Hunter-gatherers caused ecosystems to change 125,000 years ago. These are the findings of an interdisciplinary study by archaeologists from Leiden University in collaboration with other researchers. Neanderthals used fire to keep the landscape open and thus had a big impact on their local environment.…

When the tokay gecko loses its tail, a new one grows from resident stem cells at the stump. Each tissue type - muscle, bone, blood vessels and skin - develops from specific stem cells. This discovery by Luthfi Nurhidayat holds potential implications for advancing regenerative medicine in humans. Nurhidayat…

This week we can vote in the University elections. The University Council and faculty councils are incredibly important. During the fantastic seminar on 50 years of participation that the University Council recently held, our former Rector Carel Stolker aptly said: ‘Without participation, there would…

‘In Hong Kong, the elderly found our popular nature routes boring, so they now cycle our action-packed routes through New York.’ What once started as an assignment for the Master Programme Media Technology, has grown into the international market leader in the field of virtual reality exercises for…

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.’

Francesco Ragazzi loves to talk about international relations. But what makes him really happy is if his students question the discipline. This has won him a nomination for the LUS Teaching Prize. Is he the best lecturer for 2019?

Who knows more about environmental governance: a professor of natural resource governance or a local shaman in the remote uplands of Myanmar?

The norms, institutions and power relations that have defined the last decades of international political and economic relations in the European Union are undergoing major transformations. With the return of competition between great and ambitious powers, like the US, China, EU and Russia, the need…

Every summer, Leiden University is the setting of dozens of summer schools in which professionals and students can receive extra training on a specific topic within a short space of time. We took a look at a summer programme on extremism. ‘A recruiter for al-Qaeda said that I could change the world.…

Marlon Titre (1982) studied at Royal Conservatoire The Hague, did his PhD and studied at Leiden University, earned several other qualifications and is now, among others, Director of Filmhuis The Hague. Who is this multi-talent?

Working as a diplomat for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs: for many students it would be their dream. Alumnus Tom Groot Haar is busy making it a reality. 'My career seems like a preconceived plan, but it wasn't.'

Chiara Porro from Australia studied International Relations and Diplomacy at Leiden University and has been Australia’s Ambassador to the Holy See since August. How did she end up at the Vatican and what is it like? ‘The Pope told me his door was always open!’

Two Leiden students stand a chance of winning the ECHO Award for Higher Education. Deniz Rana Kuseyri (Rana for short) and Ruşen Koç are two of the six finalists for this annual national prize that is awarded to students who promote diversity and inclusion in their own discipline.

Career preparation, whether or not present in the curriculum, is becoming increasingly prominent in many educational institutes. Atse Fokkens (39) notices this in his work as a career adviser and internship coordinator. He welcomes the fact that more attention is being paid to preparing students for…

Your own food truck, working from the comforts of a tropical beach in Bali, or a permanent job? Children, living together, getting married, a registered partnership? Thirty-somethings have a lot to think about. On Monday 16 April, Psychologist Nienke Wijnants gave a popular lecture to 120 young alumni…

He did an English-taught degree, completed a master’s abroad and now teaches on an English-taught programme at Leiden University College The Hague. Jan Meijer is the definition of an international researcher and he’s proud of it.

Are you working at Leiden University and researching migration regimes outside of the Global North? Are you interested in doing fieldwork or a research visit at one of our partner universities? Then you might want to join the Leiden team of the EU-funded Marie Curie Staff Exchange Network on non-western…

Every year diplomatic representatives of Latin American countries, researchers and students come together during a conference of the GRULAC region group. This year different researchers talked about their work during a visit to the Faculty of Governance and Global Affairs in The Hague.

It is often thought that immigration threatens the solidarity on which redistribution relies. But looking at the post-war period, PhD candidate Emily Anne Wolff finds that this is not the case.

As of 1 May 2018, Nicole de Voogd has been appointed as Professor by special appointment Global change and marine ecosystems at the Institute of Environmental Sciences (CML). She is currently senior researcher at Naturalis Biodiversity Center in the field of tropical marine ecosystems.

On 15 May, the ambassadors of 11 Latin American and Caribbean countries were shown the highlights of research at Leiden University Faculty of Science. Furthermore, Prince Carlos de Bourbon de Parme awarded prizes to two young academics who conduct research in Latin America.

One person can already make a difference, and if all students and academics were eco-friendly, the world would be a much more sustainable place. Plastic Soup Surfer Merijn Tinga opened the academic year in Leiden with this message.

One of them turned out to be two thousand years old. And older giant barrel sponges appear to have a faster rate of cell division, unlike us. They produce antibiotics and much, much more. Lina Bayona Maldonado studied how the differences in such factors as age or oceanic depth affect the production…

At the annual research day (‘toogdag’) of the research programme Effective Protection of Fundamental Rights in a Pluralist World (EPFR), researchers reflected on the growing threats scholars face due to political repression, conflict or displacement, and how to protect them.

