‘Microscopy is by far the least understood, most inefficiently operated, and the most abused of all laboratory instruments,’ reads the quote on the office wall of microscopy unit supporters Joost Willemse en Gerda Lamers. It describes exactly why the two developed the microscopy course for starting…

What rules should regulate AI, who should make them, and how will they be enforced in the digital arena?

Cars are equipped with catalysts to disarm toxic exhaust gases. Platinum plays an important role there. Leiden physicists and chemists have now for the first time seen the mechanism behind a platinum catalyst. With a fundamental understanding of the process, scientists can use this rare material more…

It is multi-media month for master’s students in Journalism and New Media. This means they are on the streets, armed with pen and paper or tablet, smart phone and camera. In the ‘Leiden Neighbourhoods’ project, master’s students are giving their perspective on local area news for the Leidsch Dagblad,…

Kick-off Meeting

A new two year MA track was launched at the Europaeum Spring School in Oxford on May 18th 2013.

On 28 and 29 October, the first Van Wittel/ Vanvitelli dialogue took place at the Clingendael Institute in The Hague. The Van Wittel/Vanvitelli Dialogue is a high-level roundtable on Italian-Dutch relations, organised by the Clingendael Institute and the Institute for International Affairs in Rome,…

In 2021 we will start with a weekly lunch time seminar series, online on Mondays from 12 noon onwards.

Twenty-two of the 150 newly elected members of the Dutch House of Representatives studied at Leiden University or did their PhD research here. But who are they and which degrees are most popular?

On December 4th an agreement was signed between the Leiden Institute of Advanced Computer Science (LIACS) and the Netherlands Forensic Institute (NFI). Cor Veenman (NFI) will perform research in the field of Forensic Big Data Science at LIACS.

An international committee has assessed the maths research at all Dutch universities over the period from 2009 to 2014. Maths in Leiden was awarded the ‘highest’ grade ( a 1) on all criteria: quality of the research, societal relevance and sustainability.

The project Going Dutch investigates why the link between being or becoming Dutch, and knowledge of Standard Dutch is so often taken for granted in public discourse, by diving into its historical roots.

In 2024, many of our students and staff won great prizes and secured important research grants.

The Faculty of Humanities has two advisory groups for Diversty & Inclusion: one for staff members and one for students.

Graduates of this programme work in diverse fields such as publishing, journalism, public relations, education, cultural policy, and translation. Roles include editor, content manager, policy advisor, project manager, and PhD researcher. The programme also prepares you for academic careers, with many…

On 8 March, International Women’s Day, equal opportunities for women worldwide, empowerment, and gender equality take centre stage. For years, the role of women in the past has been nearly invisible. Four archaeologists reflect on this inequality of focus, from hunter-gatherers in the palaeolithic to…

The LUCAS Dissertation Prize has been awarded to Dr. Renske Janssen for her PhD thesis Religio Illicita? Roman Legal Interactions with Early Christianity in Context.

Doing a PhD on the side? External PhD candidates, like Joost Van der Helm, just get on and ‘do it’. Besides his hectic job as a justice at the Court of Appeal in The Hague, Van der Helm managed to still find time to write a PhD dissertation.

Markus Davidsen, assistant professor of Religious Studies, is the winner of the 2021 Impact Prize. He is receiving the prize of 1,000 euros for the material he has developed for religious education in secondary schools.

PhD-programmes, specialized in artistic research, docARTES and PhDArts join forces on March 22 and 23.

The Faculty of Humanities has made a festive start to the academic year. On 7 September, staff members were able to meet each other at a drinks party in the Hortus botanicus.

On 11 November 2022, a number of (internal and external) PhD candidates in the field of civil procedural law presented their research. The seminar took place in the building of the Supreme Court of the Netherlands.

Three professors, including Leiden Professor of Constitutional and Administrative Law Wim Voermans, sent an urgent letter to the Dutch Senate on 29 May 2023 concerning the new pension system. The criticism focuses not so much on the content of the new pension system, but on the fact that, according…

Not only companies go bankrupt, many people do too. Are bankruptcies beneficial for natural persons, and do they give people the new start they need? Leiden University will examine these questions in collaboration with SEO Amsterdam Economics.

A team of researchers at the Institute of Biology Leiden, in collaboration with scientists from Utrecht University, has discovered a novel approach to improve the production of antibiotics and enzymes in the soil bacteria Streptomycetes.

On Thursday 30 November 2023, the research group Institutions for Conflict Resolution held an event for stakeholders in Utrecht focusing on ‘The government as (ineffective) conflict resolver: legitimacy under pressure?’ The aim of this annual event, each time addressing a new topic within the overarching…

Students and researches from all faculties at Leiden University attended a lunch seminar to discuss with four topic experts the rise of AI and the challenges this poses for various governance structures. The event was hosted by Leiden University’s interdisciplinary programmes GTGC and SAILS.

