Is the American government behind the attacks on 11 September 2001? Could it be that the white contrails emitted by planes in the sky are actually ‘chemtrails’: chemicals that are deliberately being spread amongst us? And did the Dutch intelligence service order the murder of Dutch politician Pim Fortuyn?…

In close cooperation with various partners, Leiden’s Administrative and Constitutional Law Department is seeking to expand its presence in The Hague - the International City of Peace and Justice.

The new project INFLANET will train young scientists in Europe to become experts in inflammation research. Professor Annemarie Meijer from the Institute of Biology Leiden coordinates the training.

The new open access book The Science of Citizen Science bundles insights into science that is conducted together with citizens, to promote this growing form of science.

As of the 1st of January 2021, Lisa Cheng, Professor of General Linguistics, will be the next Scientific Director of the Leiden University Centre for Linguistics (LUCL). She tells us about LUCL and shares some of her thoughts about her upcoming role.

Ton Liefaard, Stephanie Rap and Peter Rodrigues have edited the book 'Monitoring Children’s Rights in the Netherlands. 30 Years of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child' (Leiden University Press).

How is it that the internet works so well, with billions of users sending millions of gigabytes all together every day? That's because the foundation of the internet is solidly set up. Yet sometimes there are problems on the internet. For example, when certain systems misbehave and disrupt the routing…

Biological chemist Nathaniel Martin and his team received an NWO grant to examine how blocking a specific enzyme in our body, NNMT, could be helpful in the treatment of some cancers. Trials with mice have been promising, and together with the Netherlands Cancer Institute, Martin wants to take the next…

Leiden chemists Marc Koper and Ian McCrum have discovered that the degree to which a metal binds to the oxygen atom of water is decisive for how well the chemical conversion of water to molecular hydrogen takes place. This insight helps to develop better catalysts for the production of sustainable hydrogen,…

More attention for internationalisation, diversity, but also the mental health of students: that’s what Marleen van Dorst would like to see change. As of 1 September, she will be the new assessor of the Faculty of Science.

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.

The Centre for Science and Technology Studies (CWTS) at Leiden University opens a new PhD position to better understand and combat paper mills. This will be in collaboration with Sheffield University and Wiley, a publisher, who will also sponsor the project.

Chemist Gerjan de Bruin has designed a method of slowing down the degradation process of proteins in cells. This may contribute to new cancer medicines with fewer side-effects. PhD defence on 1 June.

From the very beginning, the Islam has known an oral tradition. It was only two hundred years ago that Muslims starting writing about the history of Islam, on rocks or other hard materials. Arabic epigraphy (study of inscriptions) turns out to be an essential tool in historical genealogy research. Abdullah…

Since the beginning of September, Emma van der Plas (20) is the new student ambassador for CADS. Emma is a third-year student and is currently following a minor in Sustainable Development in Leiden. Her goal? To eliminate the stigmas surrounding anthropology.

How often do you consider the impact of your choices? 10 October is Sustainability Day: a good time to introduce the new bachelor's programme Science for Sustainable Societies.

PhD students Alex Brandsen and Wouter Verschoof-van der Vaart are both doing a project within the university’s Data Science research programme. The are introducing terms like ‘text mining’ and ‘advanced machine learning’ into archaeology. ‘These techniques will make archaeology more efficient and ch…

On 1 September 2017, Aurelie van ’t Slot passed the assessor’s baton to Olivier Fajgenblat. As the new Humanities assessor, this third-year student of Film and Literary Studies will promote students’ interests in the Faculty Board. Let’s introduce this ambitious Belgian student.

Seven new Medical Delta professors revealed their research plans in a lecture marathon on 21 June. The professors at Leiden University, the LUMC, Delft University of Technology and the Erasmus Medical Centre Rotterdam operate at the interface between life sciences and health and technology.

The Executive Board has appointed Pieter ter Keurs as professor of Museums, Collections, and Society as of 1 September 2019. The chair will be part of LUCAS (Faculty of Humanities) and is a collaborative effort of the Faculty of Archaeology and the Faculty of Humanities. Ter Keurs has his roots in…

The University of Lille offers four postdoc positions in the ERC Advanced Grant 2020 AGRELITA Project, « The reception of ancient Greece in pre-modern French literature and illustrations of manuscripts and printed books (1320-1550): how invented memories shaped the identity of European communities »,…

A temporary position of Senior Researcher in Medieval Studies is available at the Department of Conservation, Archaeology, and History, University of Oslo. The successful candidate will become a member of the project team and will be linked to MINiTEXTS’ Sub-project 3 (The Christian Norm & Liturgical…

Op woensdag 12 oktober worden vier lezingen gehouden over een opmerkelijke verzameling aantekenboekjes uit de vroege elfde eeuw, thans bewaard in Leiden. Ze zijn vervaardigd door de Franse monnik Ademar van Chabannes. Ad van Els schreef er een diepgravende studie over: A Man and his Manuscripts. De…

Mmmonk and Henri Pirenne Institute for Medieval Studies (UGent) will host the second edition of Mmmonk school in the autumn of 2023. Mmmonk School offers lessons for advanced beginners about the medieval book. It is an interdisciplinary practice-focused programme about medieval Flemish manuscripts.…

NVIC welcomes Dr. Stefanie Van de Peer of Queen Margaret University in Edinburgh as a guest researcher.

