Lecture, Keynote

Lecture, UMW Research Seminar

Tax collection has become highly complex and the system is creaking at the seams. Is there an easier way to collect taxes? This is the question raised by Rex Arendsen, Professor of Tax Law, in his inaugural lecture on 16 September.

Richard Chancellor, the English Willem Barentsz, discovered the North Cape during the first English expedition to attempt to find a northeast passage. But the ship, the Edward Bonaventure, was ‘robbed by Flemings on its return in 1554.’ Historian Louis Sicking and legal expert Remco van Rhee found the…

Stijn Bussels will attend the two-day conference on The Tableau Vivant – Across Media, History, and Culture at the Colombia University of New York. He will deliver a paper on ‘‘Restored Behaviour’ and the Performance of the City Maiden in Joyous Entries into Antwerp’.

We are very happy to announce that as of 1 March Marleen De Meyer is our new NVIC Director!

In Bronze Age Europe many bronze objects such as axes, swords and jewels were deliberately left at specific spots in the landscape. PhD research by Leiden archaeologist Marieke Visser shows that these practices were expressions of people’s relationship with the world around them. ‘It was a completely…

On 1 November, Stijn Bussels assumed his role as professor of Art History, especially before 1800 at Leiden University. The chair is located at the Leiden University Centre for the Arts in Society (LUCAS).

In 2019, Federico Cappadona was one of the first students to enroll in the new master’s specialisation Applied Archaeology. He recently graduated and he is happy to share his experience.

Hwæt! You've heard of the adventures of the mighty Beowulf. You've heard of the brave folk standing beside him, and the awe-inspiring foes standing against him. But where their legend still lives, their tale ended long ago... Let us begin a new saga, let us find new heroes, weave a new story - by the…

From sponsored runs to festivals and from open days to concerts: Leiden University hosts lots of events each year. We are highlighting six of them for 2023.

Three new PhD candidates at the Faculty of Humanities will receive funding from the Programme Office Sustainable Humanities and NWO. The aim of the grant is to boost young talent within the humanities.

In the last weeks of May 2017 a team of students, PhD’s and postdocs of Leiden University led by prof. Frans Theuws excavated a small but exclusive cemetery from the late 7th and early 8th century in the town of Veldhoven in the southern Netherlands. Leiden University cooperated with the Town of Veldhoven,…

On 2 November, more than 800 students visited Leiden's Humanities Faculty to explore their options during the Master's Open Day. Read some of their stories here!

At the end of the 7th century something curious occurs in Northwestern Europe. Suddenly, people start burying the dead next to their dwellings instead of in communal cemeteries. Professor Frans Theuws recently published a book on this phenomenon. ‘We wanted to know if the study of these farmyard burials…

Every year, the Leiden University Student Platform (LUS) chooses the best lecturer in the university. The prize is awarded during the Opening of the Academic Year, this year on 5 September.

Studying Sumerian grammar in your free time: Bram Jagersma did it. He described centuries-old Sumerian using a modern method he devised himself. For this PhD research he was awarded the De La Court Award for Independent Research by the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Science (KNAW).

Recently, archaeologist Dr Wei Chu received a grant from the Gerda Henkel Stiftung for an excavation in the Carpathian Mountains. Originally planning for an excavation in Ukraine, his plans were disrupted by the war. ‘We had to change plans really quickly.’

In 2020, the organizing committee of ICEHL-21 made the decision to host the conference in 2021 as an online conference. After careful consideration, and taking the feedback of participants into account, the organizing committee has made the following practical decisions:

PhD students Alex Brandsen and Wouter Verschoof-van der Vaart are both doing a project within the university’s Data Science research programme. The are introducing terms like ‘text mining’ and ‘advanced machine learning’ into archaeology. ‘These techniques will make archaeology more efficient and ch…

On Saturday 16 January 2016, the Faculty of Archaeology opened its doors to welcome over 100 archaeology and living archaeology enthusiasts from all over the Netherlands. They were participating in a full-day symposium organised by Céline den Engelsman and Casper van Dijk, BA3-students from the archaeology…

A marvelous mosaic synagogue floor has been discovered at the Israeli excavation site of Horvat Kur. The timeworn stones of the mosaic clearly form the name ‘El’azar’. Leiden University researcher Jürgen Zangenberg and a group of Leiden students played a role in the excavation. ‘El’azar was likely an…

Greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere and fertilizers in the groundwater have negative consequences for our environment. With an electrochemical process they can be transformed to more valuable and useful substances like fuel and alcohol. Chemistry PhD candidate Elena Perez Gallent discovered how this…

Claire Vergerio, political scientist at Leiden University, has been awarded a VENI grant by Dutch research organisation NWO. This will allow her to conduct an in-depth analysis of the legal rights and duties of non-state actors involved in warfare. The aim is to tackle some persistent blindspots in…

The Rural Riches research group convenes for coffee on a daily basis. Remotely, that is, to prevent the spread of coronavirus. It is the perfect way to stay connected, exchange ideas, and socialise. ‘We now are more in touch with each other than in the usual situation when we are all at the Faculty.…

Sarah van der Kwast

Archaeologist Maikel Kuijpers participated in the development of the boardgame Epoch: Early Inventors. “This game is inspired by the major innovation that happened in prehistoric times. A topic that has my interest and that I teach here in Leiden.

