In 2025, our colleagues from the Institute of Psychology once again made a strong presence in the media. From (inter)national newspapers to podcasts, discover where they shared their expertise in the media this year.

Finland reduced its suicide rate from 30 deaths per 100,000 citizens. Marieke Liem and Leah Prencipe discuss this in The Conversation.

Er zijn structurele (sociale) veiligheidsproblemen in vrouwengevangenissen, blijkt uit onderzoek van Leidse onderzoekers Esther van Ginneken en Yara Abbing. Universitair hoofddocent Van Ginneken sprak met Trouw: ‘We moeten macht, seksualiteit en discriminatie bespreekbaar maken.’

Associate professor Rens Tacoma has won the 2021 Research Prize for Historical Sciences. The prize is awarded annually by the Italy Studies Working Group for the best scholarly publication in the field of Italy Studies in Dutch or Flemish academia.

Young people spend a lot of their time online. Even so, we still know very little about how this intensive use of social media influences their development. Brain researcher and Spinoza Prize winner Eveline Crone from Leiden University and media psychologist Elly Konijn (VU) describes what the research…

Anne-Laura van Harmelen has received a Vidi grant from the Dutch Research Council (NWO). This talent programme will enable Van Harmelen to research the social and neurobiological mechanisms of resilience in young people with childhood trauma.

Professor Jenny Doetjes has received an NWO grant to research the cross-linguistic properties of quantity expressions and our brain's influence on language.

An MRI scanner is much more than a machine alone. It is an extremely versatile technique that provides numerous opportunities for finding out more about the workings of the human brain, says Thijs van Osch, Professor of Radiology, with a particular emphasis on experimental cerebrovascular imaging. Inaugural…

Last year, LUCSoR welcomed two new Ph.D. students from Iran: Kiyan Foroutan from Ahvaz and Amir Ardalan Emami from Tehran. Kiyan works on a project on the role of the family in medieval and early modern Zoroastrianism in India and Iran (15th-18th centuries). Ardalan works on a much earlier period, the…

Niek Strohmaier and Gitta Veldt will start as assistant professors within the project Empirical Legal Studies (ELS). Their appointments are part of the sector plan of Leiden Law School.

Professor of Neurocognitive Developmental Psychology Eveline Crone will receive an Ammodo KNAW Award. This was announced by Ammodo, an institute for arts and sciences, and the Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW) on 25 January.

What started as a student project in the Media Technology program, became a successful internationally operating company offering therapeutic virtual bike rides. Meet alumni Ella Keijzer and Job de Reus, founders and owners of Bike Labyrinth.

In the future, computers will be able to base their decisions on intuition. Professor Jaap van den Herik, director of the Leiden Centre of Data Science, posed this statement today in his Valedictory Address at Tilburg University.

Context-based learning has been implemented in secondary chemistry education. Hans Vogelzang, PhD at ICLON, reseached whether Scrum methodology might support creating context-based lessons. Scrum appears to be beneficial to learning outcomes. Defence on 10 November.

Computer scientist Tessa Verhoef received a Best Paper Award during the ‘ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility’. The paper emphasised the need for interdisciplinary research in sign language processing. The authors state that linguists and computer scientists should collaborate with…

Francien Dechesne, Associate Professor of Ethics and Digital Technologies, has been appointed by the Tilburg School of Humanities and Digital Sciences of Tilburg University as Professor to the endowed chair of ‘Data and AI for the Rule of Law’, effective 1 November 2025.

Ross Gildea has won the Institute of Political Science Research Master Thesis Prize 2016. ‘The Political Psychology of Humanitarian Issue (Non-)Adoption in International Politics’ is the crowning achievement of Gildea’s work as a MSc student. The thesis, according to the jury, stands out as a ‘fine…

Using musical cues to learn a physical task significantly develops an important part of the brain, according to a new study co-authored by Leiden psychologist Rebecca Schaefer. The results are published in the journal Brain & Cognition.

As of 19 April 2022, professor Jacobijn Gussekloo has been appointed Dean of the Honours Academy at Leiden University. Gussekloo is professor of Primary Care and director of the master’s programme Vitality and Ageing. Gussekloo succeeds professor Jos Schaeken, who has been Dean since March 2020.

During the 2019 Health, Medical and Neuropsychology Christmas lunch, several staff members and research (student) assistants were awarded.

Prof. Hanneke Hulst has been appointed Scientific Director of the Institute of Psychology by the Board of the Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences. She will start on 1 February 2024 for a period of 3 years, succeeding Andrea Evers and interim director Serge Rombouts.

