From travel stories, travel guides and hotel vignettes to postcards, drawings, menus, brochures, posters and photos. The collections of Leiden University Libraries (UBL) hold many sources that provide insight into the development of tourism in the Dutch East Indies, present-day Indonesia, from 1870…

All Leiden University staff will receive an invitation on 17 October to fill in the Personnel Monitor. Why is it important that everyone completes it? And what has happened with the results of the last Personnel Monitor? Vice Chairman of the Executive Board Martijn Ridderbos explains.

No fewer than 55 applications were submitted for a Kiem seed grant, an initiative for developing new interdisciplinary, interfaculty research partnerships and encounters. The draw took place on Monday for the allocation of 22 seed grants. The Executive Board was so impressed with the number of applications…

A new AI model will soon be able to predict the risk of infection in postoperative patients. This will allow healthcare providers to take preventive measures and detect complications at an earlier stage.

Due to its success, the Leiden2022 Q&A has been extended and is looking for even more thought-provoking, interesting or unusual questions.

Dutch mosquitos are more resilient to saltwater than previously thought. Environmental scientist Sam Boerlijst discovered this during his PhD research at the Hortus botanicus. This knowledge is crucial for understanding how mosquito-borne disease transmission might change in the future.

For the following years, Dr Aitor Burguet-Coca will be a returning face at the Faculty of Archaeology. He will join Dr Amanda Henry’s team with his expertise on prehistoric fire use and the methodologies that studying ancient hearths requires.

In Indonesia, some Muslim preachers are TV stars with massive followings. Syahril Siddik studied how they operate and how their viewers react. On 9 November, he successfully defended his dissertation in Islamic Studies.

The availability of natural resources, the energy transition, the importance of circularity and our dependence on China. This and more is what Professor of Industrial Ecology René Kleijn's inaugural lecture is about.

Sarah Cramsey, Special Chair for Central European Studies and Assistant Professor of Judaism and Diaspora studies, recently received an ERC grant for historical research into early child care in Central and Eastern Europe. In this short interview, she will give some more information on her grant, her…

Youth crime has plummeted in the Netherlands. Good news, you might think. Yet we need to look critically at existing sanctions, says Professor by Special Appointment André van der Laan in his inaugural lecture. ‘We should evaluate whether our response is just.’

Our banking, DigiD and sensitive medical data: what if our entire digital infrastructure can no longer be trusted? Jelle Don has this question permanently in mind as he goes about his research. And that is no bad thing because without new digital security measures, our society will be extremely vuln…

In the Educatips column, Psychology lecturers share their most valuable insights on teaching. This month: Laura Nawijn and colleagues are designing an e-learning programme to improve the thesis supervision of clinical psychologists. ‘You don’t want to hold students’ hands, but you do want to give them…

In supermarkets, consumers are drowning in a sea of sustainability labels. Confusing for them, but also farmers can't see the forest for the trees. Obtaining these labels demands an enormous amount of time and effort. Berent Baris is investigating ways to simplify this process, benefiting both farmers…

Whether finding signals of dark matter or discovering hydrogen in the vicinity of exoplanets, Leiden astronomers are world players in their field, and they are part of a long tradition: Leiden was the first university in the world to have its own observatory.

Sharing knowledge based on research within organisations presents a challenging task. How can this be done effectively? What steps should be taken to ensure that knowledge obtained from research is shared and applied in the organisation's daily practice? On 8 May, the Leiden Leadership Centre (LLC)…

The 2023 Digital Humanities Pilot Project Symposium and Digital Winter School took place, 30 Jan – 2 Feb 2023.

It has only recently been discovered that single-celled organisms (bacteria and archaea) also have histones—proteins that structure DNA. Now, Leiden PhD candidate Samuel Schwab has found that the histones in these organisms are much more diverse than previously thought. Schwab and his colleagues describe…

Alumni and researchers met at two well-attended alumni dinners in Yogyakarta and Jakarta. The alumni reminisced about their time in Leiden and got to see their lecturers once again.

On 14 February, we will discuss the role of academics in the public debate and how this relates to academic freedom. All students and staff of the university are cordially invited. Are you curious about this dialogue on issues such as Israel-Palestine, caps and gowns on the A12 and academic titles on…

In January 2021, eLaw joined the Computers Privacy and Data Protection (CPDP) Conference that is about privacy and data protection. The group on Law and Digital Technologies at Leiden University put together a panel that combined perspectives on Art, Society, & Technology.

Leiden University Proudly Announces Dr. Mikiko Otani as the Rotating Honorary Chair Enforcement of Children's Rights 2023/2024

There was no shortage of smart questions during the recent information sessions. The meetings, in which the Faculty Board provided an update on the faculty's current situation and did its best to address concerns and questions, were well attended. Attendees posed important questions and contributed…

Many European citizens feel connected to the European Union and place trust in it, Eva Grosfeld found in her PhD research. Yet around a quarter do not identify with the EU at all. How can the EU regain their trust?

Karwan Fatah-Black and Lauren Lauret are co-authors of Geketend voor Hollands Glorie (The Chains of Holland’s Glory) that studies the political and economic connections between South Holland and slavery. The findings of this research will be presented with Dr. Joris van den Tol (Radboud University)…

How can chimpanzees, so closely related to humans, have almost no sense of rhythm? ‘The best students ever’ and behavioural biologist Michelle Spierings demonstrated that chimps can actually drum and move rhythmically—each following their own unique beat.