Joris Larik, Assistant Professor of Comparative, EU and International Law at LUC The Hague and Convener of the International Justice major, presented his research at the Midyear Meeting of the American Society of International Law, which was hosted by Brooklyn Law School in New York City.

Science in Transition joins an international chorus that points out flaws in the science system and aim for change in the governance of science.

On 15 March, the 28-year-old Australian right-wing extremist Brenton Tarrant committed a terrorist attack on two mosques in Christchurch in New Zealand. Jelle van Buuren, Bart Schuurman, Daan Weggemans and Tahir Abbas all working at the Institute of Security and Global Affairs (ISGA) have been approached…

Nederlandse gepromoveerden voelen zich onvoldoende voorbereid op een baan. In een nieuw onderzoek ontwikkelen Leidse promovendi nu alvast hun competenties met behulp van een zelfevaluatietool, persoonlijke coaching en groepsinterventie. Doe mee met dit onderzoek en Empower your PhD.

Season 2 of the Leiden Psychology podcast has started, and we're kicking it off with a special Q&A featuring our new hosts Aziza and Priya. In this episode you are offered a chance to get to know them better.

Following a special donation, the Stichting Pro Juventute foundation is facilitating a new special chair in Educational Theory and Law. Through the chair, Pro Juventute hopes to realise optimum child protection from a coherent legal and educational perspective.

The Joint Investigation Team (JIT) which is carrying out the investigation into the MH17 disaster has identified four suspects who have been brought in connection with bringing down the aircraft. The four are to be prosecuted and as a result have been placed on international wanted lists.

As of 16 August Ignas Snellen is the new Scientific Director of the astronomical institute of the Faculty of Science. He will succeed Huub Rottgering, who led the institute since 2012. Snellen has been appointed for a period of four years.

Marcello Bonsangue will be the new Scientific Director of the Leiden Institute of Advanced Computer Science (LIACS) from January 2024. Bonsangue has been appointed for four years. He succeeds Aske Plaat, who led the institute for eight years.

The NVIC and al-Azhar University signed a protocol for cooperation on the 23rd of September 2018. The protocol formalizes cooperation between al-Azhar as the oldest Islamic university and the Dutch and Flemish universities in the scope of humanities and Islamic and Arabic studies. The NVIC will act…

Extreme Scoring, the research project by ACPA PhD Michael Drapkin, calls for increased emphasis on chamber orchestras as a way of preserving the symphonic works of the classical music canon and expanding them to new audiences.

Dr Johannes Magliano-Tromp has been appointed Director of Leiden University Interfacultary Dual PhD Centre The Hague as of 1st May 2016.

Kohei Suzuki, Assistant Professor at the Institute of Public Administration recently received a large research project grant from the Swedish Research Council.

The Amsterdam media played a major role in the rise and fall of Dutch Brazil, the colony held briefly by the Dutch West India Company in the 17th century. This is the conclusion reached by Professor of Maritime History Michiel van Groesen in his book ‘Amsterdam’s Atlantic’.

On Thursday 21 September the first monthly ILS lunch of the academic year took place. Prof. Jannemieke Ouwerkerk, from the Department for Criminal Law and Criminology, presented her research on “The Exercise of EU Criminalisation Powers after Lisbon”, showing an insight in the motives behind the harmonization…

Bitvavo managers had access to customer data for years, claiming it was needed to register new customers in the past. In newspaper ‘Financieele Dagblad’, Gerrit-Jan Zwenne, Professor of Law and Digital Technologies, calls this privilege ‘a risky and therefore problematic decision.’

Ten years after its introduction, the controversial idea of Erik Verlinde on gravity is still a hotly debated topic, and is still surrounded by a cloud of scepticism. Scepticism in which the media have played a major role, theoretical physicst Koenraad Schalm says in an article by NWO. ‘The media simply…

The theme of the Opening of the Academy Year on 4 September was sustainability and how the university could take the lead as a change agent. How is it going about this and what else can it do? There was also room for a critical note.

As a result of the decentralisation of responsibilities in the public domain, most Dutch municipalities have created community teams. These community teams are tasked with providing easy access to care and support for citizens and with providing solutions to fit their individual needs. This requires…

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.

UNESCO has recognized a large collection of handwritten letters and the archive of Raden Ajeng Kartini (1879-1904) as documentary world heritage. Kartini opposed gender inequality in feudal Javanese society, including forced marriages, polygamy and lack of education for women.

At the VIth Monte Albán Round Table conference (July 2011) in Oaxaca, Mexico, Maarten Jansen (Leiden University) together with Mexican archaeologists Dante García and Iván Rivera (both from the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia) discussed the topography and toponyms of the archaeological…

Research by Dutch television programme ‘Nieuwsuur’ shows that local councils in the Netherlands often lack civil servants and experts to support the implementation of the energy transition. As a result, they have become more dependent on commercial consultancy firms.

Gianclaudio Malgieri, Associate Professor at eLaw, has published a new article together with Cristiana Santos, Assistant Professor at Utrecht University, titled 'Assessing (the Severity of) Impact on Fundamental Rights' in the journal Computer Law & Security Review (CLSR), published by Elsevier.

eLaw - Center for Law and Digital Technologies, is well represented at a number of activities in Leiden this week concerning Technology and Society!