She works four days a week as a project manager at LIACS and trains six days a week with the Dutch Para Climbing team. Christiane Luttikhuizen balances her role at the Faculty of Science with competing at a high level in climbing.

According to Nivja de Jong, second language acquisition is 'the most fascinating subject in linguistics'. As a recently appointed professor of Second Language Acquisition and Pedagogy, she studies the question of how best to teach people a new language.

The second instalment of the Humanities Lab - the three-year honours programme of the Humanities – has reached its conclusion. On 12 May, 11 groups of honours student presented their work in the Arsenaal building.

Psychology teacher of the year is Marc Molendijk. The Master Thesis Awards are for Kim Houwaart and Linda Bomm. Hans van Lennep wins the PhD Publication Prize; Nina Komrij wins the PhD Wild Card: Societal Impact. The Support & Management staff Prize is for the whole Psychology Institute Office and Remond…

The Just Peace festival is coming up shortly. From 21 to 24 September we will be celebrating peace in The Hague with some inspiring HagueTalks, the Peace in the Park festival and the annual Peace Run.

Under 18, no alcohol. In spite of this slogan, adolescents still have access to alcohol. But how harmful is that one beer for the adolescent brain? Research, including in Leiden, may provide the answer.

The monthly ILS Lunch Seminars have slowly developed into somewhat of a tradition. During this seminar series, all researchers from Leiden Law School can present their research and apprehend in a comfortable setting what researchers from other research programs and institutes are working on. On Thursday…

How can we better prepare students for their practicals, so that they learn more from them? Marjo de Graauw and her colleagues want to renew science education. Together they will develop interactive teaching materials to introduce students to laboratory courses. They are receiving a SURF grant of €100,000…

On 2 March 2020 the report Kind in proces: van communicatie naar effectieve participatie (Children in proceedings: from communication towards effective participation) was published. This multidisciplinary research report is the outcome of an inspiring collaboration between various departments at Leiden…

People who have taken antibiotics in the past three months pay more attention to negative facial expressions, according to research by postdoc Katerina Johnson and assistant professor Laura Steenbergen. This may explain how antibiotics increase the risk of developing depression.

The Leiden Centre of Data Science and the Leiden Institute of Advanced Computer Science are part of a consortium that will carry out research on making illustrated and handwritten archives digitally accessible. The project is funded by NWO.

In a conversation, you provide all sorts of information to the listener. For example, you can indicate that you're certain about something, or that you heard it through someone else. Associate Professor Jenneke van der Wal has been awarded a Vici grant to investigate whether the way people do this is…

Data Science & AI student Nataliia Bagan combines a passion for mathematics, language, and artificial intelligence. Her exceptional bachelor’s thesis on improving reasoning in large language models earned her a nomination for the Leiden Science Young Talent Award 2025.

What role does the frontal lobe play in understanding sentences? Assistant professor Jurriaan Witteman has received a grant to replicate a leading study on this question. ‘As there is some doubt about the reliability of existing neuroimaging results, it’s important to replicate influential studies.’

There are effective treatments for people with autism, says Wouter Staal, professor of Autism Spectrum Disorders, in his inaugural lecture on 4 May. However, it is not yet clear which treatment is most effective for which individual.

As Professor of African Linguistics, Nancy Kula increases our knowledge of variation across languages. Her inaugural lecture is on Monday 23 March.

The study, made possible through funding from the Hersenstichting, is led by neurologist Brigit de Jong, in collaboration with psychiatrist Sonja Rutten, Karin van der Hiele and Aglaia Zedlitz. Other partners include University Medical Center Groningen, Klimmendaal Rehabilitation Centre and Amsterdam…

Connecting scientific fields, enhancing research and teaching, and providing innovative solutions to complex social issues: that is the idea behind interdisciplinary research. What did the university achieve in 2024? A small sample.

Conference, 2-day Workshop

Why do some smokers quit much more easily than others? Can we think ourself to insomnia? And does playing music together help to calm conflicts? Psychology students investigated these questions and presented their findings during the Psychology Science Day 2023.

A Leiden and Mainz (Germany) based team studies the activities of early humans in a 125,000 years old Last Interglacial ecosystem, formerly exposed in a large open cast brown coal pit near Halle (Germany). The Last Interglacial is an important warm-temperate period, showing the full flora and fauna…

Exhibition

The New Scientist magazine has selected two young Leiden scientists for its Top 25 Young Talents in the Netherlands and Flanders: historian Karwan Fatah-Black and neuropsychologist Mariska Kret. Who will be the winner? You can vote for one of them!

