This Thursday saw the launch of PLNT The Hague, an entrepreneurial hub where Campus The Hague students can learn all about entrepreneurship. They will have the opportunity to develop entrepreneurial skills, build a network and begin an innovative startup.

Many poor people in Indonesia mainly rely on their family members, neighbours and the local community as a social safety net. One of the forms of aid from the community is called ‘jimpitan’ in Central Java. PhD candidate Ayu Swaningrum researched how this social security system works.

We are pleased to announce a groundbreaking research study delving into crucial aspects of safety and responsibility in the domain of personal care robots, explicitly focusing on robotic lower-limb exoskeletons.

Jos F. Brosschot has been appointed as a professor by special appointment on the chair ‘psychophysiological mechanisms of stress in daily life’. This chair has been created by the Foundation for Research into Psychosocial Stress.

No less than 33 project received a Leiden Kiem grant in 2023. How did they fare? Olga Bogolyubova shares experiences from her project ‘Interdisciplinary Approaches to the Study of Safety and Danger in the Digital World’.

Welcome to Leiden and The Hague! So there you are, an international BA or MA student, in a city where you don’t know the way and don’t speak the language. What now? Don’t panic: with our international introduction programmes, you’ll soon have learnt all the ins and outs. And another important thing:…

With the long lockdown, it’s been a hard year for Leiden businesses. How can the local economy bounce back and how can the University help? Two talk shows discussing this were recently recorded in the Academy Building. They will be aired on Unity TV on 28 September and 12 October.

Nadine Raaphorst, university lecturer at the Institute of Public Administration, has been awarded a Veni-subisidy from science financier NWO. This grant of up to 250,000 euros will enable her to set up her own research in the coming years. Raaphorst's research is about consistent decision-making by…

Plants are able to resist a pathogen’s attack by a dual innate immune system. The relationship between the two pathways was not clear, but it turns out that they mutually potentiate each other, as assistant professor Pingtao Ding (Institute of Biology Leiden) and colleagues (The Sainsbury Laboratory,…

Daniela Kraft's group has succeeded in creating a network of microparticles that is both strong and completely flexible. This may sound simple, yet they are the first in the world to succeed in doing so. A real breakthrough in soft matter physics.

Scientists of the faculty of Governance and Global Affairs research completely different subject, among which terrorism, cybercrime and migration. In the upcoming weeks we will give the floor to several of our very best researchers. In this episode: development researcher David Ehrhardt.

Tom Breukel analysed some 250 stone axes from the Caribbean and reconstructed their biographies. This increases our knowledge of production and trade in the period around the arrival of Columbus. PhD defence on 18 April.

Microscopic swimmers such as bacteria do not always swim alone. There are advantages to exchanging information and cooperating. Stefania Ketzetzi and colleagues now show in Nature Communications that human-made microswimmers, too, can cooperate.

Synchronised heart rates and skin conductance tell us that people are attracted to each other. This explains why we feel a romantic ‘click’ with some people and not with others. This is the result of research by psychologist Eliska Prochazkova from the Leiden Institute for Brain and Recognition, which…

Meniere’s disease, a disorder of the inner ear, was first described back in 1861, but there’s still no good test or treatment for it. Tjasse Bruintjes, Professor by Special Appointment of Ear, Nose and Throat Surgery, wants more attention for this mysterious disease. And he wants to tell his fellow…

Some sectors have been hard hit by the pandemic, whereas others have grown. Yet there was no influx of workers from shrinking to growing sectors. This is the conclusion of research by economists from Leiden University. They published their results in the journal Economisch Statistische Berichten.

Research is at the heart of a solid security policy. That’s why researchers from Leiden are analysing the motives of radicalised people and the biggest risks surrounding digital activity. Read more about their work in the research dossier ‘Security and Threat’.

Leiden University is the highest scoring comprehensive university in the biannual valorisation ranking produced by Elsevier and Science Works. They calculate which Dutch universities best exploit their scientific capital, in economic terms and in terms of societal impact. .

In 2018 the Laboratory Efficiency Assessment Framework (LEAF) was launched in the UK. The aim of this programme was to help laboratories work more sustainably and efficiently. The initiative got a Dutch spin-off in 2021. Since then, a couple of the laboratories at the Leiden Faculty of Science have…

Mariska Jung, Jasmijn Rana and Looi van Kessel receive a €10,000 KIEM grant for

Prof. C. Bakels is an archaeobotanist who devoted most of her career researching farming, its (pre)history and influence on the landscape. Born in 1942, she got her first appointment as a lecturer at Leiden University in 1968. On Monday 16 April, we celebrated her 50th work anniversary.

Soil salinity is affecting large areas in the world and millions of farmers are faced with decreasing yields and many are even forced to migrate . Dutch scientists (Prof Dr. Gerrit van Straten (Wageningen University), Prof. Dr. Peter van Bodegom (Leiden University), Prof. Dr. Jelte Rozema (VU University…

A clean street, public transportation, or taxes: these are all public goods that keep society running. But how do people decide which public good to invest in, if at all? These are the kind of questions PhD student Laura Hoenig explores.