An impressive 12 researchers from Leiden University have been awarded an 800,000-euro grant by the Dutch Research Council (NWO). This will enable them to develop their own line of research over the next five years.

Not experiments and lab coats, but computers and artificial intelligence: this year's Nobel Prize in Chemistry went to the inventors of the groundbreaking AI model, AlphaFold. This programme accurately predicts protein structures based on their genetic code—a crucial step in understanding biological…

You should start working now, and the positive results will only be seen long after your term has expired. That is just about the worst thing you can say to politicians and policymakers. Yet that is exactly the message of two recent reports on sustainable resource use from the Centre for Environmental…

With the new Euclid satellite, scientists are going to map a large part of the sky. The satellite ofthe European Space Agency (ESA) will soon give them a better view of the galaxies and matter in the universe. Professor of Galactic Astronomy Koen Kuijken and a team of Dutch scientists are receiving…

Andrea Warnecke joined the Institute for History in August 2021 as an Assistant Professor in the History and International Studies section. This year, she will get a tenured position. Below, she introduces herself.

Designing innovative algorithms, thinking outside the box, and brainstorming over coffee with his colleagues — this is what physicist Stefano Polla enjoys most. His success shines through in his nomination for the C.J. Kok Jury Award 2024 for PhD thesis of the Year.

Psychedelic drugs like magic mushrooms and LSD are embraced by some and seen as lethal by others. Cognitive psychologist Michiel van Elk delved into the world of psychedelic drugs and wrote a surprisingly sober book about them. ‘Without first-hand experience my story wouldn’t be complete.’

A team of researchers from Young Academy and the Huygens ING/NL Lab has brought a three-century-old fragrance to life based on a recipe by Constantijn Huygens. The fragrance makes the past more tangible and can help people experience history differently.

Psychologists Anna van ‘t Veer and Eiko Fried will start a scientific integrity workshop tour after the summer, called Responsible Scholarship: Psychology. Their aim: giving the subject a more prominent position in the academic’s mind.

Theoretische onderbouwing laat zien dat wijkrechtspraak effectief kan zijn. Dat blijkt uit een vandaag gepresenteerde studie in opdracht van het WODC. Rechters kunnen vanuit een zitting in een wijkcentrum vaak beter ingrijpen dan vanuit de rechtszaal en met meer vertrouwen.

Is it ethical to freely redistribute photographs taken in colonial contexts, historically and today? Christoph Rippe, PhD-candidate Cultural Anthropology, suggests that people might not have been always fully aware of what happened to their photographs after they were taken. 'But nowadays, with the…

On Tuesday a few dozen students and staff from Leiden University protested on the square in front of the Lipsius building against the classroom scanners that have been installed in buildings and lecture halls. They are demanding that the scanners be removed.

The field of artificial intelligence has developed rapidly in recent years. We spoke with Stephan Raaijmakers, professor by special appointment in Communicative AI, about the impact of artificial intelligence and why everyone should pay more attention to developments in this field.

‘I’m setting Academia in Motion by promoting and developing Open Educational Resources (OERs) to enable affordable learning for anyone, and to keep learning and education in the hands of universities and schools,’ says physician, anatomy teacher and e-learning developer Paul Gobée.

Leiden University will be conferring three honorary doctorates in its special anniversary year. They will be awarded to Eliot Higgins, truth finder and founder of Bellingcat, Bonnie Honig, expert in feminist theory and legal theory, and Kelly Chibale, professor of organic chemistry, who works on prevention…

Which questions should you take to HR, and when should you contact the PSSC? How exactly does leave work, and what about career development? In this column, an HR colleague answers a different question each time. Anna is an HR advisor and knows everything about being pregnant while working.

The Leiden University interdisciplinary program Liveable Planet is working on a ‘Liveable Planet Academy’ as a follow-up to its activities. The coordinating team visited the transdisciplinary Leuphana University (Germany) to get inspiration for the setup of the academy.

The Ecuadorian Pachakutik party is one of the oldest indigenous political movements in Latin America. Despite not being very successful at the polls and hardly having organisational resources at its disposal, Pachakutik is still part of Ecuador’s political landscape. In her dissertation, Political Scientist…

‘By cleverly combining new techniques for analysing DNA at the level of individual molecules, we can achieve real breakthroughs in research into conditions such as dementia,’ predicts Professor John van Noort. Together with four leading biophysics research groups, he has written a review article in…

A job thanks to COVID—something not many people can claim. But PhD candidate Vera Arntzen can. Over the past four years, she has mapped two crucial characteristics of SARS-CoV-2 infections. Thanks to her research, experts can now make well-informed decisions on matters like quarantine duration, which…

On 1 July – Keti Koti, in the year ahead, our university community will be able to reflect extensively on the history of slavery by engaging in research, education and many other activities.

Nearly all documents from the 16th and 17th centuries were written by more than one person but attributed to only one author. Professor Nadine Akkerman wants to rectify this oversight in her research on scribes.

In a collaborative effort between the Leiden Children’s Rights Observatory, the Leiden Law Academy, UNICEF and the Petitions Section of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, a symposium held last week commemorated the tenth anniversary of the Optional Protocol to the Convention…

Jasper Knoester is the dean of the Faculty of Science. How is he doing? What kinds of things is he doing and what does his day look like? In each newsletter Jasper gives a peek into his life as dean.