We are happy that the Media Technology staff and students will together again visit the Ars Electronica Festival in Linz (Austria). The five-day study trip offers a shared source of inspiration and a basis for discussion to students and lecturers.

IBL-researcher Katharina Riebel, together with international collaborators, published a remarkable finding in Nature Communications on the prevalence of female birdsong.

Dutch shipbuilder Damen Shipyards has sued the government. With the legal action, the company is seeking compensation for financial loss suffered as a result of the sanctions against Russia.

Door de geopolitieke spanningen wereldwijd waaronder de oorlog in Oekraïne, wil Defensie overal in het land fors uitbreiden. Dit zal o.a. gevolgen hebben voor de opvanglokaties waar asielzoekers verblijven, maar ook voor burgers waarvan de woningen voor de plannen moet wijken.

An investigation by Dutch news site RTL Nieuws reveals that an error at the Regional Institute for Juvenile Outpatient Mental Healthcare (Jeugdriagg), has led to the files of children, many with serious psychological problems, being leaked.

Herman Berkhoudt (former employee of the IBL, then EEW) organized the course, while Merijn de Bakker and Hans Slabbekoorn spoke about the latest insights in their disciplines.

Carlotta Rigotti, post-doc researcher at eLaw – Center for Law and Digital Technologies, and Professor Clare McGlynn , Durham University, have co-authored a new article in the Oxford Journal of Legal Studies, introducing the concept of meta-rape and exploring its potential treatment under criminal l…

Italian PM Meloni’s election promise to limit the number of boat migrants entering the country looks like being fulfilled with help from Albania. A deal was recently approved that provides for two reception centres for asylum seekers in Albania. Dr Mark Klaassen, an expert in immigration law, questioned…

On 11 May 2016 a prestigious NWO Vidi grant (NWO's Innovation Research Incentives scheme) has been awarded to Nadia Soudzilovskaia for her research proposal entitled “Do mycorrhizal fungi mediate soil carbon fate?”, aimed to understand mycorrhizal impact on soil carbon sequestration.

A new Horizon 2020 project has been awarded to Mingming Hu and Jeroen Guinée of the Department of Industrial Ecology of Institute of Environmental Sciences (CML).

The number of children being housed in emergency asylum accommodation has skyrocketed over the past two years. Various agencies have been issuing warnings for several years about the distressing conditions found in emergency accommodation in the Netherlands. Dr Mark Klaassen, Assistant Professor of…

The Netherlands remains one of the most important locations when it comes to tax evasion. According to Tax Justice Network only the British Virgin Islands, the Cayman Islands and Bermuda play a greater role.

The article “Anticipating an unwanted future: euthanasia and dementia in the Netherlands” by Natashe Lemos Dekker is the winner of the first Interdem Academy Publication Award. Lemos Dekker is a postdoctoral researcher in the ERC project ‘Globalizing Palliative Care’ at Leiden Leiden of Cultural Anthropology…

Failed asylum seekers do not often return to their country of origin. The European Commission sees ‘return hubs’ as a solution. Dr Mark Klaassen discussed the proposal on ‘EenVandaag’: ‘I can imagine that such a return hub will act as an incentive.'

The Water Resources and River Management course (300-level) took a day long field trip to exotic… South Holland! Here students were able to examine a variety of ways in which densely populated deltas confront issues related to water management and flooding, from a Dutch perspective.

Andrew Sorensen received the award for his work on the origins of fire-making, especially for his dissertation

Episode 5 of BOLDcast, the podcast of the Leiden-Delft-Erasmus Centre for BOLD Cities, discusses the evolution of libraries from simple lending points for books to places where people can come together and brush up on their digital skills. The guests in this episode are Frank Huysmans, associate professor…

The Research Catalogue (RC) is a searchable database for archiving artistic research. It comprises an open source, online, collaborative workspace application for the archiving, designing and publishing of artistic research.

First author Rubin Dasgupta, PhD student at the Biophysical Organic Chemistry & Macromolecular Biochemistry groups at the Leiden Institute of Chemistry has made the cover of the June edition of Solid State Nuclear Magnetic Resonance.

The United Arab Emirates has announced that it is to open a so-called ‘Space Court’ which will operate as an arbitral tribunal for space-related disputes.

From the end of 2026, drone flights could be tested out of visual range in a special zone above the North Sea. Assistant Professor Benjamyn I. Scott commentys in regional newspaper ‘Leidsch Dagblad’: 'Safety remains paramount in aviation.'

From the end of 2026, drone flights could be tested out of visual range in a special zone above the North Sea. Assistant Professor Benjamyn I. Scott commentys in regional newspaper ‘Leidsch Dagblad’: 'Safety remains paramount in aviation.'

