There are miniaturisation beams, microrobots, and ice skaters who suddenly drop into a hole in the ice. Students of the local MBO Rijnland let their imagination run free while animating Leiden physics research. The result is eleven surprising and very diverse science animations.

This week the Turkish army invaded North East Syria. The Turkish invasion might well have had an unintended side effect: the escapement of thousands of Islamic State terrorists held in captivity. Experts on terrorism and politicians fear a resurrection of the terror group.

How do we tackle financial stress among students? Policymakers and students came up with a plan. The outcome has been a report that the university can use to help answer the question. Vera Hilgevoord organised the brainstorm session with students and has compiled their ideas.

In Dutch newspaper NRC, Pieter Omtzigt says he finds it 'unconstitutional' that he has no right to vote in committee meetings. Omtzigt believes he is as much a Member of Parliament as other MPs. However, since 2017, a breakaway group is no longer entitled to a proportional share of staff support and…

An international team of astronomers have become the first in the world to detect isotopes in the atmosphere of an exoplanet. It concerns different forms of carbon in the gaseous giant planet TYC 8998-760-1 b. The research will be published in the scientific journal Nature on Thursday.

Alain studies Public Administration and is politically active. He talks about why it is important for young people to be politically active and vote.

Planning the timetables in FGGA is a challenging process. To offer a look behind the scenes, we spoke to Quino - functional administrator, Mandy and Ric - the faculty's timetable makers.

Professor of Cognitive Psychology Mariska Kret studies how humans and animals express emotions. Comparisons between humans and great apes offer important evolutionary insights, Kret will say in her inaugural lecture on Friday 9 September.

Chinese universities have big ambitions to be among the leading international higher education institutions. What does this mean in terms of opportunities for researchers at the universities of Leiden, Delft and Rotterdam? Staff at the universities recently discussed the issue.

Hosted at the Netherlands Institute in Morocco (NIMAR) in Rabat on 26 and 27 October, 20 junior and senior empirical researchers who all work on migration in Morocco came together to discuss two important topics that are frequently neglected in migration scholarship. The researchers were from different…

On Thursday 10 November, the GTGC organized a research seminar. During this seminar Saori Katada presented her paper on Regional Approach to Financial Statecraft: Japan and India in the Face of Rising China.

At the time of writing, the UK has just acquired an extension for their departure from the European Union. However, this had not been the case when LUC’s ‘Regional Trends: The EU and its Neighbourhood’ class visited the Irish Embassy on Wednesday 20th March; at this point, everyone was preparing for…

On Thursday 16 January, the first ILS Lunch Seminar of this year took place. Hoko Horii and Lexo Zardiashvili gave two very insightful presentations on their current and future research.

Daphne Wong-A-Foe received her Media Technology MSc diploma cum laude in August 2021. Her thesis research used EEG recordings to study aspects of traditional Javanese Jaran Kepang dancing, something she holds close to her heart.

A group of 18 Leiden students and alumni are advising the University on diversity and inclusiveness. Portraits of 11 members of the Diversity Policy Feedback Group.

Archaeologist Maikel Kuijpers participated in the development of the boardgame Epoch: Early Inventors. “This game is inspired by the major innovation that happened in prehistoric times. A topic that has my interest and that I teach here in Leiden.

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.’

On 11 and 19 April, the International Leiden Leadership Programme students got together to participate in a Business Game: a simulation game where the participants get a business case-study they have to solve. The goal? An agreement between all stakeholders – but most importantly: to employ the different…

Museums have long focused on power, wealth and a few famous figures. But that is changing, says Valika Smeulders, head of the history department at the Rijksmuseum. What this change comprises and how it has come about is the subject of her keynote speech at the D&I Symposium on 11 January.

AstroEDU is one of the world's most inspiring education innovations, according to the experts at HundrED. It is a recognition for a place where educators can discover, review, change, and share astronomy- and space-related activities for primary and secondary education, and where they can have their…

The Executive Board has appointed Pieter ter Keurs as professor of Museums, Collections, and Society as of 1 September 2019. The chair will be part of LUCAS (Faculty of Humanities) and is a collaborative effort of the Faculty of Archaeology and the Faculty of Humanities. Ter Keurs has his roots in…

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…

How do forensic scientists deal with complex DNA-evidence found at crime scenes? Giulia Cereda developed new statistical models to analyse them. PhD defense 12 January.

Scientists of the faculty of Governance and Global Affairs research completely different subject, among which terrorism, cybercrime and migration. We give the floor to several of our very best researchers. In this episode: Caroline Archambault researches the Masai in Kenia.

On 28 February, Marieke Liem, Associate Professor at the Institute of Security and Global Affairs, appeared as a guest on the Dutch NPO Radio 1 Brainwash Podcast to discuss the 'big homicide questions' she is trying to find the answers to.

A full overview of all loans and debts between banks would help preventing a new financial collapse. But banks do not provide this information. An econophysics model by Diego Garlaschelli and collaborators reconstructs the most probable situation and finishes first place in two independent tests.

Suzan Tunca was the first dancer to receive her PhD from PhDArts at Leiden University. Her work focuses on the relationship between the physical and metaphysical. 'It took a while to find the right tone and language for this.'