When parking in reverse, your car skids off just a little, hitting the wall of the parking garage. On the car dashboard, a warning light immediately starts blinking. This technique from new cars can also be used for another purpose, namely in the treatment of Parkinson's disease patients.

Na Zhou (PhD at ICLON) researched how vocational teachers’ learning takes place in a work placement programme and how their learning supports their teaching in school. Defence on 1 March.

Nancy Kula has been Professor of African Linguistics since 1 February. Now is a good time to hear more about her field of expertise and academic interests.

On the 29th of August 2017 Janine Geerling and Marjo de Graauw, together with their collaborating partners at Kryt B.V., organized a national symposium on Present-day Practicals. During this first edition the focus was on the implementation and use of the digital support tool LabBuddy within practical…

Questionnaires or concentration tasks can be used to screen for anxiety, but so too can EEG recordings – at least indirectly. The frequent mind wandering of anxious people can also be seen on MRI scans. These are just some of the findings of clinical neuropsychologist Dana van Son. PhD defence on 24…

Over 80 speakers from around 15 different countries came together to discuss the latest developments in multilingualism during the Conference on Multilingualism 2019 (COM2019). This year’s conference was hosted by Leiden University Centre for Linguistics (LUCL) at Leiden University.

Flitsinterview met alumnus Kees van der Staaij: ik ben en blijf een jurist in hart en nieren

Language is omnipresent: when you talk, app or meet in Teams. Understanding how we communicate with one another and what communication does to us is essential. In her inaugural lecture, Nivja de Jong will call to redress the balance between the sciences and the humanities.

After receiving positive feedback from peers, socially anxious young people feel as confident about themselves as their non-anxious counterparts. 'These young people are then able to handle new social situations more confidently,’ says Leiden psychologist Anne Miers. Her research is published in the…

Lecture

Anthropologist Anouk de Koning about the tottering welfare state and the dilemmas of a government operating as a nearby, friendly partner.

De onderzoeksteams zijn opgezet, samenwerkingen zijn gestart, projecten afgetrapt, de eerste startsubsidies zijn binnen en de websites zijn in de lucht. Het stimuleringsprogramma Citizenship, Migration and Global Transformations, dat bestaat uit de twee pijlers Social Citizenship and Migration en Global…

Seminar

Connecting worlds, enhancing research and teaching, and providing innovative solutions to complex social issues: that is the idea behind interdisciplinary research. In that respect, a huge amount happened at Leiden University in 2023.

Speech Prosody 2024 includes several poster sessions, the description of which you can find below.

PhD defence

PhD defence

PhD defence

As climate change and ecological degradation’s effects on our mental health becomes more severe, we must all do our best to protect not just the environment, but also our mental well-being. Therefore, on this Sustainability Day, we have collaborated with Healthy University Leiden to focus on the relationship…

The Leiden Leadership Programme (LLP) employs experts in the field of leadership. They equip LLP students with the necessary leadership knowledge, insights and skills to increase their social impact.

In a New York Times report on a bitter archaeological feud over the Nebra sky disk, Maikel Kuijpers reflects on its importance. 'It’s really unfortunate if we put all our focus on one exceptional status object. I think that’s not helping our discipline.'

Elise Kortink, student of the Master in Psychology (research) won the award for the best LUF-grant application of 2016 with her research proposal for an internship at the Yale Child Study Center (YCSC).

White girls receive significantly more positive comments from their teachers in their primary school reports than white boys and children from migrant backgrounds. PhD candidate Antoinette Kroes researched subtle biases in different contexts and saw how harmful these can be.

Migrants are far less of a burden on the budget of European countries than is often thought. This is the conclusion of research by economists from Leiden University.

Americans are electing a new president in November but they also have other choices to make in the polling booth. Alumnus Sanne Rijkhoff works at a Texas university and is trying to help make students more aware of the elections.

The Royal Netherlands Academy of Sciences (KNAW) has awarded an Academy Professorship to Ewine van Dishoeck, Professor of Molecular Astrophysics at Leiden University.

A research team of fifteen people – representing domains such as political economy, international relations, law, history and public administration - will work on the interdisciplinary programme Citizenship, Migration and Global Transformation. Leiden University has granted 3.5 million euro's to the…

A professor from Leiden University, together with a former employee (who is also the professor’s partner), has been guilty of long-term unacceptable and often transgressive behaviour in the form of abuse of power and manipulation. This behaviour led to a culture of fear among staff who were largely…

On 25 November, the global 16-day campaign 'Orange the World' against violence against women and girls started. Leiden University will also be paying attention to this campaign. On Friday 9 December, Renate van der Zee and Marieke Liem will give a lecture at the Campus The Hague (Spanish Steps, Wijnhaven)…