With interactive live presentations, a mass of chat opportunities and 360 degree videos, more prospective students than ever can gain a good impression of their chosen programme and the city they’re thinking of studying at. Instead of meeting up in the Pieterskerk or faculty buildings, thousands of…

Alumnus Anoma van der Veere did Japanese studies and talks in this interview about his studies in Leiden and his work as a researcher at the Leiden Asia Centre and as Japanese correspondent in Tokyo.

You’re about to start your minor at Leiden University. Make sure you are well prepared and get your studies off to a good start.

A tenacious postdoc researcher persuaded Professor Marc Koper to research the oxygen reduction reaction. In Koper's eyes, there was little of interest there. But they promptly discovered a whole new way to improve fuel cells on hydrogen and oxygen. Their article appeared in Nature Catalysis on 07 Ju…

Not all students who are thinking of doing a master’s programme at Leiden University can come to the Master’s Open Day. Hence the first Webinar Week, from 2 to 5 December. ‘Online video is the way to reach today’s generation of prospective master’s students.’

Eva Loeve (22), a fourth-year student of Cultural Anthropology, worked for five months at Centre for Research on Multinational Corporations (SOMO). At the end of May 2021, the report

You may have noticed this happening more often: your municipality sends you an online questionnaire to find out your opinion on the renovation of a certain area or the design plans for a new district. But how inclusive are these online platforms where citizens can participate in decisions on government…

Digital journalism is transforming the way in which information and communication technologies are used by media workers. With this change journalist practices, norms and values are also being reshaped. This is the conclusion of Tomás Dodds PhD research.

Our vision of stress is starting to change fundamentally. We can suffer stress without even being aware of it, while sleeping as wall as during the day. Professor of Psychology Jos Brosschot will discuss this phenomenon in his inaugural lecture on 2 December.

That was the question physics and mathematics bachelor’s student Daan de Bos set out to explore during his thesis research. Applying machine learning theories to materials presented several challenges, but his efforts led to a working theory that can now be tested on real materials in laboratories.

The winner of the highest scientific distinction in mathematics, an explanation for wine tears and much more mathematical theory and application. From 8 to 12 July, 550 mathematicians will meet in the center of Leiden to discuss differential equations.

Protests have been raging in Iran for two months since the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini. The role of social media in the protests against the Iranian regime should not be underestimated, says Senior Assistant Professor and Iranian Babak RezaeeDaryakenari.

Victor Gijsbers, university lecturer in Philosophy, has been chosen as a fellow of the Leiden University Teachers' Academy. Over the next five years and with €25,000 to spend, he will be looking for a new interpretation of the Philosophy of Science for Humanities course. ‘Treating a tough and abstract…

Leiden University has secured an impressive 12 European exchange grants. This is good news for students, lecturers and researchers from home and abroad.

Every January, students of the Minor Sustainable Development have the opportunity to put what they’ve learned over the last few months into practice in a choice of exciting and practical courses called Area Studies. This year, for the first time, there was a choice of four locations: The Netherlands,…

In the past decades terrorists have regularly surprised us with unexpected and spectacular attacks, such as the one on the World Trade Centre in New York. How can intelligence services stay one step ahead of them? Consult Charles Darwin and Steven Spielberg is the advice of terrorism expert Yannick…

Seven years ago, Aris Politopoulos left Athens for a master’s programme at the Leiden Faculty of Archaeology. Now he has nearly finished his PhD dissertation. Furthermore, he has become a lecturer at the research group for the Archaeology of the Near East, and co-founded a foundation that deals with…

To support policies and decision-making on sustainability, it is important to involve citizens and stakeholders in the process. The term used for this in Public Administration is 'participation'. Professor Eefje Cuppen observes that things still often go wrong with participation. Inaugural lecture on…

At the end of October, the Steering Committee, headed by Dean Mark Rutgers, gave the green light for the development of the new Faculty Strategic Plan for 2021-2026. How does this process go?

Marieke Adriaanse is Professor of Behavioural Interventions in Population Health and researches behavioural science issues in health. She advocates for better interdisciplinary collaboration and a new form of recognition and rewards within academia. ‘We have to stop being so blinkered,’ she says in…

On 4 and 5 September, Leiden Law School hosted a special conference that brought together around sixty participants from the Netherlands and abroad to discuss the future of economic, social, and cultural rights – rights that touch upon everyone’s daily life: housing, education, healthcare, food, and…

The work done by SUMO proteins in the cells of our body is of vital importance. Molecular cell biologist Alfred Vertegaal has been studying these proteins for nine years, first with a Veni subsidy and then with a prestigious Vidi subsidy.

Six researchers from Leiden University have been awarded NWO Open Competition funding.

Those pesky raindrops that get you wet on your way to work, are formed high up in the sky from clouds of water vapour. The process of nucleation describes the way this happens. Edgar Blokhuis of the Leiden Institute of Chemistry developed a theory to describe this transition more precisely. Chemists…

Humans are increasingly losing agency on social media. A team of legal scholars from Leiden University, computer scientists from other universities and civil society organisations, is conducting a study into the balance of power between Big Tech and users.

