Research projects which are assisted by the NVIC in the field of Arabic studies.

Conference

How did Dutch sound 1000 years ago? This is a question that linguist Peter-Alexander Kerkhof has been pondering for some time already. He recently managed to reconstruct this Old Dutch.

Professor Chinese Frank Pieke becomes research and general director of the Mercator Institute for China Studies (MERICS) in Berlijn.

Television presenter and journalist Twan Huys will be a lecturer in Journalism and New Media at Leiden University from 1 September 2024.

Dit blijkt uit het onderzoek ‘The Class Divide in Urban Indian Youths’ Lives; Their Time-Use and Adaptive Functioning’ van Radhika Bapat.

Professor Ingrid Tieken (Leiden University Centre for Linguistics, LUCL) and Dr Herman Siemens (Institute for Philosophy) have each been awarded an NWO Free Competition award in the Humanities for their research projects.

Three lecturers from Leiden University have been awarded a 100,000-euro Comenius Teaching Fellowship within the scope of the Senior Fellows programme. The grant will enable them and their project teams to carry out their own teaching innovation project.

Communication is the transmission of information. All day long we are busy explaining and making things clear to each other, but exactly how we do that varies from language to language. Associate Professor Jenneke van der Wal delved into African Bantu languages for a Vidi project.

Fifteen hundred years ago, the north-west of what we now call China was a jumble of peoples. How did those Indians, Khotanese and Tocharians influence each other and each other's languages? Associate professor Michaël Peyrot has been awarded an ERC grant of almost two million euros to unravel this 'web…

No less than seven scholars of the Faculty of Humanities were awarded a Veni grant. Veni grants are aimed at excellent researcher who recently obtained their doctorate. With a maximum grant of 250.000 euros, the laureates can develop their research ideas in the coming three years.

Professor Johan Rooryck will be examining cognition and core knowledge systems and how possession is expressed in different languages. Rooryck and fellow researchers have been awarded two NWO grants totalling 2.75 million euro to carry out two research programmes: 'Knowledge and Culture' and 'Lend me…

During the first year of life, babies adapt to the language they hear around them. In the event of hearing difficulties, this can lead to a language deficiency, which is not so easy to resolve, says Professor of English Linguistics Janet Grijzenhout. Inaugural lecture 19 March.

You can find an overview of events organized by the Platform for Post-Colonial Readings below.

Una Europa launches regular seed funding calls. Leiden University also often offers additional funding for projects involving Una Europa universities.

Lecture, Descriptive Linguistics Seminars

A huge shiny aluminium object stands in the middle of the Polderlab in Oud Ade. Are the researchers trying to make contact with extraterrestrial life? Certainly not; they are using the ’Moon landers’ to measure whether innovative forms of agriculture reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Fleur van Duin works…

At first glance, archaeology seems like a job that is hard to take home. Nothing could be further from the truth though! Our archaeologists are currently developing new dating methods, are looking for lost cities in their living rooms, and perform daring acts of experimental archaeology!

On 9 September, in the presence of King Willem Alexander, Secretary of State Sander Dekker presented the Spinoza Prize to four researchers, including two researchers from Leiden: archaeologist Corinne Hofman and physicist Dirk Bouwmeester. In the Nieuwe Kerk in The Hague, they unveiled their plans for…

It's now possible to measure how many plastic particles there are in our food. Chinese scientists and Leiden professor Willie Peijnenburg applied their new method to lettuce and wheat. Their results were published January 20 in Nature Nanotechnology.

More severe droughts that will also last longer: this will primarily be a problem for irrigated croplands, as discovered by environmental scientist Qi Chen. Mixed forests with a variety of plant species will be the least vulnerable. Chen compared the effects of drought on different ecosystems across…

Imagine that you need to travel, but you don’t have a car and you’re dead broke. What do you do? Hitchhiking, of course! Leiden biologists found that certain bacteria use this very same tactic: their spores hop on motile bacteria and use them as a taxi, ensuring they reach the right environment to f…

Over the past few years, citizen scientists from the Heritage Quest project have scoured the entire Veluwe and Utrechtse Heuvelrug areas for unknown archaeological heritage. One of the results of this research is that the number of known burial mounds in this area has doubled.

Forty archaeology students are holding a shovel somewhat awkwardly in the fields at Oss. This is their first day of fieldwork and they are going to use muscles they didn’t even know they had.

