Women are more often diagnosed with depression, whereas ADHD is much more frequently detected in men. And there are other more striking differences. What role does the brain play in mental health and what is the influence of the environment? For answers to these questions, listen to the ‘(Un)gendered…

Saskia Goedhard was previously director of operations at the Hogeschool van Amsterdam and the UvA. Since April, she has brought her expertise to the Faculty of Humanities as director of business operations. 'Good business management is like water from a tap. You only notice it when it’s no longer th…

Corrie Bakels is known as one of the founders of bio-archaeology in the Netherlands. One of her former students, Dr Marco Langbroek, active in astronomy, made a request to the International Astronomic Union to name a recently discovered asteroid after her. Hearing the news, Bakels was astounded. 'My…

During the 80th session of the Geneva-based Institut de Droit International, Aleydis Nissen was awarded the Andrés Bello Prize. The competition was established by James Brown Scott in 1931 and is carried out under the auspices of the Institut.

The glasses have been rinsed, the furniture is in place and the six-member board is ready. A very short time to go before De Fusie opens its doors in the Gorlaeus Building. The brand new bar promises to be a nice addition to the social life on campus. ‘We don't just want to run a cosy bar, but also…

Showing your face at dinners and parties at court: it was the way to get noticed by the king in William I's time. Joost Welten's latest book reveals how, during the reign of William I, the elite danced around his throne both literally and figuratively.

In the Spanish town of Guadalajara, there is a street named ‘Burgemeester Fluiterstraat’, named after a descendant of Leiden migrants who had done well in the South. He was not the only Guadalajara resident with Leiden roots: at the beginning of the eighteenth century, a stream of Dutch textile workers…

With her Veni research, investigator Rosanne Baars from the Institute of History aims to demonstrate that women played a role in the eighteenth-century diplomatic circles of the Ottoman Empire. ‘We already know that one woman led the entire embassy.'

Another year has reached its end. And what a year it has been! On December 4th staff and students of the Faculty of Archaeology came together to celebrate and reminisce. The event's central topic was the end of Jan Kolen's term as Dean. Martina Revello Lami moderated the event.

The French political theorist Hélène Landemore has been appointed as the new Cleveringa Professor. She will deliver her inaugural lecture on 26 November.

Pancras Hogendoorn bade farewell as Dean of Medicine and Vice-Chairman of the LUMC Board of Directors with a symposium at the LUMC.

For decades it was thought that the family system of the ancient Egyptians was very similar to our own. However, PhD candidate Steffie van Gompel explains that the reality is somewhat different. ‘In Egyptian families, it was often the eldest son versus the rest of the children.’

How can we make our cities greener and more people-friendly? Two Campus The Hague projects have secured a grant from the Municipality of The Hague. The researchers and students from both projects are working with city residents to find sustainable solutions to local issues.

We talk too little about silence, thinks university lecturer Gerlov van Engelenhoven. He has been awarded a Veni grant to investigate the role of silence in protest movements. Does silence sometimes really say more than a thousand words?

Many of us love music, but we don’t understand why exactly that is – or how our individual experiences of music can differ. Rebecca Schaefer will research this in the run-up to the SNAAR Festival in Utrecht. And in a unique way: students in vocational education (mbo) will be the researchers.

Jasper Knoester is de decaan van de Faculteit Wiskunde & Natuurwetenschappen. Hoe gaat het met hem, wat doet hij precies en hoe ziet zijn dag eruit? In elke nieuwsbrief geeft Jasper een inkijkje in zijn leven.

How do you engage students? Sander van Kasteren knows how to do that like no other. ‘He compares immune cells to Pokémon and doesn’t just give information; he tells stories,’ students say about their favourite lecturer, Sander van Kasteren. The Professor of Molecular Immunology passionately teaches…

As a doctor, coming to a decision together with a patient: how do you do that in the best possible way? Researchers Geert Warnar and Roosmaryn Pilgram, who jointly teach a course within the MA in Dutch Studies, are entering into a virtual collaboration with the Universidade NOVA de Lisboa to find the…

Márcia Gonçalves joined Institute for History recently as Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellow and specialises in the history of modern European colonialism (19th-20th Centuries). Below she introduces herself!

On 9 December, a lottery to conclude the first call of the Leiden University Global Fund (LUGF) Seed Fund has granted 14 project proposals €15.000. These projects will be working to enhance the relationship between Leiden University and her partners in Africa, Latin America, North East and South East…

Research conducted by Deloitte, with advice from Leiden University and Nibud (National Institute for Family Finance Information), shows that six out of ten households in the Netherlands are financially unhealthy. National media paid much attention to the report.

Leiden University will continue to offer its BA in Italian Language and Culture. The Board of the Faculty of Humanities has reversed its decision to stop admitting new students as of the 2026/2027 academic year.

The war in Ukraine is entering a new phase with the announcement of a partial Russian military mobilisation and the intention to annex four Ukrainian regions. Why is Putin making these decisions just now and what consequences will they have for the course of the war? We talk to professor and Russia…

The Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC), the Danstem Institute from the University of Copenhagen and the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute in Melbourne have received 300m euros from the Novo Nordisk foundation. The aim of this new international consortium is to bring stem-cell based therapies…

Are you looking for some listening material for the upcoming long weekend? Staff members and alumni of the Faculty of Humanities have been creating various podcasts over the last few months. A selection is shown here:

Liselotta Jahnke, Jason Irwin, Rachel Cruickshank and Paula Kovač are the new student members of the Programme Committee (OLC). This committee advises the Executive Board and the Faculty Board of CADS about educational matters, such as determining the Course and Examination Regulations and evaluating…

Now that the South Cluster is reaching its concluding phase, we are looking ahead to the next building to be developed in the context of the Humanities Campus: Matthias de Vrieshof (working title: North Cluster).

