 24 million euros. They relate to interdisciplinary projects that will bring…

The Dutch National Research Agenda announced today that it will provide 17 research projects with a total of 61 million euros in funding. Researchers from Leiden University or the Leiden University Medical Center are involved in five of the projects. All of the projects are interdisciplinary partnerships…

Vice-Rector Simone Buitendijk doesn’t believe for a single moment that Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) are just hype. This is what she said on 13 March at Campus the Hague’s InspirationLab on ‘Open Education’. Buitendijk wants Leiden University to be at the leading edge. ‘MOOCs and online innovation…

This Thursday, January 18th 2024, our esteemed colleague Jan Zaanen passed away. Jan was one of our star scientists, larger than life, with an unabashed, boisterous drive for the best of physics at the Institute Lorentz, at the Leiden Institute of Physics and in the full international scientific community.…

NWO has awarded a Vidi subsidy to a total of 89 young and innovative researchers. Leiden researchers have won twelve of these subsidies and three subsidies have gone to the LUMC. Each researcher will receive up to 800,000 euro to develop a particular research theme or to set up a research group.

Computers are capable of making incredibly accurate predictions on the basis of machine learning. In other words, these computers can learn without intervention once they have been pre-programmed by humans. At LIACS, we explore and push the borders of what a revolutionary new generation of algorithms…

Your tuition fee depends on a number of factors, such as your nationality and your previous Dutch higher-education qualifications.

The Leiden University Centre for Linguistics (LUCL) aims to demonstrate its relevance to society by means of high-quality research, excellent education and various outreach activities. A few highlights:

The Just Peace Dialogues were a set of meetings for public deliberation of key aspects of building peace in today’s world. The dialogues were held across seven days at the heart of the Just Peace Festival (16 - 22 June 2025).

Together Leiden University, Delft University of Technology and Erasmus University Rotterdam form the strategic alliance Leiden-Delft-Erasmus Universities.

Improving healthcare with our scientific discoveries: that is the goal of pharmaceutical research at Leiden University. And there’s a lot involved in that. Our research starts with the discovery of the effect achieved by a particular substance, and sometimes continues all the way through to the development…

Huub de Groot is professor in Biophysical Organic Chemistry. With his team he works in the field of photosynthesis and artificial photosynthesis. The molecular basis for photosynthesis is formed by protein complexes and organelles that contain chlorophyll molecules. The antenna systems herein capture…

LIACS aims at being a diverse and inclusive research institute. To reach this goal, two instances are working on addressing diversity related issues.

In July 2022, Leiden hosted the ESOF conference.

Your tuition fee depends on a number of factors, such as your nationality and your previous Dutch higher-education qualifications.

The Faculty of Science is located at the Leiden Bio Science Park. It was founded more than two centuries ago and currently, more than 8000 people are working and studying at the eight institutes.

Within the Vision on Teaching and Learning, one of the 8 ambitions is Activating Teaching and Learning. With the support of the Vice-Deans and Vice-Rector, Hester Bijl, the Saltswat project is working on accelerating this ambition. What is the purpose of this site? Being effective…

Plants could be regarded as small chemical factories, which produce chemical substances via photosynthesis. If we can imitate photosynthesis in an artificial system, we can make clean fuels and materials out of sunlight and CO2. Huub de Groot is very close to designing a system of this kind.

Living systems scale from unicellular microbes to complex multispecies communities that constantly change over time. Within the theme Development & Disease, we enhance our fundamental understanding of development and homeostasis of living cells and systems. We analyze the normal situation and how stresses…

Studium Digitale: An Introduction to Network Data, Analysis, and Visualization

Prof. Dr Isabella Diederiks-Verschoor passed away on 17 October 2017 at the age of 102. She was a pioneer of air and space law, both in the Netherlands and all over the world.

Irene Battisti is the discoverer of the year 2019. The physicist won the C.J. Kok Public Award for her research into microscopy and superconductors.

Researchers from the THEOR CHEM group at Leiden University strive to set new benchmarks in the accuracy of the prediction of interaction energies between molecules and metal surfaces.

Leiden Physicists have found evidence for the Berry-force that could be used for driving tiny nanomotors, just like a river drives a water wheel. Nanomotors could be used for drug delivery in the human body. Publication in Beilstein Journal of Nanotechnology.

A semi-empirical version of the specific reaction parameter approach to density functional theory (SRP-DFT) has been remarkably successful at predicting dissociative chemisorption probability vs. incidence energy curves for reactions on metal surfaces. New quantum Monte Carlo (QMC) calculations on the…

Leiden physicist Bernard van Heck is one of the seven young Dutch scientists who will be travelling to the 65th Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting. Promising young scholars from all over the world have the opportunity to meet with Nobel Prize winners at this famous science conference.

This weeks marks the 10th anniversary of the European Research Council. For the past decade, the council has contributed to many scientific projects all over Europe, including Leiden University. It has funded almost 7,000 researchers, leading to just short of 100,000 scientific articles. A total of…

Since 2015 the United Nations have declared 11 February the International Day of Women and Girls in Science. Leiden University organized a public event for over a hundred visitors. In between a lecture on the building blocks of life and a talkshow on the impact of science on society, high school students…

LCD screens use liquid crystals which have a high degree of order, even though they form a fluid. A new theory maps out the interplay between order, temperature and symmetry. Publication in Physical Review X.

Leiden University supports the new Zuid-Holland Acceleration Programme, which builds on the Growth Agenda for Zuid-Holland and focuses on accelerating innovation, sustainability and economic growth in the region.

Armed with sunglasses, a thick layer of sunscreen and several bottles of water, over 3,300 students have arrived in Leiden for their introduction week. The start of the 55th EL CID happened to be on the hottest day of the year.

On a sunny Lammermarkt, thousands of new students gathered to kick off their student life in Leiden at the 56th edition of EL CID.

Skandapurāṇa V presents a critical edition of Adhyāyas 92-112 from the Skandapurāṇa, with an introduction and annotated English synopsis.

The Leiden University Academy of Creative and Performing Arts (ACPA) will start in January 2017 with their first MOOC through Coursera: Music & Society. MOOC stands for massive open online course and is a relatively new phenomenon of open access and free internet education in the United States. Big…

Prof. Dr. Joris F. Borghouts (1939-2018) was Full Professor of Egyptology at Leiden University and a specialist in ancient Egyptian grammar and magic.

During an Erasmus+ research stay in Rwanda, Frederik Behre gave several guest lectures to bachelor's and master's students enrolled in the various law programmes of the University of Rwanda. In the course of his four-week research stay, Behre organised a series of highly interactive lectures with the…

Skandapurāṇa III presents a critical edition of the Vindhyavāsinī Cycle (Adhyāyas 34.1-61, 53-69) from the Skandapurāṇa , with an introduction and annotated English synopsis.