When new features are being written into software code, errors can easily be made. This causes bugs, which leads to software appearing later and being more expensive. Michiel Helvensteijn, a PhD student from CWI and the Leiden Institute of Advanced Computer Science, studied how to prevent these kinds…

On Thursday 17 October 2019, the second ILS Lunch Seminar of this academic year took place. Hanneke Bennaars and Prof. Frans Sonneveldt gave two very insightful presentations.

Hari Nugroho explores the role of local dynamics in shaping Indonesian labour movements. By focusing on the micro-level, this research reveals how labour organisation strategies are influenced by individual actors' personal histories, their interactions, and the way in which they respond the local economic…

Co-production it is called: collaboration between citizens and public servants with reference to public services. Carola van Eijk defends het PhD thesis on this subject at the Institute of Public Administration in The Hague. Defense 11 October 2017.

The Lucia de Berk case or the suicide of Slobodan Praljak at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia: certain trials keep popping up in media. In her dissertation, Tessa de Zeeuw examines the cultural appeal of such cases and analyses artistic responses. ‘Artworks sometimes have…

The Leiden University psychologist Carolien Rieffe will investigate how to create an social climate at high schools, to make young people with autism feel more comfortable and able to engage with their social surroundings and thus develop essential social and emotional skills. Rieffe and collaborators…

Are maps objective or do they convey hidden messages that you would miss at first glance? A map is always a simplification of reality. Mapmakers reduce, distort and select. This allows the reader to be guided literally and figuratively. Leiden University Libraries (UBL) and the Museum Volkenkunde jointly…

At the symposium ‘Diversity and Inclusion in the Police: from Aspiration to Reality’, the central question was how organisations can truly embody diversity and inclusion. The high level of interest (it was fully booked in no time) demonstrates that the topic is pressing—both in academia and in pract…

The Institute for Philosophy further expands its knowledge: As of 1 September, Annemie Halsema holds the chair of Wijsgerige antropologie en de grondslagen van het humanisme (Philosophical anthropology and the principles of humanism, ed.). In the coming five years, she will study current societal issues…

Leiden University has a new professor. On 1 June Nadine Akkerman became Professor of Early Modern Literature and Culture, a position she feels is designed to help her help others.

Leiden Law School is organising a summer conference on Law and Artificial Intelligence as part of the interfaculty and interdisciplinary research programme on Artificial Intelligence (SAILS) at Leiden University.

Black Theatre, activist theatre by and for black South Africans, flourished under apartheid. However, according to Francis Rangoajane, the democratisation of South Africa has in no way diminished the importance of this art form. PhD defence 16 November.

It must be there. We just cannot see it: mysterious dark matter and dark energy in the universe. Henk Hoekstra is one of the many cosmologists who would love to know what exactly these substances consist of. He has received a European research grant of 1.3 euro million to find out.

Poetry, video editing, musical art: the first installment of the 48 Hour Project, in which students created a piece of art in only two days, has resulted in a wide variety of creativity. For participants, it was a glimmer of light in a rather dark year of lockdowns: “I felt like I was physically there with…

Leiden Madtrics: metrics and matter that matters is officially live today! The blog is launched to invite the community to contribute on topics that pertain to the research landscape, and any topics related to social studies of science, technology and innovation.

On 8 February Jan Michiel Otto, professor of Law and Governance in Developing Countries, delivered the dies lecture entitled: 'Unity in diversity. The topicality of professor C. van Vollenhoven'. Otto emphasized - following Van Vollenhoven - the importance of scope and respect for the public sphere…

Leiden's cultural anthropologist Anouk de Koning is receiving a Vici research grant for her project ‘Prototyping Welfare in Europe: Experiments in State and Society’ to study welfare experiments in four countries and to examine what they tell us about the futures of European welfare states.

Mirjam de Bruijn has received a funding from the Research Council of Norway for the research project called 'Decoding Digital Media in African Regions of Conflict (DDMAC)'. The project is a collaboration with colleagues from Oslomet and Simula, Norway, Utrecht University, University of Addis Abeba,…

Dr. Moritz Jesse, Associate Professor European Law at the Europa Institute, gave a lecture about Migration and Asylum on Thursday 22 February 2018.

Recent study led at the Leiden Observatory has observed Orion with unprecedented detail. New data from the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) and other telescopes have been used to create this stunning image showing a web of filaments in the Orion Nebula. These features appear red-hot…

Terracotta pottery, precious ikat fabrics and the bazaars where these goods are sold: all these can be seen in a new Louvre film premiering on Friday 9 December. University lecturer Elena Paskaleva collaborated on the film Uzbekistan a timeless journey in Central Asia about Uzbek artefacts.

How are you doing in these strange and unprecedented times? That’s the question we are asking our colleagues in this series. Jasmijn Mioch, for instance, HRM Learning & Development Adviser.

How can data science improve tax administration? Mark Pijnenburg, a senior data scientist at the Netherlands Tax and Customs Administration, decided to investigate this in a dissertation. He talks about his experiences: 'Sometimes a technique is scientifically interesting, but not applicable in real…