Excursions to Leiden museums, a flown-in American professor and a collaboration with PhD students from Cambridge: Leiden PhD candidates in early modern art were in luck this summer. An award from the Camino Laurent van Vugt Fund allowed the LUCAS research institute to organise a special summer school…

Successful innovation requires more than technological progress alone. Every new concept must first be firmly anchored into an existing context. At least this is the hypothesis of Dutch classicists, working together in the National Research School in Classical Studies OIKOS. They intend to test this…

Warja Tolstoj, alumna Art History, has been awarded the 2021 edition of the Ted Meijerprijs. Named after the former director of the KNIR (Royal Netherlands Institute in Rome), the prize is awarded yearly to the best MA/ReMa thesis or PhD in the Humanities.

Cornald Maas was able to ‘pioneer’ in Leiden. This Dutch Studies graduate, presenter, programme maker and publicist combined an active student life with studying hard.

Last Thursday, the April edition of the ILS Lunch Seminars took place. This well visited seminar took on a slightly different format, since we had the honour of receiving Leandro Mancano from the University of Edinburgh.

Joop Schaye, Professor of The formation of galaxies, has been elected as a member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW). He will be officially inaugurated on 29 September.

Researchers from Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC) and Netherlands Cancer Institute (NKI) have discovered how specialised immune cells can detect and remove cancers that are ‘invisible’ to the conventional defence mechanisms of the immune system. Their work has been published in Nature. The findings…

Astrophysicist Ewine van Dishoeck has been awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Geneva. She received the award on 11 October during the Dies academicus of the Swiss university, which, like Leiden University, is part of the European research university federation LERU.

On Thursday 8 and Friday 9 May 2025, the Conference of European Restructuring and Insolvency Law (CERIL) is hosting an international conference on New Horizons for European Restructuring and Insolvency Law. The two-day conference is organised at Leiden University with support of Business & Law Research…

On Thursday 17 October, Marieke Bos and Anika Bexkens went behind the scenes at the Jeugdjournaal, a Dutch television program that delivers news specifically for children. They talked to the editors-in-chief of Jeugdjournaal about what kind of questions they receive from children and advised how to…

Publish Your Reviews is an initiative encouraging peer reviewers to share their reviews and to contribute to open science and transparant research communication.

Nowadays data-driven working is very important within Rijkswaterstaat. A Variety of employees is involved in analyzing the data collected on daily basis by Rijkswaterstaat. The goal is to ensure that we construct an infrastructure in the Netherlands which will be safe, accessible and liveable in the…

On Wednesday 5 October the Europa Institute hosts a special guest lecture by Human Rights Defender Mr. Rasul Jafarov from Azerbaijan.

This year’s “best master’s thesis in the area of national or international history” was written by Bareez Majid, who has completed a research master's in Middle Eastern Studies. She wins the prestigious 2015 Volkskrant–IISG thesis prize for her courageous, solid research on a former “torture prison”…

She develops algorithms that outperform leading optimization techniques and can be applied in many fields. For this work, Niki van Stein and her team have won the GECCO Humies Award. ‘With our method, we can create and refine algorithms for a wide range of applications—algorithms that are better than…

Sport Data Center

Leiden University’s Master’s in Advanced Studies in International Dispute Settlement and Arbitration is one of the 15 ‘excellent master’s programmes’ at Dutch universities. This is according to the Keuzegids consumer guide to master’s programmes for 2025.

The Heritage Quest project begins on Monday 6 April. Heritage Quest is the first large-scale citizen science archaeology project in the Netherlands: anyone can help find archaeological remains at Utrechtse Heuvelrug, a heavily forested region in the Netherlands. Citizens can thus get involved in scientific…

The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) appointed Professor Thomas Bäck as an IEEE Fellow in the class of 2022. Bäck is becoming a Fellow for his contributions in synthesising evolutionary computation. Less than 0.1% of voting members are selected each year for this member grade…

John van den Dobbelsteen’s work is all about using medical technology to reduce the workload and increase the job satisfaction of healthcare staff.

Computer scientist Tessa Verhoef received a Best Paper Award during the ‘ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility’. The paper emphasised the need for interdisciplinary research in sign language processing. The authors state that linguists and computer scientists should collaborate with…

Leiden researchers Tazuko van Berkel (Greek and Latin Language and Culture) and Noel de Miranda (Tumour Immunology, LUMC) will join the KNAW’s Young Academy next year. They will be inducted on 22 March 2021.

Professor emeritus Leonard Blussé of the Leiden University Institute for History has won the ‘Special Book Award of China’. The Chinese government awards this prize to translators, writers and editors who have contributed to making China better known among non-Chinese.