Elena Maria Rossi is fascinated by black holes. Her appointment as a professor was a long-held wish, partly because there are so few female professors in her field. ‘My appointment is also a milestone for the Leiden Observatory.’

President Joko Widodo was received on 22 April in the Academy Building at the Rapenburg by Rector Magnificus Carel Stolker and Henri Lenferink, Mayor of Leiden. Jet Bussemaker, Minister of Education, Culture and Science, was also present.

The treasure houses of Leiden's University Library and Naturalis house wonderful historical collections with dried plants and botanical drawings. Professor by Special Appointment Tinde van Andel will be studying these collections. Inaugural lecture 6 January.

For the first time, scientists have traced back a high-energy neutrino to its source in space. It was produced by a so-called blazar—a supermassive black hole. Researchers from neutrino detector IceCube report this in Science. ‘This is a milestone for neutrino science,’ says physicist Dorothea Samtleben…

Many members of Chicago's P'urhepecha community did not even know they lived a stone’s throw from some of their own historical heritage. Researcher Kate Bellamy organised a meeting to introduce them to books hundreds of years old.

Wayang is a centuries-old Javanese tradition, but this style of puppet theatre is undergoing serious change. Kathryn Emerson shows this based on the work of Purbo Asmoro. PhD defence 28 June.

Leiden University is participating in a project to reassemble Roman vessels from between 80 - 200 AD. The 'Zwammerdam ships' are already world famous in the world of archaeology, and guest researcher Tom Hazenberg hopes to extend this fame beyond its academic boundaries.

The Faculty of Humanities has been ranked 17th Arts and humanities faculty in the Times Higher Education world ranking 2015-16. This makes it the top non-Anglo-Saxon institution on the list. The position is 7 places up in comparison with last year's list.

On Wednesday, 21 February, a diverse group of students, staff, and representatives from 21 embassies gathered in The Hague for International Mother Language Day. Under the banner of 'a bit of fun and many serious topics,' language took centre stage.

In 2010, the remnants of a 16th century indigenous village were discovered in St. Vincent, on the construction terrain of the new International Argyle Airport.

Starting September 1st, philosopher Douglas Berger will be professor of Comparative Philosophy at the Leiden Institute for Philosophy. His appointment marks a new direction for research and education in philosophy at Leiden University.

Historian Alanna O’Malley has been appointed to a brand-new Professorial Chair in United Nations Studies in Peace and Justice in The Hague. This extra attention for the UN comes at a significant moment in world history, she says.

Emily Gdula, Liselotta Jahnke, Jason Irwin and Josephine Hercules are the newly appointed student representatives on the Programme Committee (OLC). This committee provides advice to the Executive Board and the Faculty Board of CADS on various educational issues, including the development of Course and…

Ron Sela, Associate Professor of Central Asian History in the Department of Central Eurasian Studies at Indiana University – Bloomington, will be the Central Asia Visiting Professor from 19 until 25 May 2017. Ron Sela will deliver a guest lecture and a master class within the Central Asia Initiative…

Higher temperatures are resulting in changes to vegetation and soil in mountain areas throughout the world. An international research team including Leiden ecologist Ellen Cieraad published an article on 25 January in Nature on the disruption to the ecosystem.

Hundreds of beautiful and timeless photos by Emmy Andriesse, one of the most important Dutch photographers of the twentieth century, are now freely accessible for everyone and can be used for research, education or other purposes. Large parts of Andriesse's oeuvre are already available online via Digital…

Cultural Anthropologist dr. Anouk de Koning has been awarded the Urban Citizen Fellowship to carry out research about democratisation of local democracy in Amsterdam.

NUFFIC’s Orange Knowledge programme, funded by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, awarded a grant to the proposal of Jacqueline Vel, Adriaan Bedner and Leiden alumnus Fachrizal Afandi just before the Christmas holidays.

In July 2023, Leiden University conducted another phase of its ongoing archaeological collaboration with the Kalinago Territory in the Caribbean island of Dominica. Activities focused on mapping and assessing coastal sites impacted by climate stressors, undertaking knowledge-exchange sessions, and co-creating…

Last week, aviation professionals and leaders from around the world gathered in Chicago to celebrate the 80th anniversary of the Chicago Convention, the landmark treaty that laid the foundation for modern international civil aviation and established the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO).…

Dr Alex Geurds was elected as a Fellow for the Society of Antiquaries, a prestigious and old educational charity based in London. Established in 1707, the society aims at the encouragement and advancement of the study and knowledge of the antiquities.

It’s all hands on deck at the moment to resolve the COVID-19 crisis. Researchers from various disciplines are helping where they can, also from the field of artificial intelligence (AI). AI offers great opportunities both at the frontline of the crisis and in its expected aftermath. Leiden professor…

Cars, wind turbines, solar panels and smartphones. ‘Critical’ raw materials like platinum or cobalt are used in all the technologies that are essential for the energy and digital transition. But we should be aware of the scarceness of these materials, a new campaign warns.

Neanderthals at Pech-de-l'Azé I in South Western France had a striking use for manganese dioxide 50,000 years ago.

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.

In January 2015, during an excavation ahead of a road-building project in the west of the Netherlands, archaeologists from the Faculty of Archaeology at Leiden, ARCHOL BV and ADC Archeoprojects recovered an extraordinary set of Bronze Age artefacts.

