Confronting your own biases, students of the course ‘Adults and Children in a Polarising World’ are not afraid to do exactly that. ‘The fact that my expectations of the interview were not in line with the outcome, was very informative.’

From the Open Days and Student for a Day events to the option of following Online Experience modules: the university tries to prepare prospective students for their new study programme as well as possible. In this context, the bachelor’s programmes Dutch Language and Culture and English Language and…

Drones are proving to be a good means of mapping man-made changes in the landscape. Geophysicist Till Sonneman and his colleagues (archaeology) are experimenting with drones in inaccessible areas of the Caribbean.

As long as we humans have existed, we have told each other stories. But how does a story change each time it is told? Which elements stick and which ones are forgotten? This is what Max van Duijn and Tessa Verhoef will research in their Lowlands Whispers experiment at Lowlands Festival.

Many children eat too many high-calorie foods and too few vegetables from an early age. PhD candidate Merel van Vliet researched the role of parents in this. ‘Don’t force children to clean their plates.’ PhD defence on 15 June.

Samineh Bagheri is the first PhD candidate to defend her thesis fully remotely.

Six students of archaeology, history and art history are to follow the Silk Route in Central Asia, looking for evidence from ancient history for the enormous cultural exchange brought about by this trade route. They are conducting their research for the exhibition on the Silk Route that opened in the…

Through various initiatives, Leiden University is trying to make people aware of the importance of biodiversity: the cultivation of a wide variety of micro-organisms, animals and plant species. This is important because in the Netherlands biodiversity has declined from about 40 percent in 1900 to about…

Collaboration within Europe is currently at a low ebb. This is threatening to undermine our freedom and the rights that are anchored in the European legal order, says Piet Hein Donner, Vice-President of the Council of State and Cleveringa professor at Leiden University for 2015. His lecture on 26 November…

History lecturer Giles Scott-Smith is enthusiastic about the new pitch-to-peer programme (P2P), for which students have to make an original, creative assignment and evaluate one another’s work. This is part five in a series of articles about lecturers and innovation in teaching and learning.

Four videos tell the story of the history of Leiden University. The films were premiered on 2 November during the Leiden Film Festival.

In ancient times, the desert in the Udhruh region in Jordan was transformed into a green oasis. An intricate network of underground water channels was part of an ancient system of water management, storing water and preventing loss through evaporation. Archaeologist Mark Driessen found a new way to…

Due to the corona crisis, they had to switch to online education halfway during their course: associate professor Marcel Schaaf and PhD candidate Michiel Hooykaas of the Institute of Biology Leiden talk about digital practicals, online lectures and their biggest obstacle: exams.

Leiden University Centre for Digital Humanities (LUCDH) has had a new director since 1 February. Associate Professor Angus Mol wants to connect people and knowledge in his new role.

Seven prominent North Korean exiles will shed new light on the dictatorial state in a conference hosted by Leiden University on 17 and 18 September. All of the speakers once held high-ranking positions in the regime and now reveal its inner workings.

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,…

Almost 4400 anatomical drawings from the collections of Leiden University Libraries (UBL) are now available through Europeana. The collection shows medical art on paper from the early eighteenth century to the present day. Most of the drawings were created in or around the Leiden University Medical…

Health psychologist Andrea Evers has been invited by several Dutch and international media to talk about the coronavirus and the measures taken by the government with regard to public health.

Students taking the new bachelor’s course ‘Social Movements and Political Violence’ are about to do something new. In addition to studying textbooks and academic articles, they will actively work with multimedia materials and engage in online storytelling. Course instructor Corinna Jentzsch (Leiden…

A team of Dutch scientists has built a supercomputer the size of four pizza boxes. The Little Green Machine II has the computing power of 10,000 PCs and will be used by researchers in oceanography, computer science, artificial intelligence, financial modeling and astronomy. The computer is based at…

The Leiden University Visual Ethnography collection has been added to Alexander Street Press, an educational streaming video service. The master’s specialization Visual Ethnography has supported many talented individuals to produce inspiring films. About 70 master’s thesis films of the past 8 years…

First year bachelor students of Security Studies enjoyed an interactive guest lecture by Han van Midden, former mayor of Roosendaal.

Former student of Leiden University professor Louis Andriessen at the Royal Conservatoire in The Hague, Cyprus-born ACPA researcher Yannis Kyriakides, currently developing his PhD dissertation under the supervision of Professor Frans de Ruiter and docARTES PhD supervisor/ORCiM research fellow Dr. Bob…

From 23 to 26 November, FGGA will once again be organising the online Well-Being Days. Four days of great articles, handy tips and (online) activities. Especially for students, but also very interesting for employees. For example, read about the benefits of walking and get the best walking routes through…

A TikTok by student Loïs de Jong from Leiden University in which Leiden sparkles as a student city won the final of the Leiden Media Contest on 13 June. According to the jury, the film was ‘the most appealing for today’s generation of current and prospective students – it includes nearly all elements…

Another year has reached its end. And what a year it has been! On December 4th staff and students of the Faculty of Archaeology came together to celebrate and reminisce. The event's central topic was the end of Jan Kolen's term as Dean. Martina Revello Lami moderated the event.