In recent years, the public discourse on immigration in Europe and in the United States has often focused on efforts to increase security and restrict traffic on external borders. How old is this phenomenon of states attempting to control migrations on external borders? What were the motives and the…

Consumer grade smartwatches may not be as accurate as promised when measuring tiredness or stress. That is the conclusion of researchers Björn Siepe and Eiko Fried based on a comparison between smartwatch measurements and self-reports by users.

Of je nu appt, online nieuws leest, of door Instagram scrolt, jouw gedrag wordt gemonitord. Sterker nog: wát jij ziet, wordt door anderen bepaald. Promovendus Aleksandre Zardiashvili onderzocht de impact van online advertenties en de macht van de bedrijven erachter.

Today, 13 May 2024, Leiden University’s Executive Board is publishing the advice of the committee that investigated reports of unacceptable behaviour and breaches of academic integrity. These reports were about a professor from the university and their partner (a former member of the university staf…

On Friday 9 December, Renate van der Zee and professor Marieke Liem held a lecture on 'Visible and invisible violence against women' at the Campus The Hague.

Every year, around 40 women are murdered in the Netherlands. The perpetrator is often their partner or ex-husband. Assistant Professor Ellen Gijselaar spoke to NOS News about femicide: 'It’s impossible to prevent all these cases, but you can limit the risk.'

Robot technology is flourishing in multiple sectors of society, from retail, health care, industry and education. However, are robots representative towards minority groups of society, like LGBTQ+ people?

Firearms and violence in Europe–A systematic review by Katharina Krüsselmann, Pauline Aarten, Marieke Liem

Lecture

Social media gives people a voice but also fuels online hate, especially against marginalised groups. PhD candidate Eva Nave: ‘While end-to-end encryption protects activists, it also enables criminal activity, creating a more accessible version of the Darkweb.’

‘Jelena Prokic, university lecturer and researcher at the Leiden University Centre for Digital Humanities, will be preparing students for the challenges and opportunities of the digital world. In September, six modules will start on subjects such as statistics and digitally searching through texts.…

Lecture

Sixteen researchers at Leiden University have received a Veni award from the Netherlands Organisation for Academic Research (NWO). This award offers promising young researchers the opportunity to further develop their ideas for a period of three years.

The Ecuadorian Pachakutik party is one of the oldest indigenous political movements in Latin America. Despite not being very successful at the polls and hardly having organisational resources at its disposal, Pachakutik is still part of Ecuador’s political landscape. In her dissertation, Political Scientist…

Western countries still tend to view Africa as the periphery, says anthropologist Mayke Kaag. In her inaugural lecture, she calls for a shift in perspective: to see Africa as a mirror of global developments.

Psychology teacher of the year is Anouk van der Weiden. The master thesis awards are for Irina Verhülsdonk and Christel Klootwijk. Eliška Procházková receives the PhD publication prize; Katja Cardol and Judith Tommel the PhD wild card: the Open Science Award. Conny Binnendijk earns the OBP prize and…

Ten Leiden researchers have been awarded a Veni grant by the Dutch Research Council (NWO). The grant, of up to 280,000 euros, will enable them to elaborate their ideas over a period of three years.

Leiden criminologists have co-developed an artificial intelligence technology that tracks firearms incidents by scanning over 350 news sources.

The number of victims of child abuse is estimated to be higher during the first lockdown compared with a period without a lockdown. This is mainly due to an increase in the number of victims of emotional neglect, including educational neglect and witnessing domestic abuse. Families with children about…

The sixth specialisation of the Master Crisis and Security Management (CSM) will start in September 2023: Governance of Violence. Coordinator of this track is Professor Marieke Liem. She talks about the how and why of this new track and the importance of research in and knowledge of the nature and scope…

Om de weg te vinden letten sommige mensen op de omgeving, anderen onthouden waar ze links of rechts af moeten slaan. Mensen met Niet Aangeboren Hersenletsel (NAH) rapporteren navigatieproblemen. Om opnieuw te leren navigeren heeft neurowetenschapper Milan van der Kuil als revalidatietherapie een serious…

On 17 October, a representative from the ERC Safe & Sound project attended the first edition of WE ROBOT Europe in Berlin. At the conference, speakers and participants from the academic world, policy bodies and industry shared and discussed their thoughts on robotics regulation in the EU and the US.…

'Dialogues Between Artistic Research and Science and Technology Studies', edited by Henk Borgdorff, Peter Peters and Trevor Pinch, will be published by Routledge on November 18

Various consortia in which Leiden University is represented are beginning interdisciplinary research, which will bring scientific and societal breakthroughs within reach. Knowledge institutions, government and private parties are working closely together on the projects.

Five research projects of the Institute for History have been selected for the Research Traineeship Programme 2016-2017. The programme was initiated by The Faculty of Humanities to offer motivated students the opportunity to develop themselves in academic research. In December the research trainees,…

PhD defence