A European project should help reinvigorate Latin teaching in secondary schools. 'By focusing on citizenship, we want to show that Latin is relevant to discussions about citizenship and migration.'

Leiden health psychologist Liesbeth Van Vliet receives recognition for her research on doctor-patient communication and its influence on quality of healthcare. Van Vliet has been awarded one of four Heineken Young Scientists Award 2022 for promising young researchers working in the Netherlands.

A friendly chat is more complicated than you might think. As soon as the other person finishes talking, you already have an answer ready. But how do we know when it's time to change turns? University lecturer Johanneke Caspers has been awarded an NWO Open Competition grant to investigate the role of…

Free playtime and physical play are of great importance to children's social development. That is the main conclusion of innovative research by developmental psychologists and computer scientists from Leiden University.

LUF grants for research projects have been awarded to Liesbeth van Vliet, Michiel Claessen, Anna van Duijvenvoorde, Laura Steenbergen, Kim de Jong and Franziska Richter. Each of these Leiden University scientists receive an amount between € 17.500 and € 25.000 to realise their scientific plans.

Op 8 oktober organiseerde het Leiden Healthy Society Center een inspirirend kenniscafé over de rol van vaders in de opvoeding van hun kinderen.

Researchers at FOM-institute AMOLF and the Leiden Institute of Physics (LION) have developed a rubber rod with strange bending behaviours. Beyond a certain point, it bends more under decreasing pressure. This behaviour doesn’t fit our expectations and does not conform to secular laws that predict the…

From a Tuscany escape room to scientific illustrations of flowers, and from Chinese movie subtitles to innovative education methods for children, every subject imaginable was covered at the first ever Honours College Conference. ‘You get the chance to break away from the standard study path.’

In the second semester of this academic year (February 2025), the Faculty of the Humanities will switch to Ans for digital exams. Several lecturers have already gained experience with the new platform through pilot exams. Two lecturers from Dutch Studies, Liesbet Winkelmolen and Myra Arends, share their…

The alignment of the James Webb Space Telescope is complete. The space observatory is able to capture sharp, well-directed images with each of its four powerful scientific instruments on board. The MIRI instrument, on which Professor of Molecular Astrophysics Ewine van Dishoeck also worked, was the…

Within 20 years, intelligent machines will play a major role in society. ‘Selfdriving cars will be 90% safer than human-driven cars and will change transportation globally,’ says artificial intelligence scientist Bart Selman of Cornell University. He gave the first Ada Lovelace lecture of the Leiden…

Four students of the Faculty of Archaeology investigated how the current and past inhabitants of the Dutch province of South Holland deal with water. Their findings now feature in an exhibition that can now be visited in the Van Steenis building’s Reuvenshal.

Advisory Board member Francesca Forno shares insights about the Food Citizens? project.

Explaining your PhD research to others can be quite difficult, especially without talking! PhD student Annebelle Kok of the Institute of Biology Leiden was one of the finalists of the 'Dance Your PhD' competition of scientific journal Science. ‘You have to understand your own research well if you are…

For the students of our Dutch institutions, the Netherlands Embassy supported an ‘academic retreat’ at hotel Stella de Mare in Ayn Sukhna. During this two-day retreat, our students discussed with students of al-Azhar University in Cairo on various topics. It was an open exchange of ideas and feedback…

People with intermittent arterial claudication often experience severe pain when walking. Psychologist Anne Cuperus used virtual reality to trick 20 patients, and discovered that they could suddenly walk much further. PhD defence on 10 December.

Martin Richardson, who graduated in 1997 from what was then the Leiden LLM Programme in European Community Law (now: Leiden Adv LLM European and International Business Law, EIBL), has recently been appointed as a Senator of the College of Justice in Scotland, meaning that he is now a judge of the highest…

If you look closely, you may recognise the metal beams from the skeleton of the Circular Pavilion near Leiden Central Station: they come from the demolished Gorlaeus Highrise. The same beams have also been used for the circular construction of BioPartner 5 at the Leiden Bio Science Park, which will…

Dr Nadine Akkerman, lecturer in Early Modern Literature and postdoctoral researcher in Leiden, has written a new book to accompany the exhibition on Elizabeth Stuart and Amalia von Solms at the Historical Museum of The Hague. ‘They were like goddesses, constantly trying to upstage one another,’ says…

A piece of corrugated rubber can function as a simple computer, displaying memory and displaying the ability to count to two. Leiden physicists describe the computing rubber in the journal PNAS. ‘Simple materials can process information, and we want to find the principles behind that.’

An online course offered by Leiden University on the European Union is among the top 50 MOOCs in the world. This was announced recently by MOOC platform Class Central.

The roof of the lecture halls at the Faculty of Science was fitted with solar panels in June, making it the biggest solar-panel-covered roof in Leiden.

‘In recent publications about the slave trade the same rhetorical weapons are used as two centuries ago in the battle for the abolition of the British slave trade. It is a topic fraught with emotions, but that should not prevent historians from being as careful and impartial as possible in their research,’…

Can humans sense where north is, using what is known as magnetoreception? This question had master’s student Björn Keyser (Media Technology) so intrigued that he started crowdfunding to be able to study this together with the California Institute of Technology.

The PhD students at the Academy for Creative and Performing Arts of Leiden University include a composer, an artist and a baroque flautist. Henk Borgdorff, who studied the phenomenon of PhDs in the Arts, says, ‘Artistic research in all disciplines of the Arts is a booming business worldwide.’