Why doesn't the Surinamese resistance hero and independence fighter Anton de Kom have a memorial site in his former hometown, The Hague, while there are streets named after colonial leaders? The students of university lecturer Anne Marieke Van der Wal-Rémy are committed to the erection of a statue.

Video projections in contemporary art are convincing not because they depict reality, but because they show new possibilities within that reality. Artist Sophie Ernst demonstrates this in a thesis and an exhibition. She defends her PhD on 8 December.

Mozambican politician and child rights activist Graça Machel will receive an honorary doctorate from Leiden University for her commitment to the rights of women and children in Africa and elsewhere. She will be awarded the honorary doctorate on the Dies Natalis, the University’s foundation day, on 8…

How does audio-visual material shape the identity of people when those people do not own their own land and are being oppressed? Bahar Simsek delved into the effect of film on the Kurdish identity. She will obtain her PhD on 4 May.

Water droplets float in a hot pan because of the so-called Leidenfrost effect. Now physicists have discovered a variation: the Elastic Leidenfrost effect. It explains why hydrogel balls jump around on a hot plate making high pitched sounds. Publication in Nature Physics on July 24.

The map of Suriname, drawn in 1830 and acquired by Leiden University Libraries (UBL) in 2023, has now been made available online via Digital Collections in open access. The map can be viewed and downloaded in high resolution.

From September 1 onwards, Jonatan Wirix-Speetjens is the new assessor of the Faculty of Humanities. He takes over the baton of former assessor Olivier Fajgenblat. To get to know him a bit better, he introduces himself in this video.

At the beginning of this month, the PhD regulations and the guidelines for PhD tracks have been revised. The main revisions can be found below.

On 25-27 June the Academic Society for Competition Law (ASCOLA) organized its 15th yearly conference discussing the most recent developments in the context of competition law policy.

On 3 June 2016, Prof. Carsten Stahn participated in a Panel at the Graduate Institute on International and Development Studies in Geneva on accountability as a common goal between The Hague and Geneva.

Superconducting devices such as SQUIDS (Superconducting Quantum Interferometry Device) can perform ultra-sensitive measurements of magnetic fields. Leiden physicsts invented a method to 3D-print these and other superconducting devices in minutes.

Research on the Greek and Roman times often focuses on important leaders, writers or politicians. However, Patricia Kret is more interested in the normal people living in these times. Her research focuses on amulets which were often used, for example to cure diseases. Why did people believe so strongly…

On 15 May the new website about the research programme Digital Society has been launched.

Health psychologist Andrea Evers has won the Stevin Prize – alongside the Spinoza Prize, the highest scientific award in the Netherlands. Evers: 'It’s also a prize for our whole team and our many contacts within and outside the University.’

On 31 May, during a three-hour live broadcast on the Dutch online television channel Islaam.tv, 100,400 euros was pledged to the Belgian-Moroccan imam Tarik Ibn Ali.

Digital Art Festival Taiwan commissioned the collective ARK / Roosje Klap to develop a new installation for Taipei's National Digital Art Center. On show during the Digital Art Festival between 30 September-10 October in Taipei, Taiwan.

The webpage Diversity & Inclusion for the Faculty of Law is live. On this page, you will find everything about the faculty activities and plans in the field of diversity and inclusion.

Leiden scholars succeeded in making Arabic accessible to Western academic communities as early as the sixteenth century. But how did they approach this problem?

Currently, more and more universities are experimenting with various forms of digitization: MOOCs, SPOCs, but also the adoption of YouTube video’s, online quizzes and other online learning methods in university education. Many of these educational methods are not just digital, but also freely accessible…

Today we received this tip from two of our students. It's about how to stay motivated while working from home. We decided to share it with you.

What is involved in setting up and carrying out clinical research? To give researchers a helping hand, LUMC Campus The Hague has brought together tips and tricks in the new massive open online course (MOOC) Population Health: Study Design.

Ava Bauer’s successor has been announced. From September 2023, Nalani Verwoord will be the new assessor of Leiden Science. Nalani is a third-year Biology student.

The Moot Court trophy has been awarded for the fifteenth time! This time it went to the best oralist in the spring of academic year 2024-2025.

For refugee children, the right to information is of great importance to make their voice heard. Stephanie Rap is studying the child’s right to participate in the asylum procedure. She has also studied the working method of the Dutch Council for Refugees in this context.