In Dutch magazine Elsevier, Marieke Liem explains the issues with using the term ‘troubled person‘ in reports on homocide.

In the article 'Dankzij Instagram hebben jonge vrouwen over de hele wereld hetzelfde gezicht' in the Dutch newspaper NRC of 4 November 2021, Cultural Anthropologist Jasmijn Rana (Assistant Professor at CADS) talks about what she considers problematic about the Instagram face. The article discusses the…

Education, Organisation

Not passed your Dutch exam? Then there’s no HAVO (Higher General Secondary) or VWO (pre-university) diploma for you, says the Inspectorate of Education's Inspector General. This comment fuels a discussion on an exam that is already under fire. The final exam for Dutch is said to be uninspiring, too…

On paper it is recycled, but in reality enormous quantities of plastic waste from the Netherlands end up in Asian seas. Researchers from the Leiden Institute of Environmental Sciences charted the fate of plastic food packaging waste from the Netherlands. They published their results on July 8 in the…

It was more than twenty years ago that the plan for a Japanese-Dutch dictionary was born. Now it contains over 65,000 words, and completion is tentatively coming into view. Dictionary makers Oscar Veltink and Hetty Geerdink-Verkoren talk about their enthusiasm for this decades-long mammoth task.

The Dutch Research Council (NWO) has awarded Vidi grants to Leiden researchers.

Organisation

On on 29 January 2024, it was announced that Aylin Alexa Zainea has won the Thesis Award from the Dutch Data Protection Authority. She wrote her thesis for the Advanced Master programme on Law and Digital Technologies hosted by eLaw, Center for Law and Digital Technologies. Her thesis entitled ‘Automated…

Dutch mosquitos are more resilient to saltwater than previously thought. Environmental scientist Sam Boerlijst discovered this during his PhD research at the Hortus botanicus. This knowledge is crucial for understanding how mosquito-borne disease transmission might change in the future.

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.

The excuses for the slavery past? It would have been better if the cabinet had taken some more time on that, thinks university lecturer and Atlantic slavery expert Karwan Fatah-Black. 'Too bad they didn’t wait for the results of the study.'

Judith Pollmann, Professor of Early Modern Dutch History, has been awarded the Spinoza Prize. ‘An unbelievable honour.’

Lecture

Citizens still see great value in science communication and want to be increasingly involved in science. This is evident from research by the National Expertise Centre for Science & Society (NEWS) and researchers from the Science Communication and Society department at Leiden University.

Who doesn't love to turn on a horror film on a rainy evening? Fortunately, it is only fiction - or is it? According to university lecturer Evert Jan van Leeuwen, modern horror says more about our society than we think. He has been nominated for the Klokhuis Science Prize for his research into addiction…

Lecture, Annual Leiden Terra Incognita Lecture

How much energy and greenhouse gas emissions can Dutch homes save? Xining Yang uses Leiden as an example and shows with his research how enormous the impact can be. At least, if we work harder on becoming more sustainable. Based on the models he developed, Yang will receive his doctorate on 28 June.

‘The system is failing’, ‘the goals are only being achieved to a limited extent’, ‘we’re letting children down’. These are some of the newspaper headlines that followed the publication of a report by researchers from Leiden University in September. Commissioned by the Dutch Research and Documentation…

Can humans perceive single photons? What is our place in the universe? How can we make quantum computers more stable? Five researchers from the Faculty of Science have received funding for their research projects within the Dutch Research Agenda (NWA).

There has been a lot of media attention for the report recently completed by the Institute of Environmental Sciences (CML) from Leiden University. However, it has long been known that Dutch surface water contains too many toxic pesticides. ‘We will have to improve our ways of life together with many…

Education

Professor Peter Bisschop has been awarded an ERC Advanced Grant. He will invest the 2.5 million euros in his research into puranas: ancient texts, commonly written in Sanskrit, that are up to fifteen hundred years old.

What do you do if you have a book from the sixteenth or seventeenth century, but you suspect that the binding contains a fragment of a medieval manuscript? University lecturer Thijs Porck has received an NWO grant to experiment with a camera attached to a tube. 'The project boils down to keyhole surgeries…

Lecture, COGLOSS Seminar

Lecture

More people seeking asylum, overcrowded asylum accommodation and asylum procedures that take years because of a lack of capacity. The current government wants to declare an asylum crisis but what is that exactly and can they just do that?

After a process of more than two decades, the new Greek-Dutch dictionary was presented on Wednesday 5 June. University lecturer Lucien van Beek acted as manager of this project headed by Ineke Sluiter for the last nine years. He is also one of its editors-in-chief.

Economic Anthropologist Erik Bähre talks on the Dutch News Radio Channel BNR about the effects of the Russia-Ukraine grain agreement for African countries.

The numbers of asylum seekers and the direct family members hoping to join them were not the problem, says Mark Klaassen. The stumbling block was the housing market. He says the asylum crisis is being used for electoral gain.

In the academic year 2025-2026, the project 'Sea-ing Africa: Tracing Legacies and Engaging Future Promises of 'Big' Infrastructure Projects in Port City Regions in Ghana and Morocco' will be pleased to host students from all three tracks of the MSc Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology and…

Dutch troops, judges and politicians collectively condoned and concealed the systematic use of extreme violence during the Indonesian War of Independence. Historians have now shown how this could happen. ‘It was scandal management rather than prevention,’ says Leiden historian and research leader Gert…