To celebrate the formal launch of the Leiden Chinese Queer Collection (LCQC, 莱顿华语酷儿文献收藏), promote Chinese queer studies scholarship, and raise the visibility of Chinese queer history and culture, the LCQC steering committee will hold a workshop on 24-25 July 2025, under the aegis of the Leiden University…

What do gender identity and digital technology have to do with each other? Together they are the subject of research at Leiden University. Researchers Tessa Verhoef and Eduard Fosch-Villaronga of the faculties of Mathematics and Natural Sciences and Law will investigate the interaction between artificial…

The RED team, a group of independent experts, has advised the Dutch government to close down all (secondary) schools. It is a difficult balance the government has to find between limiting the number of contagions and the social consequences of closing down the schools. As a result of the first lockdown…

Do you often find yourself exhausted in the lecture hall or at your workplace? Not great for your mental well-being, as Laura Pape knows. She is investigating how an online self-help program can assist in addressing sleep issues and preventing mental health problems. Join her on this elevator pitch…

The Hague Project Peace & Justice, in cooperation with Dr. Alanna O’Malley of the Leiden University Institute for History, organized a one-day conference on October 23rd, to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the United Nations. Students of the ‘A History of the United Nations’ elective course of the…

Last year, the abuse of a girl by her foster parents shocked the Netherlands. Their trial begins today in a case that marks a turning point for youth care. Mariëlle Bruning, Professor of Child Law, has spoken to various news outlets.

A quarter of all Dutch students suffer burn-out symptoms, and an even greater percentage regularly experience emotional exhaustion and tiredness. At a symposium on 7 May students were given tips for handling stress.

How many species of plants, animals, fungi and moss live in the gardens surrounding the Oude UB at Rapenburg 70? On Tuesday May 20th, the Citizen Science Lab led an investigation in the front gardens and back courtyard of the Old UB at Rapenburg 70, together with 15 colleagues working in that buildi…

The group structure of Jihadist networks changes rapidly, which makes it difficult to monitor them. This is the finding of research by criminologist Jasper de Bie. PhD defence 14 April.

Baroque flautist Jed Wentz followed two years of dancing classes in order to develop the right feeling for the gestures required for the Baroque French opera genre ‘tragédie en musique’. On 9 December Wentz defended his PhD thesis on the subject, and on 8 December he gave a concert in the context of…

Researchers from Leiden University, the Netherlands, designed a novel metamaterial that buckles on demand. Small structural variations in the material single out regions that buckle selectively under external stress, whereas other regions remain unchanged. The research is published in this week’s Early…

Anthonya (Thony) Visser, Leiden Professor of German Language and Literature, is spending six months as a senior fellow at the Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies. 'Possibly the most important thing of all is that I have time.'

When you stretch an elastic band, it gets longer. But imagine a material that actually becomes shorter when you pull on it. Sounds strange, doesn’t it? Yet that’s exactly what physicists from Leiden University, AMOLF, and ARCNL have managed to create.

Professor Maurits Berger is presenting an online course, starting on 6 November, on the images that Islam and the West hold of one another. The course will be useful for diplomats from Teheran to Islamabad.

Data scientist Lindsey Burggraaff has won the second edition of the Krijn Rietveld Memorial Innovation Award. She receives the prize for her research into bioactive substances in food. ‘Burggraaff's work is situated at a unique intersection of data science, biochemistry and the fields of food and nutrition,’…

Michiel Veldhuis received the most public votes for the C.J. Kok Public Award and may therefore call himself Discoverer of the Year. Veldhuis researches how climate change affects savannah ecosystems in Africa and how we can protect them.

Early July was the graduation ceremony of the Leiden Leadership Programme,: a moment to reflect and celebrate the outcomes of eight months’ hard work. Leiden’s Marekerk was filled with colourful music and some wise pieces of advice: ‘Find the path that suits you best.’

Rector Magnificus Carel Stolker was presented with a 'Diamond' on 8 June in recognition of Leiden University's role as a 'shining example' of male/female diversity. 'It's a question of determination,' says Stolker, 'and that gets results. For example, we are appointing an increasing number of female…

Physicists, including Leiden researcher, Sanli Faes, have devised a new technique for studying processes at microscale rapidly and extremely precisely. This new method will make it easier to develop antiviral medication. And it doesn’t stop there. Publication in ACS Nano.

At the end of May, the Leiden English Language and Culture Programme, formerly known as the Department of English Language and Literature, celebrated its 75th anniversary (starting from the appointment of the first professor of English Studies). Over 220 alumni, staff present and past, and students…

Artist Marlene Dumas gave the 48th Huizinga Lecture to a packed Pieterskerk on 6 December. She spoke about her own background, and why you can’t assume this will help you understand her work.

A series of upcoming activities by docARTES researchers Niels Berentsen, Bobby Mitchell, Shaya Feldman, and PhDArts researchers Jonas Staal, Riccardo Giacconi, Yota Ioannidou, and Brigitte Kovacs

The proportion of children who are overweight has increased enormously over the past 20 years. The number has currently stabilised but even so there are still too many overweight and obese children. Could there be some connection with the way they are brought up? Roxanna Camfferman's PhD research shows…

For months, students dedicated themselves to a more sustainable world alongside their studies, as part of the LDE Sustainability Honours Programme. What solutions did they come up with for the challenges posed by organisations like Naturalis and ClimateMatters?

Young children who are less empathetic than their peers are more likely to be aggressive when older. This is what Malou Noten concludes in her dissertation. PhD defence on 25 November.