Each year, Latin American diplomats meet the researchers and students from Leiden University who specialise in their region. This year, they visited the Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences. ‘The social and behavioural sciences have improved our understanding of social unrest.’

Gerard Soeteman (1936) created a furore as a screenwriter of films that became classics (Dutch films: Turks Fruit, Soldaat van Oranje, de Aanslag), but personally he is much more attached to his critical documentaries for television. He studied Dutch in Leiden. How did that help him?

Fungi living in vanilla plants play a role in the development of the taste and smell of vanilla, according to Shahnoo Khoyratty of the Institute of Biology Leiden. PhD defence on 27 October.

Most students do not have to deal with death on a daily basis. A Bachelor Honours Class about this specific topic seems to be a special experience: the discussions about end-of-life care are tough, and students are broken out of their comfort zone. They nevertheless agree upon one thing: these are all…

The ERC has awarded a Starting Grant to five promising researchers from Leiden. Two are from the Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences, one is from the Faculty of Humanities/Governance and Global Affairs, one from the LUMC and one from the Faculty of Science.

Much research into the colonial past of scientific institutions stops as soon as a colony gains independence. In two new projects, university lecturer Anne-Isabelle Richard focuses on the decolonisation period. How did universities deal with the changed reality?

For more than twenty years, Johan Visser has served as a family and juvenile court judge in The Hague where he is also a board member. Once a student at Leiden Law School, he reflects here on his student days and career.

Lecture, COGLOSS Seminar

Lecture

Svetlana Gorshenina, Associate Lecturer at Collège de France, Paris, will be the Central Asia Visiting Scholar from 17 February until 25 February 2018. Svetlana Gorshenina will deliver a guest lecture on Tuesday, 20 February and a masterclass on Friday, 23 February within the Central Asia Initiative…

When hobby divers revisited a nearly 400-year-old shipwreck off the coast of Texel, they discovered more than 1,000 objects in wooden boxes. Eight years later, postdoc Janet Dickinson used recovered books to compile a profile of the mysterious owner.

Van Vollenhoven Institute Research Meeting

Lecture

How does a Leiden alumnus end up working at the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art (The Met)? In the case of Daniëlle Kisluk-Grosheide, it was partly down to chance, luck, fate. But that was preceded by a unique degree in decorative arts in Leiden.

'How do you write a slogan to win an election?' Steven Ooms answers this question in his PhD research into ideas about good prose in the time of Caesar and Emperor Augustus. This period is considered a high point for the development of literature. The Roman Cicero and the Greek Dionysius of Halicarnassus…

Conference

Of the 32 historic buildings that are opening their doors to the public on the Open Monument Days on 8 and 9 September, five are University buildings. The Hortus Botanicus is also open.

UBL, Leiden University Libraries, is doing all it can to continue to offer its services. Even now the motto is, ‘work from home’. Who is doing want and how are things going?

The corona crisis relates to not only the medical field but also the field of the social sciences and humanities. SSH Beraad, a consultation body that aims to improve the position of the social sciences and humanities in the Netherlands, has launched a website bringing together experts in the social…

‘Our faculty is a very international community. And that is something everybody really benefit from,’ says Yun Tian. As the officer internationalisation, she is the bridge between international students and staff, the faculty and universities abroad. ‘Science goes beyond countries and carries no nationality.…

Fake news about ‘patient zero’ and hyperbolic headlines warning about the ‘yellow peril.’ Leiden researchers have spotted fake news galore about coronavirus as well as racial stereotypes about the Chinese. How harmful is this?

Elisabeth Heijmans originally comes from French-speaking Belgium – ‘close and far at the same time’. She came to Leiden University for her Ph.D. in 2013, and consequently managed to get a postdoc position. In this role, she is part of a team of Ph.D. students, postdocs and supervisors, looking at historical…

The launch meeting of the Leiden Islam Academy on 7 December in the Academy Building drew just the right audience: a diverse group of people who were all in some way engaged with Islam. This was just what the directors of the Academy, Maurits Berger and Fatiha Azzarhouni, were hoping for.

A more inclusive and diverse society is what Talisha Schilder, Hawra Nissi and Chiraz Hassoumi spend many hours a week working towards. Their hard work led them to being nominated for the ECHO Award.

As of 1 September 2019, Prof. Pieter ter Keurs will assume the position of Scientific Director at the Leiden-Delft-Erasmus Centre for Global Heritage and Development as well as that of Professor of Museums, Collections and Society at the Faculties of Humanities and Archaeology at Leiden University.…