A team led by Leiden University in the Netherlands and the National Radio Astronomy Observatory have, for the first time, robustly detected semi-heavy water ice around a young sunlike star. In this ice, some of the ordinary hydrogen atoms have been replaced by deuterium, a heavier variant of hydroge…

Leiden Law School alumnus Dave Wesselink began his career as a lawyer in 2022. He’s also a professional bobsledder. ‘When you’re tearing round a bend at 130km/hour, you need to be able to stay calm and focused on what you’re doing.’

Over a thousand women ended up in a State workhouse between 1886 and 1934. This was a place for vagrants, beggars and drunkards: people who were said to be too lazy to work. Who were these women who were sent there? PhD candidate Marian Weevers found out.

How can we make clever use of new technologies to improve quality of life in cities? The answer is in the NL Smart City Strategy, which Mark Rutte officially received on January 25th. Three professors from Leiden University - Carolien Rieffe, Joost Kok and Wessel Kraaij - gave advice.

The Leiden municipality wants to make the city centre climate-proof and combat heat stress by greening it. But they want to do this in a way that does justice to the city’s heritage. Researcher Fenna IJtsma delves into historical greenery to offer inspiration.

Imagine: you walk into a museum, see something that catches your eye and before you know it, you have an internship. This is what happened to history student Davey Verhoeven, who went on to work on the exhibition about the unique Japanese folding screen by Kawahara Keiga (approx. 1786 – approx. 1860)…

It's the middle of summer and the lecture halls are full. Students from all parts of the world have come to Leiden and The Hague for a summer school, on subjects varying from linguistics to international criminal law and from physics to biopharmaceutical sciences. Lecturers and students talk about what…

An internship at the Police Academy in Apeldoorn. This will be possible for the first time for third-year students of the bachelor's programme Security Studies as of September 2021, now that Leiden University and the Police Academy have joined forces. ‘The internships offer students a unique opportunity…

Happy students and proud families, friends and lecturers; on 13 July the first fifteen refugee students graduated from the Preparatory Year for teaching in Leiden. They started a programme in September at a Dutch university of applied sciences or an academic university. 'This is just the start!'

Xiang van der Boon, a third-year Law and Tax Law student, went to Bilbao in 2025 to study at the University of Deusto for five months. She learned a lot about herself: ‘Living abroad showed me it's important to make time to relax.’

Four PhD researchers of Leiden University have been selected to participate in the Europaeum Scholars Program 2022-2023. Two of them, Lena Riecke and Sophie Vértiter, are doing their research at ISGA. Time for a introduction.

Music from a compostable cello, photographs and scents of fungi and a woven tapestry. With her upcoming multimedia project Super Organism, visual artist Suzette Bousema enables people to experience the underground fungal network with all their senses. Environmental scientist Nadia Soudzilovskaia and…

The most famous cat in science is Schrödinger's cat, the quantum mechanical mammal, which can exist in a superposition, a state that is alive as well as dead. The moment you look at it, one of both options is chosen. Leiden University physicists simulated an experiment to catch this mysterious moment…

With the new academic year, the Honours Academy welcomes a new assessor: Maarten Kolpa. What does an assessor do? And what can he do for honours students? Maarten talks about it in an interview.

Examining cybercrime from criminological, legal, administrative, and technical perspectives. The new Bachelor's programme in Cybersecurity & Cybercrime addresses the growing demand for versatile cyber professionals..

Ever since the first edition of the Science Run, the Leiden Student Running Association Currimus has delivered the winning team or the fastest runner. Now the event is back, the new batch of students must uphold the honour. The board is also forming a team: ‘During the upcoming training session, we…

Van TikTok tot ChatGPT: digitale technologie dringt door in ons hele bestaan. Wat betekent dat voor onderwijs en opvoeding? Het gaat niet om schermtijd, maar om de aard en context van het gebruik, stelt pedagoog Marga Sikkema-De Jong in haar oratie

This year will see the start of not one but two citizen science projects in Leiden and The Hague. This is the outcome of a large survey among residents and researchers in both university cities. The Citizen Science Lab will help the winners implement their ideas, with support from the University and…

Five questions for James Shires, assistant professor at ISGA, about his new book, The Politics of Cybersecurity in the Middle East. The book is available to order now.

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.’

Anthropologist Rodrigo Ochigame studies how AI is changing the practice of scientific research. From astrophysics to mathematics to climate science, they find that the adoption of new AI models is raising questions about what counts as reliable scientific evidence.

Studying law and then working in sales … Dion Latten loves Leiden and he loves law, but what he loves most is working for BMW. Currently Legal Counsel at BMW, he’ll soon be joining the sales team. ‘Don’t be swayed by the fear of making the wrong choices.’

Anti-litter activist Dirk Groot photographed, tagged, and collected more than 400,000 pieces of litter in the Netherlands. Now, he and his data are included in a study on urban litter by researchers from Leiden University and Andrea Ballatore from Birkbeck, University of London.

With his clever measuring methods Ignas Snellen – together with his team – was the first to detect carbon monoxide in the atmosphere of exoplanets. For his pioneering work the Leiden astrophysicist has been awarded the Spinoza Prize, the highest academic honour in the Netherlands. The prize of 2.5 million…