PhD defence

Study information

Are we going vegetarian this year? Shall we keep the dessert the same? Where do I find inspiration for a festive meal during the holidays? For readers who like to postpone these questions, for those who like to tell a good story with their culinary contribution, or for those who simply want to know…

Three Dutch-Belgian telescopes have started operating at the ESO La Silla Observatory in Chile. This so-called BlackGEM array will scan the southern sky to hunt for cosmic events that produce gravitational waves, such as mergers of neutron stars and black holes. Leiden astronomer Rudolf le Poole is…

A team of three students affiliated with Leiden University is shedding new light on the lives, diets, health, and mobility of individuals buried at the historic church site in Koudekerke, Zeeland. The project, a collaboration with the Walcherse Archeologische Dienst and funded by the Municipality of…

Leiden chemists have developed a new technique with which they can determine the role of kinases – a group of proteins – in a living cell. This technique makes it easier to find new drug targets for diseases such as cancer and rheumatoid arthritis. The team published the findings in the journal Nature…

From mandrill teeth to the microstructure of bones: archaeology alumna Simone Lemmers (31) is determined to reveal the past by studying old remains. Her curiosity has led to a very international career, also in the UK, where she witnessed the Brexit referendum.

We need to dispel the arrogant and misguided idea that modern humans are superior to earlier human species. It is thanks in part to all our predecessors such as Neanderthals that we are who we are today. This is what Marie Soressi, Professor of Hominin Diversity Archaeology, will argue in her inaugural…

One and half years ago, Lewis Borck exchanged the arid and hot Southwest of the USA for the Netherlands. While an expert in Ancestral Pueblo and Hohokam archaeology, he switched to the Caribbean as a researcher in the NEXUS 1492 project. “Theories and methods brought me in first.”

Dear friends of the NVIC

Researchers, civil servants and local residents met on 27 September to talk about partnering for sustainability. What were the results? In a green ‘city oasis’ in the centre of The Hague they spoke about the energy transition, bottom-up initiatives and citizen science.

Patients with the same illness often receive the same treatment, even if the cause of the illness is different for each person. This represents a new step towards ultimately being able to offer every patient more personalised treatment.

How do digital technologies affect adolescent mental health and resilience? How do we foster a secure online environment? How should we deal with increasing rates of online crimes among adolescents? During the mini-symposium ‘The effect of the online world on adolescents’, presented by the interdisciplinary…

This semester archaeologist Dr Marike van Aerde teaches an Honours Course at the Faculty of Governance and Global Affairs in The Hague. “In the course, archaeology meets current issues.” For a course like this, the word interdisciplinary fits like a glove.

Building a fire involves many variables, such as size, choice of fuel, temperature, and burn time, that affect the way the generated heat can be used, and therefore the potential function of a fire. A group of Leiden archaeologists are, together with a team of international colleagues, investigating…

Neanderthals were able to outwit straight-tusked elephants, the largest land mammals of the past few million years. Leiden professor Wil Roebroeks has published an article about this together with his German colleague Sabine Gaudzinski-Windheuser in the Science Advances journal.

Professor Lodewijk Woltjer passed away on 25 August 2019.

From underground heat exchangers at the Bio Science Park to drinking taps to replace water coolers. With its new environmental policy plan, Leiden University will become greener in the coming years.

Dr. Miguel John Versluys (Archaeology) has been awarded a prestigious Vici grant for his project:

Annually, the Dutch Palynologische Kring invites nominations for the Florschütz Award for best MSc thesis in Palynology and Palaeobotany. This year, the thesis of Archaeology alumna Oda Nuij was deemed to be the best one. Oda was surprised to hear she won, since she was not sure that the thesis would…

Violent conflicts all over the world pose a great threat. Not only to the region’s inhabitants, but also to the cultural heritage in the area. This is the subject of the Europe Lecture in The Hague on 13 June.

Just a stone’s throw from Binnenhof, the heart of Dutch politics, Spui Campus will open its doors in early 2026. Join us for a sneak preview.

In January 2020, the team took a break from their respective field sites and travelled back to Leiden to take stock of their research progress and to host its third Advisory Board meeting at their home institution, the Institute of Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology of Leiden Universit…

From Roman ships to the ‘Gordon’ cavalry mask. Alumnus Tom Hazenberg was involved in spectacular finds that put the Dutch frontiers of the Roman Empire on the map. His mission is to give heritage back to the people.

In May 2022 Lennart Kruijer succesfully defended his PhD, which he wrote as a member of the VICI Project ‘Innovating Objects’, led by prof. Miguel John Versluys. So succesfully, in fact, that he was awarded the Cum Laude honors. Just a short time later he was awarded a grant and a fellowship to further…

During the summer, staff of the Faculty of Archaeology travel to all parts of the world, initiating or joining fieldwork projects. Read some of their stories here!

Archaeological finds off the coast of Java, Indonesia provide insight into the world of Homo erectus, 140,000 years ago. Skull fragments and other fossil remains provide a unique picture of how and where these early humans lived, says Leiden archaeologist Harold Berghuis.

An international and multi-disciplinary research consortium spent two days at Leiden University for the launch of their ‘GOLD MATTERS’ project, funded jointly by NORFACE and Belmont Forum. The project 'Sustainability Transformations in Artisanal and Small-scale Gold Mining: A Multi-Actor and Trans-Regional…