In 1808, the United States banned the transatlantic slave trade. Not everyone was happy about this, as Marcella Schute discovered. In her thesis, she shows how politicians from Louisiana made serious attempts to restart the slave trade in the mid-nineteenth century.

Dutch newspaper Trouw investigated the tax position of multinational Cargill. Their conclusion? Cargill appears not to pay taxes over their profits. Trouw asked Jan van de Streek, Professor of Tax Law, and PhD candidate Josephine van der Have for an explanation. Prior to this, Van der Have had also…

As you may know, a draft profile for a broad BA programme in Languages and Cultures has been in development for some time. On 21 December 2021, the Faculty Board decided to end the design process of that broad bachelor’s degree programme. However, as the Faculty Board and partners in the discipline…

What can we expect from the teacher coaches in the coming year? University lecturers Astrid Van Weyenberg and Maarten van Leeuwen talk about their plans.

Fake news a new phenomenon? Not according to Rens Tacoma and Indira Huliselan. In an NWO project, the associate professor and PhD student will delve into the twisting, scheming and tampering with facts that went on thousands of years ago.

Dr Eduard Fosch-Villaronga, Assistant Professor at eLaw - Center for Law and Digital Technologies, and 8 partners have been awarded the project 'BIAS: Mitigating Diversity Biases in the Labour Market', a large €4.7M Horizon Europe grant.

Opening doors to society: that is the aim of the Social Advisory Council, which has recently been established by the Faculty of Humanities. The dean and two members of this Council tell us about what they hope to achieve.

Inviting members of the public to help monitor wildlife, photograph plants or conduct samplings. These are some of the many examples of Citizen Science. It is increasingly recognized as effective and impactful for collecting data, but also for engaging the public in scientific research. In Nature reviews…

Why doesn't the Surinamese resistance hero and independence fighter Anton de Kom have a memorial site in his former hometown, The Hague, while there are streets named after colonial leaders? The students of university lecturer Anne Marieke Van der Wal-Rémy are committed to the erection of a statue.

After diving into the murder trial of nurse Lucia de Berk, statistician Richard Gill became a leading expert on the statistics of medical murder cases. Together with colleagues, he now wrote a peer reviewed report about the statistical missteps in past medical murder trials. It gives recommendations…

Over a thousand women ended up in a State workhouse between 1886 and 1934. This was a place for vagrants, beggars and drunkards: people who were said to be too lazy to work. Who were these women who were sent there? PhD candidate Marian Weevers found out.

University lecturer in Chinese and Comparative Philosophy Jingjing Li has been awarded a Veni grant for her research on feminist theories within the Buddhist philosophy of consciousness-only. Jingjing Li explains her plans and the importance of her research.

Leiden University will not enter into any new research partnerships with companies in the fossil fuel industry that are not intensively and demonstrably committed to achieving the goals of the Paris Agreement. Current projects can, however, be completed.

Two researchers from the Institute of Political Science were recently awarded prizes. Claire Vergerio received the Francesco Guicciardini Prize for her book on the historical origins of the primacy of the state in international law ('best book in the historical international relations category'). In…

For years, the late professor Marten Durieux personally mentored and funded students from Sudan to study physics in the Netherlands. Colleague Sense Jan van der Molen calls his endeavour remarkable: ‘Marten Durieux has done a great job with these students, at a time when diversity was not yet a big…

Playing with nitrogen and fire to show school pupils how exciting science can be – that’s what the student volunteers of Stichting Rino do alongside their studies. ‘If there’s even one child who gets interested in science, that’s what it’s all for.’

When university lecturer Martine Bruil was on exchange in Ecuador as a teenager, she fell in love with the area's ancient languages. Now, more than 20 years later, she is starting a research project on the kinship of the language Awapit with the Quechua language that was spread by the Incas.

You speak Japanese, know everything about medieval art or understand exactly what Hegel meant. And then you graduate. Many Humanities students find it hard to enter the labour market. A relevant part-time job can help. Therefore, the faculty has been working together with the employment agency Randstad…

eLaw – Center for Law and Digital Technologies has officially launched its participation in AI:Liner, a Horizon Europe project that will transform how Europe manages its aging sewer infrastructure through artificial intelligence and digital innovation.

We have to do all we can to stop climate change. But: the Earth is more resilient than we thought. That is the surprising conclusion of an international team of ecologists and mathematicians, which included Leiden mathematician Arjen Doelman. The team discovered that ecosystems can still avoid tipping…

Researchers at Leiden University have been awarded a €4 million EU grant to develop climate-neutral fuels. With this money they will expand the broad research community that focuses on green energy. If we work together, we can make the rapid progress that is needed, says Prof. Huub de Groot, Professor…

A month’s break from your studies, ten days of intensive rehearsals and then a concert tour: the Netherlands Student Orchestra is based on a simple formula. Leiden student Daphne Biron tells us about the orchestra and the concert in Leiden on 20 February.

For many years, he was active in various management positions at the LION and even after his retirement he is still very involved. Professor Jan Aarts leads the Leiden hub of the Quantum Delta NL growth fund and is now temporarily responsible for national educational activities. In this way, he is helping…