University is often a period of sexual exploration and experimentation, generally to the satisfaction of all involved. But sometimes you want it and the other doesn’t. Or vice versa. Or you can’t really tell. This is what the Safe Space play at Theater Ins Blau was about on 11 October. And: can your…

A flint tool covered with a tar-like substance has turned out to be a top scientific find. Research by a Dutch team of scientists showed the find to be a piece of birch tar that was extracted 50,000 years ago by Neanderthals using complex techniques. The tar was used as an adhesive to make it easier…

In her dissertation, political scientist Alessia Aspide explores how public attitudes toward fiscal policy are formed. Her key finding: fiscal preferences are not shaped in a vacuum, but are deeply embedded in institutional, political, and societal contexts.

A consortium of international researchers comes with a unique solution to the energy problem. By mimicking photosynthesis, they aim to produce sustainable fuels out of sunlight, water, and CO2. Their secret? ‘Soap bubbles’, says Leiden chemist Sylvestre Bonnet, who is part of the consortium.

PhD student Janine Westendorp and her colleagues conducted literature research on what patients with cancer and their loved ones perceive as harmful communication from healthcare providers. The results were published in the journal Psycho-Oncology and are released as a poster to distribute to healthcare…

Starting this academic year (2016-2017) Maartje van der Woude, Professor of Sociology of Law at the Van Vollenhoven Institute will organize the Leiden Socio-Legal Series (LSLS).

Eleven talented Leiden researchers with several years of research experience have been awarded a Vidi subsidy to set up or expand their own line of research.

Studying how single DNA molecules behave helps us to better understand genetic disorders and design better drugs. Until now however, examining DNA molecules one-by-one was a slow process. Biophysicists from Delft University of Technology and Leiden University developed a technique that speeds up screening…

The dark matter of biology: clumps of sugar molecules that, for example, form sugary webs around pathogens. We know very little about them. Wouter Remmerswaal threw all his talent into the challenge – both in the lab and as a modeller – and succeeded. He received his PhD on 12th September.

On March 1 2022, Professor Ann Brysbaert will succeed Dr Winfred van de Put as director of the Netherlands Institute at Athens (NIA). Having been a regular at the institute for several decades, she will combine her new appointment with teaching at the Faculty of Archaeology. ‘Visits at the NIA were…

On Tuesday 26th September Jessica Hill will defend her thesis ‘On the road to adulthood. Delinquency and desistance in Dutch emerging adults’. The defence will begin at 13.45 hrs, in the Academy Building of Leiden University, Rapenburg 73. The supervisor is Professor Arjan Blokland.

The European Research Council has awarded a Starting Grant to five early career scientists from Leiden University. They received funding up to 1.5 million euros to further expand on their research subject.

On 10 September 2021, Professor Thorbald van Hall from the Department of Medical Oncology in the Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC) delivered his inaugural lecture ‘Tumour-immune interactions: control, escape and counterattack’. Van Hall used the opportunity to describe how - in a similar way to…

LUCL is glad to announce that two of its members have been awarded an NWO Vrije Competitie Grant.

What will it be like to study at Leiden University in 2075? Ten surprising, artistic uni-visions could be brought to life. It’s up to you to vote for your favourite.

The Hortus Botanicus is celebrating its 425-year anniversary this year. It’s the oldest botanical garden in the Netherlands, but how did it come into existence and what kind of research takes place there?

Dying from viral infection due to organ failure and blood loss: we still know little about how it can happen. Among other things, Huaqi Tang developed an organ-on-a-chip to figure it out. 'These technologies can offer unprecedented opportunities to fight the viruses that threaten our society.' Tang…

Five Leiden researchers have been awarded a Consolidator Grant by the European Research Council (ERC). This grant of up to two million euros will enable them to continue and expand their scientific research.

Hans Slabbekoorn, researcher at the Institute of Biology Leiden, is from the 16th to the 26th of July on board of the Pelagia, the Dutch national sea research vessel, which is currently on a collaborative mission for the National Initiative Changing Oceans (NICO). Slabbekoorn will study the effects…

During the Faculty of Archaeology’s 2018 Field School excavation, in Leiden, two Early Medieval burials were encountered, as well as some house plans. One of the burials was found by Beatriz, an international student from Mexico. “When I found the pelvis bone it was clear that I had found a human sk…

An international team of astronomers has shown in a laboratory at Leiden University (the Netherlands) that methane can form on icy dust particles in space. The possibility had existed for quite some time, but because the conditions in space were difficult to simulate, it was not possible to prove this…

Now that university buildings have closed, most staff members have started working from home. How are Faculty of Science colleagues faring in their new offices?

Marlien van Mever delved into the analysis of tiny samples, cerebrospinal fluid from transgenic mouse models for example. She validated methods that can now be used to study brain diseases such as migraine and epilepsy. Van Mever will receive her PhD on 14 June.

The Dick Stufkens Prijs for the best PhD thesis of the Holland Research School of Molecular Chemistry (HRSMC) has been awarded to Dr Tatu S. Kumpulainen for his thesis “Proton-Transfer Reactions in ‘Super’ Photoacids and Supramolecular Assemblies”. It describes his innovative research into methods for…

Public Defence by Jaap Brouwer and activities of prof. Marcel Cobussen PhD, Dick de Graaf, Nizar Rohana, Brigitte Kovacs, Lilo Nein, Danne Ojeda, Hans Kalliwoda, Frank Blokland, and Thalia Hoffman

The Leiden Ranking – Open Edition is completely transparent. The ranking compiled by the CWTS uses open data and publishes the algorithms that are used.