What is the best living environment for dementia patients? To answer this question, Daniela Gawehns is using data mining methods to search through different types of data source. Her research is inadvertently building a bridge between two disciplines that are sometimes somewhat wary of each other.

Research organisation NWO has awarded a VICI grant to five Leiden researchers. In total, 32 leading researchers in the Netherlands have been awarded a VICI grant.

Middle Eastern Studies, African Studies or International Relations: all examples of studies that are part of Area Studies at the Faculty of Humanities in Leiden. Within Area Studies you study a region and immerse yourself in (complex) subjects of that region, such as cultural uniqueness, conflicts,…

Hoe kan het dat universele mensenrechten wereldwijd niet hetzelfde in de praktijk worden gebracht?

Minuscule elementary particles from space colliding with Earth can give us an insight into the distant objects they come from. But first, you need to know how to catch them. With a Vidi grant from NWO, researcher Sjoert van Velzen will 'hunt' for neutrinos coming from exploding black holes.

The Institute for Philosophy further expands its knowledge: As of 1 September, Annemie Halsema holds the chair of Wijsgerige antropologie en de grondslagen van het humanisme (Philosophical anthropology and the principles of humanism, ed.). In the coming five years, she will study current societal issues…

At the end of the 7th century something curious occurs in Northwestern Europe. Suddenly, people start burying the dead next to their dwellings instead of in communal cemeteries. Professor Frans Theuws recently published a book on this phenomenon. ‘We wanted to know if the study of these farmyard burials…

Sumerian is a dead language that is not related to any other language. Howeverr, Bram Jagersma managed to compile a grammar of the language, based on inscriptions and clay tablets. Traces of the Sumerian number system can still be seen in our sixty-minute hour. Jagersma received his PhD on 4 Novembe…

'If a local dares to speak to you, do interact, but mind what you say.' This was the advice given to Stephanie van den Akker, second-year student of International Studies, during her visit to North Korea. And yes, one local did actually speak to her, leaving her completely speechless.

Alumna Marte Luesink took both a bachelor’s in International Studies and a master’s in International Politics at Leiden University. Very quickly after graduating she was offered a job as researcher at the Leiden Institute of Political Science.

On 8 and 9 July 2022, Leiden Law School hosted the second conference of the Research Group on Institutions for Conflict Resolution (COI).

On 1 November 2018, Marieke Bloembergen was appointed Professor of Archival and Postcolonial Studies at the Institute for History.

Prof. André Gerrits and dr. Max Bader have been awarded a grant by the WOTRO Science for Global Development of NWO for their project 'Human Security and Conflict in Ukraine: Local Approaches and Transnational Dimensions'.

The European Research Council has awarded five Leiden researchers an ERC Consolidator Grant. These subsidies of up to a maximum of two million euros will enable the researchers to further expand their scientific research.

From 16 to 18 August, 30 participants from 18 different countries gathered online to participate in the Online Summer Programme: Preventing, Detecting and Responding to Violent Extremism, organised by Leiden University’s Centre for Professional Learning (CPL) together with the International Centre for…

Salvador Santino Regilme, Jr. Associate Professor of International Relations and Program Chair of MA in International Relations, has been honored with the Cecil B. Currey Book Award for 2023. The accolade, presented by the Association for Global South Studies (AGSS), recognizes Regilme’s exceptional…

The programme for the Leiden Asia Year in 2017 is now available. Rector Carel Stolker launched the new website www.leidenasiayear.nl at the opening of the Academic Year of Leiden University on 5 September.

Paul Hudson, a professor at Leiden University College, is organising a symposium on water management in the Netherlands and abroad that will take place on 22 March. We asked him what makes water management so important.

The strange tropical plants belonging to the Corsiaceae family first emerged millions of years ago on the supercontinent of Gondwana. That is what Leiden University researcher Constantijn Mennes concludes in an article in the Journal of Biogeography.

Ron Sela, Associate Professor of Central Asian History in the Department of Central Eurasian Studies at Indiana University – Bloomington, will be the Central Asia Visiting Professor from 19 until 25 May 2017. Ron Sela will deliver a guest lecture and a master class within the Central Asia Initiative…

A consortium, led by Erik de Maaker (CADS, Leiden), has under the NWA scheme (Dutch National Science agenda) been awarded 98k€ for Localizing Global Garment Biographies, a two-year project to research the different ways by which users and producers attach value to garments.

In the tropical rainforests of Southeast Asia the soursop family (Annonaceae) can be found. The genus Uvaria is a part of this family, but it has not yet been described entirely correctly. That is what Annas Rabbani will be studying during the next four years as a PhD student at the Hortus botanicus…

On 24 November a High-Level panel discussion on the occasion of the signing ceremony of the memorandum of understanding between the NATO Civil-Military Cooperation Centre of Excellence and the Institute of Security and Global Affairs and the Faculty of Governance and Global Affairs took place at Campus…

Biodiversity in the Netherlands is having a tough time. Professor of Natural Capital Koos Biesmeijer combines research with practical advice: from the greening of industrial parks to solutions inspired by hi-tech nature. Inaugural lecture 9 March.