Annually, the Dutch Palynologische Kring invites nominations for the Florschütz Award for best MSc thesis in Palynology and Palaeobotany. This year, the thesis of Archaeology alumna Oda Nuij was deemed to be the best one. Oda was surprised to hear she won, since she was not sure that the thesis would…

The European Research Council has awarded ERC Consolidator Grants to four researchers from Leiden. These grants of up to 2m euros will enable them to continue and expand their research.

Political scientist Claire Vergerio (Leiden University) has made it to the final stage of the selection process for Central European University’s annual European Award for Excellence in Teaching in the Social Sciences and Humanities. As the 2019 Casimir Prize winner, Vergerio was nominated by the Faculty…

On 22 April 2016, the Social Justice Expertise Center (SJEC) hosted the first global conference for international labour law judges and other adjudicators themed ‘Ensuring Coherence in Fundamental Labour Rights Case Law: Challenges and Opportunities’ at the Academy Building of the University of Leid…

How is interdisciplinary collaboration faring at Leiden University? And has disciplinarity been completely abandoned? I’d like to reflect on some concerns among colleagues and on our plans for the future.

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…

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.

Good news for international collaboration: the EU’s International Credit Mobility programme has awarded 163 grants to students and researchers from Leiden University and partner universities in 19 countries outside the EU. The grants are for 19 projects that have arisen from existing partnerships.

Rather than one key and one strong lock, biology often uses tens or hundreds of weaker links to bind parts together, such as cells membranes. This allows for selectivity and also reversibility: the binding can also be undone. Researchers first caught this phenomenon using spheres or colloids, and published…

How can we guarantee the safety of the crown witness scheme for both crown witnesses and lawyers? How can we ensure that online conversations between lawyers and their clients remain confidential? And what are the risks of extra secure communication tools?

Who can pitch a book so well that everyone wants to read it? These are the winners of the 2025 Alternative Reading List Awards.

Former PhD student Cameron Mackie will been awarded not one, but two dissertation prizes for his thesis on the aromatic universe. His work could provide us with a virtual sniff of space. ‘These molecules in space likely smell like a big charcoal grill!’

Today, March 15 2016, the FAIR Guiding Principles for scientific data management and stewardship were formally published in the Nature Publishing Group journal Scientific Data.

Each year Dutch women’s magazine VIVA draws up a list of creative and enterprising women. This year our alumna and Professor of Law and Society Maartje van der Woude has been nominated. The award ceremony is on 15 November.

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…

SRON Netherlands Institute for Space Research is moving. The headquarters of the institute will relocate to the Science Campus of Leiden University. In October 2019, the first pile was officially put into the ground; in 2021, the building will be ready for use. A first glimpse at the building that will…

Lecturers Marjo de Graauw and Malte Riemann have both received a Comenius Teaching Fellowship.

Hanneke Hulst explaines how she is trying to bridge the gap between science and health care. ‘For a neuroscientist to actually contribute to solutions for patients, you have to work across disciplines.’

Psychiatrists in Morocco can't ignore Islam. Driss Moussaoui was one of the first modern psychiatrists in this North African country. He delivered the LUCIS annual lecture on 12 April.

Whereas the Netherlands Court of Audit used to conduct an investigation once a year, the average civil service organisation now has a few per year to contend with. Is so much going wrong nowadays? Not at all, says Professor by Special Appointment Sjoerd Keulen. ‘It’s one of the methods that makes democracy…

The Edinburgh Medal 2016 had been awarded to both Kevin Govender of the Office of Astronomy for Development (OAD) and the International Astronomical Union (IAU). The award is a recognition for furthering education and technological capacity worldwide through the inspirational science of astronomy. The…

And the construction has started! Students of the Leiden Science study associations ceremoniously hammered down the first poles of the new Gorlaeus on Tuesday morning. By doing so, they initiated the second phase of the construction of the second part of the new building.

This is a good time for it to happen, in the opinion of Professor of Fatherlands History, Henk te Velde. The abdication of Queen Beatrix is a good starting point for celebrating 200 years of the Dutch monarchy, in 2013. Te Velde is a member of the National Committee for 200 Years of Monarchy: 'By standing…

On September 13 and 14 Utrecht University, Leiden University and Maastricht University are organizing a two day conference on Procedural rights in criminal proceedings in the European Union, offering a venue for practitioners and young scholars to exchange experiences and ideas on this subject matter.…

The EU is aiming to deter economic coercion with a new legal instrument. Freya Baetens will elucidate this in her inaugural lecture on October 27th.