Covid-19 has had a huge impact on teaching at universities over the past two years. Through force of circumstances, lecturers have adapted much faster to a digital future. On 7 June Leiden Teachers Academy’s annual Education Festival (working language is English) will present insights on this ‘new n…

About 90 per cent of Austronesian and Papuan languages are under threat of soon becoming extinct. Marian Klamer is the only professor in the world who researches both these language groups. She records languages before they disappear and sheds new light on the history of Indonesia. Inaugural lecture…

Koen Bastiaans and his colleagues discovered a new quantum liquid unlike anything ever seen. They did it by using a technique that can be compared to listening to the sound of raindrops falling on a roof. Publication in Science 29 October.

A large interdisciplinary NWO research project attempted to discover the cognitive origin of the human ability to learn linguistic rules. This is not so simple, according to linguist Andreea Geambaşu and her colleagues. PhD defence on 11 December.

Man is nature's mind-reading champion: we are better able than any other living beings to empathise with others. This comes in part from our story-telling culture, according to Max van Duijn. PhD defence 20 April.

Building a fire involves many variables, such as size, choice of fuel, temperature, and burn time, that affect the way the generated heat can be used, and therefore the potential function of a fire. A group of Leiden archaeologists are, together with a team of international colleagues, investigating…

Leiden Physicists have developed a new technique to visualize electrical conductance in sheet-like nano materials. It shows great promise for devices based on a new family of materials—the ‘Van der Waals materials’. The physicists, who won the 2015 Dutch Vacuum Society prize for their work, present…

Joost Beltman (LACDR, Leiden University) has provided novel insights in the way T cells migrate towards virus-infected cells. This was accomplished by a combination of experimental research in the group of Ton Schumacher (Dutch Cancer Institute, NKI) and computer simulations in collaboration with Rob…

Do you recall all those drugs that were hastily proposed as potential treatments for COVID-19? In the event of a future pandemic, the goal is to offer an effective treatment more quickly and efficiently. To achieve this, a team led by Coen van Hasselt is developing a platform that can speed up the process…

Five researchers from Leiden University have been awarded a Starting Grant by the European Research Council (ERC). This grant of on average 1.5m euros enables researchers who show potential to start their own project, lead a research team and implement their best ideas.

With a Vici grant of 1.5 million euros, Professor of Mathematical biology Roeland Merks will look for ways to fix messy and leaky blood vessels in tumours. His research combines mathematical simulations and lab experiments in a unique way.

The Dick Stufkens Prize 2017 for the best PhD thesis of the Holland Research School of Molecular Chemistry (HRSMC) is awarded to Dr Sven Askes. In his thesis

In her book Rap 73, Dorrit van Dalen shares intimate anecdotes and what for many are previously unknown stories about the Academy Building and its users. Stories such as who held heated debates in the beautiful vaulted Gewelfkamer, and why the singer of the Russian punk band Pussy Riot was given pride…

Tackling key challenges of Chemical Biology and Medicinal Chemistry to aid drug discovery is one of the focus areas of Leiden University. To this end, the Leiden Early Drug Discovery & Development network (LED3) was established by the Leiden Institute of Chemistry (LIC), the Institute of Biology Leiden…

By delivering his inaugural lecture titled ‘Where Science Meets Business,’ Simcha Jong accepted his appointment as Leiden’s first Professor of Science Based Business. In his lecture in the Large Auditorium of the Academy Building, Simcha argued that broad universities with a focus on fundamental research,…

The Dick Stufkens Prize 2018 for the best PhD thesis of the Holland Research School of Molecular Chemistry (HRSMC) will be awarded to Dr Stefan Vuckovic. In his thesis, Vuckovic presents a new and innovative approach to the quantum mechanical calculation of atomic and molecular energies. It lays the…

Whether a microbe is beneficial or harmful to a plant can now be predicted with high accuracy thanks to bacLIFE. This bioinformatic tool with an intuitive interface makes it much easier to unlock the secrets of bacterial genomes. A group of Leiden biologists presented it in Nature Communications.

Photosynthesis is the origin of life on earth, but it is a phenomenon that is still barely understood. Take, for example, the extremely efficient mechanism of electron transport. Leiden researchers demonstrate for the first time where one particular cause of this might be found.

‘Everyone’s talking about it, everyone thinks everyone else is doing it, but the reality is disappointing,’ says biochemist Gerard van Westen in his 3 October University lecture in the Van der Werfpark. In the full marquee, he gets a laugh with this suggestion that artificial intelligence is comparable…

Tiny self-propelling spheres, measuring only micrometers, move faster over a hydrophobic silicone surface than they do over hydrophilic glass. 'Almost nobody had realised that the substrate matters', says Stefania Ketzetzi, the researcher who discovered the effect, researched it and explained it. She…

Broad universities that focus strongly on fundamental research have the best chance of contributing to economic innovations, for example in the life and data sciences. This is the message of Professor Simcha Jong in his inaugural lecture on 14 November.

Materials that are built up from individual granules exhibit a special phenomenon called ‘jamming’. With research into the nature of this phenomenon, a team of scientists led by Leiden physicist Prof. Martin van Hecke has made it to the cover of the prominent journal Physical Review Letters. ‘Jammed…

Tuberculosis stands as one of the most lethal infectious diseases worldwide. A significant challenge in combatting tuberculosis lies in the emergence of antibiotic resistance triggered by genetic alterations, commonly known as mutations. These mutations can diminish the responsiveness to antibiotics,…

In summer 2018 classical archaeologist Hanna Stöger passed away. At that moment she was in the midst of several cutting-edge research projects on the use of space in the Roman city of Ostia. To make sure that her groundbreaking work would not go unpublished, long-time colleagues Hans Kamermans and Bouke…