Anke Smits and Lucien van Beek have been awarded a Praesidium Libertatis Grant this year. Smits is an assistant professor at the LUMC and Van Beek at the Faculty of Humanities. They each receive a sum of 75,000 euros from the Leiden University Fund (LUF).

What are the advantages of speaking a second language? Why do some people find it easier to learn a second language than others? Does a dialect count as a first language? On 20 May, Leiden University is organising an English-speaking public symposium on bilingualism: Twee Talen - één BeTalen.

The human brain stores not only individual words, but also all kinds of abstract information about these words. Research by Leiden linguists has shown that speakers have ready access to this information.

What does it mean for a citizen to be ‘literate’ in astronomy? Astronomers who participate in outreach to the general public experience various degrees of astronomical knowledge among people. But so far, there had not been a systematic evaluation and definition of what astronomical literacy actually…

What is it like to study at the Humanities Faculty of Leiden University? Soon-to-be students experienced a day at university during the Experience Day 2017 and found out what studying really is about.

Professor Roberta D'Alessandro, from the Leiden University Centre for Linguistics, has been appointed a member of the Global Young Academy (GYA) from 20 January 2014. The GYA, consisting of 155 members, provides a rallying point for outstanding young scientists from around the world.

Professor Sjef Barbiers will be appointed Managing Director of the Institute for the Dutch Language (INT) with effect from 1 September 2025. He will step down as scientific director of LUCL as of that date.

Unlike Dutch and English, most languages employ melody not only to add nuance to sentences but also to differentiate between words. How languages do this remains largely unknown. This project will investigate the linguistic, psychological and neural processes underlying the parallel communication of…

International Relations and European Politics is one of the three organisational clusters of the Institute of Political Science.

Comparative and Dutch Politics is one of the three organisational clusters of the Institute of Political Science.

Political scientist Matthew Longo (Leiden University) takes a detailed look at the evolution of border security in the United States after 9/11. Far from the walls and fences that dominate the news, he reveals borders to be thick, multi-faceted and binational institutions that have evolved greatly in…

As of 1 August, Anika Bexkens has been appointed Professor of Evidence-Based Clinical Practice for Child and Adolescent Mental Health. Her research focuses on the optimal application of scientific knowledge in practice. ‘Scientists and practitioners often speak past each other.’

PhD defence

This dissertation is a study of the view of the Neoplatonist Proclus (Athens, 411-485) on to what extent and how the changing and unreliable world of sense perception can itself be an object of scientific knowledge.

Promotor: H.V.J. Linnartz

This dissertation explores Aristotle’s use of teleology as a principle of explanation, especially as it is used in the natural treatises.

This article explores how the meaning of the rule of law has evolved over the past century in UK and US parliamentary speeches, focusing on procedural (thin) and substantive (thick) conceptualisations.

Students searched for MSc Internships under the following topics: 1. Understanding temporal variability in functional biodiversity and 2. Characterization of engineered nanoparticles in aquatic organisms: Gold nanoparticles and carbon nanotubes

Sustainable biotechnology, new insights into genome evolution and combining forces in mathematics. The NWO has awarded grants to these three innovative Leiden research projects in the ENW-M Open Competition.

On 5 September, spaceEU was launched at the Ars Electronica Festival in Linz, one of the world’s largest science, technology and media art festivals. This 1 million euro European-funded project is coordinated by Leiden Observatory. SpaceEU fosters a young, creative and inclusive European space community…

In a full lecture hall C1 the Faculty of Science started off the new academic year on Tuesday 5 September. The theme of the meeting was, just as it had been at the university's opening the day before, sustainability.

During the guest lecture on 9 February, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, Rob de Wijk and Frans Osinga discussed the situation in Ukraine and Taiwan. The crises in eastern Ukraine and the increasing tensions around Taiwan highlight the challenges the West faces in deterring aggression in the new era of key dynamics…

Cultural Anthropology graduate Tommie Lambregts conducted fieldwork in the Slaaghwijk neighbourhood in Leiden as part of a Policy in Practice research internship commissioned by the municipality. Leiden Science City nominated his research as one of four 'most impactful student projects'. Award ceremony…

The United Nations has declared May 22 the International Day for Biological Diversity. A moment of global reflection on everything on Earth and its indispensability. Anthropologist Marja Spierenburg stresses the importance of the interaction between natural and social sciences in addressing sustainability…

Leiden University has taken eighth place in this year’s SustainaBul, the sustainability ranking for universities and universities of applied sciences in the Netherlands. It was in 18th place last year.

Paul Wouters came to the Faculty of Science for a few months to help with organising day-to-day issues after the previous dean left. This has involved rather more than he expected. ‘I can now really understand why every faculty has its own dean.’

During the congress of the Royal Dutch Association for the Advancement of Pharmacy (Koninklijke Nederlandse Maatschappij ter bevordering der Pharmacie, KNMP) Jacqueline Gerritsen, former student Bio-Pharmaceutical Sciences at Leiden University, was awarded the KNMP student prize.

A leak developed in the mains water supply in the new building of Leiden University’s Faculty of Science at the Wassenaarseweg on Tuesday evening.

Leiden University and The Hague University of Applied Sciences are going to increase their teaching and research collaboration. They signed a collaboration agreement to this effect on 8 May.

The ERC-funded project Rethinking Disability was featured in the Fȇte de La Science which was held on 11 October 2019 at Sorbonne University in Paris.

On July 13, over seventy PhD students from Leiden and Delft came together at Katwijk beach for a workshop organized by the Casimir Research School: ‘So you have a degree in Science. Now what?’

In its session of 15 April 2024, the Austrian Academy of Sciences elected professor Petra Sijpesteijn as one of its new Corresponding Members.

After two years, it was great to be back in Brussels again. Many thanks to all alumni and students who were present during the academic discussion on the values and the future of the EU, followed by networking drinks.

Dr Mamadou Hébié, Associate Professor of International Law at the Grotius Centre for International Legal Studies, served last week as legal counsel in the world’s first advisory proceedings concerning climate change before the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS), on the one hand, and…

It was a remarkable trend in 19th-century London: middle-class bourgeois bohemians falling in love with anarchism and its assassins. University lecturer Michael Newton has been awarded a NIAS subsidy to reconstruct the lives of three of these families.

In the Bachelor Honours Class ‘The Noble Art and Tricky Business of Translation’, Honours students learn about the tricky business of translation. To gain hands-on experience, students had to translate a poem for the seminar on poetry. For some translators-to-be, one language was simply not enough.

People are keen to make a contribution that will be valuable for scientific research. Many thousands are taking part in the Major Flu Survey. Leiden researcher Anne Land is publishing on this subject in the Journal of Science Communication.

During the two-year History Research Master's programme you will learn from inspired academics and learn how to conduct high quality research.

Political scientist Wouter Veenendaal (Leiden University) provides an in-depth case study of clientelism in Malta, the smallest member state of the European Union. He reveals that not only that patron–client linkages are a ubiquitous feature of political life in Malta, but also that the smallness of…

Why do communities form militias to defend themselves against violence during civil war? Using original interviews with former combatants and civilians and archival material from extensive fieldwork in Mozambique, Corinna Jentzsch (Leiden University Institute of Political Science) explains the timing,…