Of the 150 elected representatives, 24 studied or conducted their PhD research in Leiden. Who are they and which degrees are most popular among these MPs?

Lecture

This project studies travel writing about the Dutch East Indies written between 1800 and the end of the Second World War. By analyzing both Dutch travel texts and Indigenous travel texts in Javanese and Malay, it presents a new, double-voiced perspective on (the historiography of) the Dutch colonial…

Security in the broadest sense of the word was the key focus in the Interfaculty Conference on 4 April in Leiden. With almost 200 attendees and such well-known speakers as Dick Schoof, Pieter van Vollenhoven and Ad Verbrugge, the first conference was a success.

The Faculty of Science launched the new Academic Year on 21 September with a special We Are Science talk show. Dean Paul Wouters starred in his role as talk show host and received a wide variety of guests.

In a survey held last year by the publication Elsevier, Leiden's Computer Science programme was voted by students as the best university programme of its kind in the Netherlands. And the Rotterdam Economics programme was voted the best in its field. Leiden University now offers a combined study based…

Policy makers urgently need scientists’ help with the phenomenon of big data. This was the view expressed by Prince Constantijn, speaking at the opening of the Leiden Centre of Data Science, the virtual centre for research on big data at Leiden University.

325 students received their Bachelor’s Diploma of International Studies on 30 August 2019. The students received their diplomas in the historic Pieterskerk in Leiden, in front of a large audience of family and friends. With more than 1100 people present, including 325 graduates, this was the largest…

We have been working from home for over 9 weeks. How are the staff members of the Institute for History doing? Andrew Gawthorpe shares his experience below.

An X-ray scanner, some small metal balls, and a newly developed algorithm. That is all you need to make a 3D model that enables you to look inside art objects without dismantling them. Thanks to the research of Francien Bossema (Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica and Leiden Institute of Advanced Computer…

Turning beer waste into a useful, sustainable product. That was the mission of students from Leiden at the international BISC-E event. The biology students challenged themselves and won third place in the Dutch finals of this competition. For this, they used the simple formula: Grain + fungus = coas…

Seven Leiden researchers have been awarded a prestigious Vici grant by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO).

One of the holy grails of drug research is to be able to assess the safety of chemicals and pharmaceuticals without using laboratory animals. Researchers from Leiden University, among others, now receive a grant from the National Science Agenda to pursue that goal.

A delegation from Leiden University, headed by the Rector Magnificus Professor Paul van der Heijden, is currently in Xiamen, in South-East China, to conclude two agreements on intensive research and teaching collaboration with academic institutions there, and to open the first MEARC representative office…

Few researchers see potential in research on glioblastoma, an incurable brain tumour. Alexander Kros brought together colleagues who are up to the challenge. European research funder ERC recently made 10.6 million euros available, a year earlier NWO provided 3 million euros. ‘In six years, we certainly…

Each year the Academy of Creative and Performings Arts (ACPA) hosts a Joint Session for her PhD candidates. The aim of this Joint Session, as its name already suggests, is to let PhD's from both doctoral programmes docARTES and PhDArts and PhD's who are not pursuing their research through a doctoral…

We continue to work from home as much as possible. How are the staff members of the Institute for History doing? Mike Schmidli shares his experience below.

Five consortia within the Perspectief programme that include Leiden researchers have received funding to start their research projects. These projects focus on (further) developing technological innovations, with societal and economic impact at their core.

For his dissertation, Joost Akkermans searched for areas of improvement for delicate fetal laser surgery with Twin Transfusion Syndrome (TTS). This syndrome occurs in the Netherlands 60 to 70 times a year among single-egg twins sharing one placenta. Treatment is possible, but not without risk. Inaugural…

Tiny self-propelling spheres, measuring only micrometers, move faster over a hydrophobic silicone surface than they do over hydrophilic glass. 'Almost nobody had realised that the substrate matters', says Stefania Ketzetzi, the researcher who discovered the effect, researched it and explained it. She…

Just a few weeks until a festival full of exciting science activities bursts into life in Leiden. From January the city will be European City of Science for 365 days. Many researchers are enthusiastic participants. ‘I see it as an opportunity to help people feel the joy of discovering something new…

Prof.dr.ir. Wessel Kraaij is appointed director of the Data Science Research Programme (DSRP) at Leiden University, starting March 1st. He is the successor of prof.dr. Joost Kok, who recently exchanged Leiden for the position of dean in Twente.