This month, the first part of the quality assurance audit (ITK) took place. A team of auditors from the Nederlands-Vlaamse Accreditatie Organisatie (NVAO) visited us to review how we ensure quality in education and how this aligns with our overall vision.

What do we really know about educational quality and its measurement? This was the subject of the first Higher Education Knowledge Café.

Organisation, Research

What began as a PhD project has grown into a website with 120,000 unique visitors each year. With the platform OpenML, researcher Jan van Rijn is contributing to open science, aiming to make machine learning more transparent, accessible, and fair.

Michiel Hogerheijde will be the new Programme Director of the bachelor Astronomy starting 1 October. The appointment is for four years. Hogerheijde succeeds Harold Linnartz who has held the position since 2018.

More European countries are introducing border controls, clashing with the ideal of free movement within Europe. Daniel Schade, Assistant Professor of EU Studies at Leiden University, analyses this development in The Washington Post.

The Executive Board has reappointed Professor of Algebra and Number Theory Bart de Smit as vice-dean at the Faculty of Science. De Smit had already held this position since the beginning of 2019. His term has been extended by four years until the end of 2026.

Organisation, Research

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

Facility

Facility

The NORFACE-funded DEEPEN project on the democratic governance of funded occupational pension schemes that is located at the Institute of Public Administration of Leiden University, Linz university, University College Dublin, and University Carlos III of Madrid will be presenting first research results…

University lecturer Andrew Gawthorpe is quoted in a Financial Times article on the Republican primaries.

Simone van der Hof joined the Supervisory Board of the Foundation for Mass Claims and Consumers in connection with the Foundation's claim against TikTok.

Camille Lefebvre has been awarded the John Peters Humphrey Student Fellowship in International Human Rights Law, by the Canadian Council on International Law (CCIL).

The president of South Korea, Yoon Suk-yeol, has chosen not to use his presidential compound. Professor Remco Breuker states in Time that this marks a change in South Korea’s approach to the compound.

What are the advantages of a day’s work at home? Were we happy working from home during the pandemic lockdowns? And who is actually responsible for a healthy and happy homeworker? The employee, or the employer?

Social

Professor of Machine learning Holger Hoos together with Frank Hutter, Lin Xu and Kevin Leyton-Brown won the prestigious Artificial Intelligence Journal (AIJ) Prominent Paper Award of this year.

Most of us know that Venice, Genoa, and Florence were major Mediterranean powers during the Renaissance. But did you know that in terms of trade and sea power, Barcelona was probably more powerful than two of these three?

The Graduate School of Science starts 2024 with a new Dean. The Faculty Council appointed Erik Danen for the coming four years. He succeeds Eric Eliel, who has held the position since May 2020.

In Dutch magazine De Psycholoog, Anne-Laura van Harmelen talks about the use of the term resilience and argues that resilience is concept that needs further explanation.

Buried beneath a Suffolk forest, archaeologists have uncovered the earliest known human-made fire. A fire that was sparked 400,000 years ago. This stunning UK discovery may rewrite our evolutionary story, potentially pushing fire-making back by more than 350,000 years.

Facility

Organisation

The Villa Son Sard archaeological project aims to determine the boundaries of the Roman and post-Roman villa at Son Sard on Mallorca. While the team was excavating in the summer of 2023, several news outlets covered the findings.

Organisation

In the new video series 'The World of Linguistics', alumni and researchers talk about their passion for their field. University lecturer Maria Del Carmen Parafita Couto speaks about bilingualism.

On the 8th of March the first "introduction to entrepreneurship" boot camp was held at PLNT specifically for PhD researchers at the LACDR. During the two hour block topics such as "the core of entrepreneurship", "spotting opportunities" and "what is your value proposition" were discussed.

On Friday the 29th of October, LACDR presented highlights of its research and teaching program during an online Lunchtime Talk session at the European Medicines Agency (EMA).

At the division of BioTherapeutics, Amanda Foks, Bram Slütter and Ilze Bot have obtained a €4 million research grant from the HORIZON 2022 EIC Pathfinder Challenge “Cardiogenomics”, entitled “B-specific: B-cell related gene and protein markers with prognostic and therapeutic value for CVD”.

Willem Jespers was awarded the international prize, worth €10,000, for pharmacy and pharmacology from the Rottendorf foundation on October 13th 2023 at the University of Münster. He was recognized for his research in the field of computer-aided drug development and the prediction of drug toxicities.…

Last October, we organized our annual PhD-Postdoc event at Kasteel Oud-Poelgeest. An important part of the program was a speed dating session with LACDR alumni.

Nearly all university buildings at the Leiden Bio Science Park will be open and operating again as of Wednesday 24 May. Last night a team worked hard to restore the power to the buildings in phases and this was successful. Students and staff can work and study there again.

Maartje van der Woude, Professor of Law and Society, has been included in the Leiden Top50 of 2022. The list includes women who stand out because they make a difference in the city. The Top50 was announced on 8 March, International Women’s Day.

In Dutch magazine De Psycholoog, Anne-Laura van Harmelen talks about the impact traumatic experiences, especially for those who are growing up.

Hosts and creators of the Nebula tv series ‘Archeology Quest’ Lorraine Boissoneault and Stephanie Sammann compete to see if they could have survived during the Palaeolithic, and this time Dr. Andrew Sorensen is there to help. Every episode different archaeological experts are there to teach them the…

The bridge between the Lipsius building and Cluster Zuid (Paterbrug) will be closed the next 18 months. Cyclists and walkers can use the bridge on the other side of the Lipsius building (Reuvensbrug).

Are you a PhD candidate and are you interested in winning €500 by pitching about your research? Jong KNCV grants you this opportunity! During the ‘Avond van de Chemie’, 3 pitches of 3 minutes each will be presented. The audience of the ‘Avond van de Chemie’ will choose the winner, who will take home…

The construction work on the South Cluster is going ahead throughout the summer. See the photo's and the video below!

Library, Organisation, Research

As South Korean president Moon Jae-in prepares to leave office, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has thanked him for trying to improve relations. Assistant Professor Christopher Green explains in the Calgary Sun what impact North Korea's gesture of goodwill might have.

Economic Anthropologist Erik Bähre talks on the Dutch News Radio Channel BNR about the effects of the Russia-Ukraine grain agreement for African countries.

Roderick Geerts, a PhD candidate of the Faculty of Archaeology in Leiden, takes us on a short journey through the rich history of the Red Sea port of Berenike in Egypt.

In her podcast Tea-Break Time Travel Matilda Siebrecht is joined by fire expert Femke Reidsma, to talk all about how this essential tool was made and used by our ancient human ancestors. How can you recognise an ancient hearth? Why is it so important to study the first use of fire? When was the first…

In the new video series 'The World of Linguistics', alumni and researchers talk about their passion for their field. PhD candidate Meike de Boer knows everything about the word ‘uh’.

The faculty introduction morning was held on Tuesday 31 August as part of the University’s OWL activities. Our new international exchange, master’s and advanced master’s students from more than 50 countries were welcomed to the faculty.