Pharmacologist Liesbeth de Lange has won the Lewis B. Sheiner Lecturer Award from the International Society of Pharmacometrics (ISoP). As Professor of Predictive Pharmacology she is working, among other things, on a mathematical model that can predict drug concentrations in the brain. On the occasion…

In the coming years, Hilde De Weerdt gets to spend over three million euros. She received grants from both the European Research Council (ERC) and the Dutch Research Council (NWO) for research on Chinese infrastructure. ‘It is great that it is also possible to develop large projects in the social sciences…

Using speech analysis to resolve crimes. That's what Meike de Boer (26) is aiming to do with her PhD research. 'By analysing how a person pronounces

Children, cardiac surgery patients or people who are obese. How can we improve the dosing of painkillers for these patients? Hospital pharmacist Sjoerd de Hoogd of the St. Antonius Hospital in Utrecht investigated this. He combined data from the hospital with the knowledge and expertise of the Leiden…

For associate professor Jenneke van der Wal, things have been good recently. After being awarded a Vici and Una Europa grant, she has now also received an Ammodo Science Award. ‘It is a nice confirmation that I am doing valuable work.’

From closed government systems in the Middle East to an exceptionally open Dutch government. Public administration lecturer Alex Ingrams is an expert on transparency: ‘Why are some countries secretive? And what role does technology play?’

Seven talented female scientists join the fight against cancer of the Oncode Insitute. Laura Heitman of the Leiden Academic Centre for Drug Research is one of the new Junior Investigators. ‘I hope to discover new druggable targets’.

The Aernout van Lynden Global Citizenship Award award is a recognition given by the LUC community. Each year a student who has demonstrated the qualities of active engagement, responsive and responsible participation in civic and/or community building, within and/or beyond LUC is presented with the…

After a successful career as a singer, Esmee Schoones started studying French a few years ago. It resulted in a national award for her thesis on musical arrangements of Verlaine's poems and a job teaching French.

In an open letter, 450 leading European researchers from 33 countries have urged European and national governments to strongly cooperate on artificial intelligence , regardless of the Brexit. Leiden professor Holger Hoos is one of the initiators.

For a long time it was thought that there were few or no female spies in history. However, nothing could be further from the truth. In her book Invisible Agents, Nadine Akkerman reconstructs the stories of the many British women spies in the 17th century.

In a new series we talk to past and present students who were the first in their family to go to university. In this first instalment: novelist and columnist Christiaan Weijts (1976). ‘I always felt as though someone would tap me on my shoulder once they’d discovered my clandestine presence.’

The announcement by US President Donald Trump on 9 March in response to the invitation for a summit meeting with the North Korean supreme leader Kim Jong Un came as a big surprise. Media analyses vary from being very positive to almost cynically negative. However, according to researcher on Korea Koen…

Matheus Mendes was awarded the 12th Jaap Doek Thesis Prize at a ceremony on 13 December 2024 for his thesis on the right to read. The prize honours outstanding master’s theses in children’s rights.

Hanne Cuyckens and Daan Weggemans have been appointed Teaching Fellow and Member of the Leiden Teachers' Academy (LTA) from 1 September 2023.

Political scientist Corinna Jentzsch received an NWO Veni grant for her research on the conditions of collaboration between militias and state forces and its consequences for safety and political order.

One of the good things about my job is that I come into contact with so many different alumni. It’s incredibly important that we build good relationships with our alumni from a young age already. We can help our graduates develop skills and grow their network, and they in turn can help our organisation…

The perception of the Middle East is riddled with stereotypes that have had dire consequences on its people. What is myth and what is reality? How did these stereotypes come about? What consequences have they had? All of these questions and more are answered within this reading list.

The Hague Court of Arbitration for Aviation (The Hague CAA) successfully marked its official debut conference with the support of partners, which include Leiden University's International Institute of Air and Space Law (IIASL), the Netherlands Arbitration Institute (NAI), and the Municipality of The…

Economic anthropologist Erik Bähre does research on the morality of insurance. In his latest ethnography ‘Ironies of Solidarity’ Bähre explores how the South African insurance market expanded.

Monique Koemans werkt sinds 2,5 jaar op de Nederlandse ambassade in de Verenigde Staten. 'Leiden is een opvallende rode draad in mijn leven.'

The jury of the Africa Thesis Award is delighted to announce that the 2024 prize has been awarded to Baleseng Maeneche, a graduate of the Faculty of Arts & Humanities at the University of the Western Cape, for her thesis 'Media Representations of Male Perpetrators of Violence against Women and Children:…

The 2015 and 2018 Personnel monitors show that maintaining a good work balance remains difficult for staff at the Faculty of Humanities. Lecturer and researcher Judith Naeff and holder of the operational management portfolio Suzy Sirks have joined the Work Balance Steering Committee to examine the…

Leiden Observatory has achieved a rare feat: two of its research teams have been awarded prestigious ALMA Large Programmes, allowing them to study how galaxies formed and evolved in the early Universe using cutting-edge telescope observations.

To facilitate the search for new antibiotics. That is the aim of Gilles van Wezel, professor molecular biotechnology at the Institute of Biology Leiden (IBL). He wants to do this by looking at similarities in the DNA of antibiotic-producing bacteria. Van Wezel has been awarded an ERC Advanced grant…