Researchers, civil servants and local residents met on 27 September to talk about partnering for sustainability. What were the results? In a green ‘city oasis’ in the centre of The Hague they spoke about the energy transition, bottom-up initiatives and citizen science.

Local residents, scientists and students are investigating riverbanks in Leiden for the 'Bank Plants' citizen science project. Which plant species are found where? And how can the municipality of Leiden improve its riverbank management to ensure optimal biodiversity?

After decades of intensive farming, the peatland area is under pressure. Researchers, farmers and policymakers work together in the Polderlab to identify future-proof types of agriculture. ‘It’s unbelievable how quickly the system bounces back without intensive fertilisation.’

Should we be growing rice and building materials instead of grass for cows? From invasive crayfish to cultural heritage and groundwater levels: ten graduating students explored the future of the Groene Hart, the rural region just outside the cities of Delft, Rotterdam and Leiden where they study.

With a single sample of water or soil, researches can analyse the DNA of everything that is living in that environment. During her research, PhD candidate Beilun Zhao discovered a way to analyse not only the kind of species, but also the age of the species in a water sample. The method showed its first…

She has had the idea for seven years, but now environmental scientist and conservation biologist Kat Stewart finally gets to work on it. She has been awarded a Vidi grant by NWO to find out how DNA from water can be used to shed light on invasive species and their impact on native populations.

Lecture, Workshop

Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the European Union (EU) and its Member States have adopted wide-ranging legal and political measures to support Ukraine in its struggle.

Reviewed by Simon Polinder.

Author: Ilan Manor

Teaching during the corona crisis, the high workload and the challenges faced by the Faculty of humanities. In an online working visit to Leiden University on 12 October, Minister for Education, Culture and Science, Ingrid van Engelshoven, discussed the hot topics of the day with the Executive Board,…

El CID, the University introduction week, has begun! We spoke on Sunday evening to the first new arrivals who had come to Leiden to spend the night at the University Sports Centre. New students can sleep here all this week as well as at the ice rink or in a student house.

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.

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.

Rector Magnificus Carel Stolker retired on 8 February. If there was one theme running through his career, it was the links between the University and society. Before he left, Stolker spoke one last time to people from within and without the university about the societal impact of research. On topics…

Victoria Nyst's love for sign language was sparked when she accidentally ended up at a deaf school while studying African linguistics. The university lecturer has since been awarded a Vici grant to research the history of these languages.

From research on stellar winds to sign language: an impressive seven researchers from Leiden University will receive a prestigious Vici grant from the Dutch Research Council (NWO).

Whilst resisting abhorrent Russian aggression, Ukraine has made a clear choice for a future in Europe. With an association agreement already in place, and Ukraine being a candidate for EU membership, Ukrainian lawyers need to be trained in EU law and Ukrainian Law Schools need to develop the capacity…

From October 1-3, 2017, the 24th Annual International Law and Religion Symposium was held at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, USA. The Symposium was attended by 100 participants, from 50 different countries, while interpretation at the venue was available in 11 languages (Arabic, French, Italian,…

On 16 May the first International Day of Light was celebrated all around the globe. Initiated by UNESCO, organisations in 87 different countries set up a total of more than 600 events to embrace the vital role of light and related technologies in science. In the Old Observatory in Leiden visitors could…

Last week Russia and Ukraine met for the first time since the outbreak of the war. The talks took place in Belarus.

A delegation from the Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas) arrived in Bissau, Guinea-Bissau, on 23 February for five days. 'We need to discuss the immediate situation with all parties, but above all we need to address the root causes of the crisis,' explained Abdel-Fatau Musah, Ecowas…

On 16 May the first International Day of Light was celebrated all around the globe. Initiated by UNESCO, organisations in 87 different countries set up a total of more than 600 events to embrace the vital role of light and related technologies in science. In the Old Observatory in Leiden visitors could…

Beryl ter Haar is currently a Visiting Professor at the University of Warsaw, Poland. The Law School is the oldest part of the university (founded in 1808), followed by the School of Medicine (founded one year later). The two schools became the heart of Warsaw University which was founded in 1816 by…

Leiden University won three prizes at the International Criminal Court (ICC) Moot Court Competition – English edition. The final round was held on 27 June 2022 in Courtroom I of the ICC in The Hague (the Netherlands). Due to current COVID-19 related restrictions, it was a hybrid hearing with judges…