In these uncertain times when we all have to adapt to new circumstances, LUC is working hard to develop and implement changes in procedures and guidelines for staff and students. We would like to explain how this is organized, because staff and students are not always aware of the many steps that are…

Two researchers from the Institute of Political Science were recently awarded prizes. Claire Vergerio received the Francesco Guicciardini Prize for her book on the historical origins of the primacy of the state in international law ('best book in the historical international relations category'). In…

A new government, conflicts around the world and obviously a lot of science: these are the five stories about Leiden University that you enjoyed reading in 2024.

Jelle Wouters (RTC Bhutan), Erik de Maaker (CADS Leiden) and Radhika Gupta (CADS Leiden) have been awarded a €260.000 grant by the Gerda Henkel Foundation for the research project ‘Perpetuating Highland Heritages of Bhutan’. This 4-year research project focuses on vernacular and unacknowledged heritages…

Astronomer Jos de Boer has received the Chesneau Prize in Nice for his research into so-called protoplanetary disks. The prize is awarded to the best astronomical dissertation in the field of high angular resolution. 'I consider it a good opportunity to talk about my research.'

Children with hearing loss often fail to pick up on nuances in other people’s emotional responses. As a result, they do not always understand what is going on. Yung-Ting Tsou, a PhD student at Leiden University, found that having more knowledge of emotions and social conventions can help them in their…

Ultimate beneficial owners (UBOs) of companies should have registered their information in the Dutch UBO register before 27 March 2022. The Dutch Minister of Finance saw no reason to postpone the deadline for registration, according to answers to parliamentary questions. In an article on the legal platform…

Photographs of sacred rituals and ceremonies in Asia by Bangkok-based photographer and author Hans Kemp can be seen in the front hall of the Leiden Town Hall from 27 June to 19 August 2019. Here a sneak preview.

The Jus Post Bellum project is proud to announce that their foundational volume, Jus Post Bellum: Mapping the Normative Foundations, is now freely available as an Open Access publication. This was only possible due to generous funding from the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO),…

In the controlled, censored, and taboo-ridden media landscape of communist China, one would not expect seeing a television show featuring real people having actual conflicts. Yet reality programmes about conflict mediation are mushrooming in the People’s Republic. Both the public and the authorities…

How do you count the nanoplastics in your body? Leiden researchers published a method in Nature Protocols today that should make this easier. Important for both environmental and medicine research.

Do you often feel drained after a day at the office? The new SPS Monitor measures how sensitive you are to various stimuli. Psychologist Véronique de Gucht developed the questionnaire. 'I want to demystify high sensitivity.'

Leiden University Libraries (UBL) has been able to acquire an exceptional two-volume Miao album. The acquisition was made possible by the Rombouts Fund for Chinese collections. The extraordinarily well-preserved work contains 70 full-page paintings on silk, depicting non-Chinese peoples in the area…

Jelle van Buuren bespreekt de link tussen radicalisering en psychiatrische problematiek.

On 24 September the Institute of Environmental Sciences (CML) in Leiden will launch the new version of the Pesticides Atlas in cooperation with Rijkswaterstaat and Royal HaskoningDHV. The online tool is now faster, more user-friendly, more accessible and all data can be downloaded directly. Users can…

On Tuesday 12 January 2021, the Leiden Law School thesis prizes were awarded at the New Year’s event.

Now that selling via digital platforms is flourishing, we need to take a closer look at the rights and obligations of all the parties involved. This is the subject of the inaugural lecture by Leiden Professor Vanessa Mak on 15 October.

Climate interventions do not lead to more climate action among Dutch, but they do raise awareness about climate change.

At the International Online Conference 'Fair Medicine and Artificial Intelligence' organised by the University of Tübingen (Germany), Hadassah Drukarch, junior researcher at eLaw, gave a presentation on how current algorithmic-based systems may reinforce biases in healthcare. This topic forms part of…

The second instalment of the Humanities Lab - the three-year honours programme of the Humanities – has reached its conclusion. On 12 May, 11 groups of honours student presented their work in the Arsenaal building.

The new University Sports and Exam Centre is another step closer. Bigger sports and exam halls, plenty of room for meeting people, an open feel that integrates with the Campus Square and the sports fields, optimal acoustics and an uncompromisingly sustainable building with a green facade and solar panels.…

This academic year 49 promising international students will start their master’s degree here thanks to a Leiden University Excellence Scholarship (LExS). The students, all from outside the EU, were welcomed in a special ceremony on 5 September. Who are they?

Archaeologist Virginia García-Díaz made replicas of centuries-old tools to be able to study North Holland settlements from the corded-ware culture. PhD defence 23 February.

Roman philosopher and orator Marcus Tullius Cicero is still used as an intellectual example by politicians and speech writers today. But, he did not go unchallenged in his own day, as a statesman in particular. Classicist Leanne Jansen conducted research into how classical historians judged Cicero’s…

Young children exhibit more aggressive behaviour if their nervous system fails to respond adequately to stress situations and if they are exposed to risk factors such as smoking or psychological problems experienced by the mother during the pregnancy. This is the conclusion of PhD candidate Jill Suurland.…

Gabrielle van den Berg became the Academic Director of LIAS on 1 September 2025: “I hope I’ll be able to make a real difference.”

‘You are the last generation that will have an effective influence on the future of the world.' This was the message given by guest speaker Maurits Groen to the 135 students who graduated at Leiden University College in The Hague on 6 July.