To look for atmospheres around planets outside our solar system is to look for extraterrestrial life. Astronomist Sebastian Zieba used data from the James Webb Space Telescope to study small rocky exoplanets but found no aliens yet. However, his findings are still very interesting for future observations.…

The course Designing Your Life helps students navigate their career pathways. As it turns out, these pathways are full of twists and turns and - as with many journeys - you only make progress once you gather the courage to take the first step.

The Just Peace Festival's first edition is live! The Opening Event marked the beginning of two weeks filled with activities to reflect on what peace and justice mean in today's world.

As of 1 September, Marco van Eijk has been appointed Director of Education of the bachelor's programme Life Science & Technology. He succeeds Marcellus Ubbink, who moved to the position of Scientific Director of the Leiden Institute for Chemical Research (LIC). Van Eijk has been appointed for a period…

Fish populations in lakes and rivers have declined in recent decades. This is probably due to light and noise pollution. The Horizon Europe grant enables ecologist Hans Slabbekoorn to investigate this and improve the situation for migrating fish. In order to do so, a seven-metre-long swimming tunnel…

Vivian Ng came back to Leiden last June to finally sign the walls of the Sweat Room. Graduated in 2020 during the pandemic, she missed out on this wonderful tradition, like so many others. While enjoying a day off in Leiden, we talked about her time as a student and her current job.

The former outreach team of the Social Resilience and Security programme 'Jonge Wetenschappers' developed a podcastseries (in Dutch) about the online life of today’s youth and the related social challenges that adolescents face.

Practical advice, a panel discussion, and an informal networking reception: students and alumni from the MA International Relations can look back on yet another successful event last April. The diverse backgrounds and careers of the alumni vividly illustrated the range of opportunities awaiting students…

Fradinta Laksmita came to Leiden in 2023 for the Advanced Master Law & Finance during her sabbatical. She has since returned to Jakarta and now works as an associate lawyer at Dentons. ‘My best memory was actually going to class.’

Due to the increasing resistance to certain antibiotics, the life-threatening condition sepsis is becoming harder to treat. For her PhD project, Leiden pharmacologist Feiyan Liu used mathematical modeling to find out how antibiotics can be used more effectively to cure sepsis.

During their second year, the students of the bachelor Security Studies get a feeling of what their professional career might look like.

How adolescents perceive parenting is related to their mood. Differences between the perspectives of parents and adolescents are also of importance for adolescents’ mood. That is what research by Loes Janssen and her Leiden University colleagues in Clinical Psychology shows. Open Access publication…

Organisation

Movement behaviours, such as physical activity, sleep, and the amount of time we sit each day, impact our health. Recently, more researchers are looking at the influence of these behaviours combined, but this is a challenging task. For example, it is difficult to monitor in what way movement behaviours…

Getting motivation, courage and tools to find a job that will help you tackle the climate crisis: it is at the heart of the course ‘Designing Your Career as a Climate Changemaker’. With their final presentations, the students conclude this climate-specific skills module within the Designing Your Life…

As a mathematician, Fred Rohde (1948) explored the world of numbers. As a photographer, he captured demonstrations. And now he’s reconstructing his mother’s wartime story – an extraordinary tale of her stay with an Austrian family, the inventors of asbestos cement.

‘A challenging rollercoaster, but also a very bonding and insightful experience,’ that’s how the team of iGEM Leiden 2022 wraps up their participation in the iGEM contest. The contest for synthetic biology climaxed during the Grand Jamboree in Paris. The team ended up in the top 10 of over 360 teams…

Researchers from Leiden University analysed almost 30 years of communication on astrobiology. News articles proved most speculative, especially via quotes from scientists. Especially exoplanet research is often accompanied by high expectations about extraterrestrial life, they write in PLOS One.

In our rapidly evolving and interconnected world, the study of International Relations has expanded beyond conventional disciplinary boundaries. Leiden University’s MAIR program, with its emphasis on humanities-oriented and multidisciplinary perspectives, contends that understanding the complexities…

On 11 June 2025, the MA in International Relations (MAIR) Programme convened its 2nd Humanities & IR Graduate Conference at The Hague Campus (Schouwburgstraat), welcoming over sixty participants from twenty institutions in Europe, North America, and Asia.

In our rapidly evolving and interconnected world, the study of International Relations has expanded beyond conventional disciplinary boundaries. Leiden University’s MA in International Relations program (MAIR-Humanities), with its emphasis on humanities-oriented and multidisciplinary perspectives, contends…

'After my BA International Studies I decided to do the MA International Relations, and that proved to be a good choice,' Mats Radeck (23, Trier, Germany) says. He is in the last phase of the MA, working on his thesis on "lone-wolf terrorism".

In our rapidly evolving and interconnected world, the study of International Relations has expanded beyond conventional disciplinary boundaries. Leiden University’s MA in International Relations program (MAIR - Humanities), with its emphasis on humanities-oriented and multidisciplinary perspectives,…

Een kort filmpje over inclusie van migranten vermindert vooroordelen minstens drie maanden. Maar mensen ervaren fysieke stress als zij conservatiever tegenover migranten staan dan de groepsopinie dicteert. ‘We moeten mensen aanmoedigen, niet confronteren.’ Sociaal psycholoog Feiteng Long promoveert…

Speculation about alien life, a new nitrogen map, AI as a thesis supervisor, groundbreaking telescopes and multi-million-euro investments to combat antimicrobial resistance – the diversity of these topics shows that our readers are just as broadly interested as our researchers. Discover the most-read…

Astronomers have found complex organic ice outside the Milky Way for the first time. The discovery shows that the building blocks of life could arise early in the universe - and under a variety of conditions, said Leiden astronomer Will Rocha.

Education

James Webb life’s building blocks

Cultural anthropology students study how architecture influences student behavior, safety, and community at MBORijnland through fieldwork research.

What’s really happening in the space between the cells in your body? With the Collagen Canvas project, students from Leiden University invite you to explore this question by blending science with art. This interactive artwork immerses you in the dynamics of the extracellular matrix—the invisible structure…

Geriatrics needs to radically change. This is what Simon Mooijaart will say in his inaugural lecture.

In the Honours College course 'From Research to Children's Books', students learned how to translate scientific insights into accessible language. This also included writing their own stories for children. After the solitary process of writing and editing, it was time to put their skills into practi…