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?

Studying abroad and going on an exchange is a great way to broaden your horizons and explore new places, cultures, and fields of study. In addition to a full-semester exchange, there are many other possibilities such as a summer school or an internship. For example, LUC student Manju von Rospat went…

Whereas most outgoing professors are offered a congress, Nico Kaptein's former students and PhD students took a bigger approach. They treated him not only to a farewell congress, but also to a two-week tour of Indonesia, filled with lectures, and trips.

Marianne Maeckelbergh has received a Consolidator grant from the European Research Council for a project on the impact of property regimes on experiences of citizenship. The project will be carried out in five democratic countries: Greece, The Netherlands, Spain, the United Kingdom and the United St…

Every week, Uwe Hensch walks past the Old Observatory in Leiden. In corona times, he decided to make a LEGO design of the historic building. His design is now finished and might go into production. You can help to make it happen.

Elif Naz Kayran and Anna-Lena Nadler have received the European Political Science Review (EPSR) Prize for early career scholars.

After the lockdown, it was again possible to receive graduates and guests at the University. In recent weeks, BSc and MSc graduates from various study programmes were festively awarded their diplomas in a special corona-proof setting in the restaurant of the Gorlaeus Lecture Halls building. This resulted…

Explore how cultural heritage can proactively respond to global crises, from geopolitical conflicts to climate change, through innovative cross-cultural collaboration between Latin American stakeholders and Una Europa.

Dr. Mark Dechesne, associate professor at the Leiden University Dual PhD Centre (FGGA) will participate asas work package leader in a large new international project on radicalization among young people in Europe.

In 2014 Russia entered Ukraine and occupied Crimea, and about two and a half years ago it began a large-scale invasion. For Ukraine, it’s a war. But Russia calls it a ‘special military operation’. Word choices of this kind affect how people look at issues. A Dutch Research Council (NWO) project led…

The European Football Championship for Women, in the Netherlands this summer, is the background for a large and innovative data research project. The Dutch football union is working together with Leiden University and Sportinnovator. The research is expected to uncover links that have thus far remained…

The doctrine of German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche is complex, contradictory and open to a range of different interpretations. As a result, his legacy has been adopted by both violent fascists and liberal pluralists. However, as James Pearson shows, the true Nietzsche lies somewhere in between these…

In the Leiden Municipality Challenge, 25 students investigated how Leiden could become more sustainable. In doing so, they enlisted the help of the city's citizens. 'When citizens themselves participate in the research process, they have a better understanding of how science works.'

On 7 June, the National Museum of Antiquities opened a mini exhibition 'Scanning for Syria'. The exhibition shows how Leiden archaeologists and Delft technical specialists make reconstructions of 3000-year-old Assyrian clay tablets. The originals, stored in museum depots in Raqqa (Syria), have been…

2024 was an eventful year for the Faculty of Humanities. Despite becoming the centre of political discussion and budget cuts as faculty ourselves, exceptional research projects were carried out and new initiatives were launched.

If you've ever wondered why people behave the way they do or how societies work, studying cultural anthropology and development sociology could be for you. Although these two disciplines once followed separate paths, they are now closely intertwined. This article explores what each involves, where they…

In a conversation, you provide all sorts of information to the listener. For example, you can indicate that you're certain about something, or that you heard it through someone else. Associate Professor Jenneke van der Wal has been awarded a Vici grant to investigate whether the way people do this is…

Mosques with limited opening hours, fewer family visits and fewer events: for the second time, Ramadan was different due to Covid. Islamologist and deputy director of the Leiden Islam Academie Fatiha Azzarhouni looks back on a special month.

Graduation Ceremony of the LL.M. Advanced Studies in International Children’s Rights 2024–2025

Exile: an Interview- 29 December 2022 & 2 February 2023 at Beit Ha'gefen Gallery, Haifa.

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.

Understanding what our buildings and cities are made of is an important step in making them more sustainable. Industrial ecologist Tomer Fishman (CML) has received an ERC Starting Grant to map the construction materials used in buildings in the Global South. 'Without the data, you can't formulate po…

On 15 February 2022, Irma Mosquera Valderrama, Professor of Tax Governance, holder of the EU Jean Monnet Chair on EU Tax Governance EUTAXGOV and Principal Investigator of the ERC funded project GLOBTAXGOV, participated in the High-Level Webinar Taxation and Business in Africa.

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.

How often do you consider the impact of your choices? 10 October is Sustainability Day: a good time to introduce the new bachelor's programme Science for Sustainable Societies.

When Petra Sijpesteijn became a member of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, she was the only Dutch member with an appointment at a Dutch university. Two years later, she is also the only Dutch member of the Austrian Academy and officially joined the British Academy on 7 October.

Together with 4 other students and ENGIE, Hein Laterveer, a Public Administration student, won the Rotterdam100, a talent contest for young entrepreneurs with ideas for the ‘Next Economy’. The Dutch winners travelled to Singapore for the international final. Hein talks about this special trip and educational…

The combination of data science and sports is a hot topic. In a talk during the opening of the Academic Year at the Faculty of Science, Professor Joost Kok explained what data analytics can teach us about sports.

From documentaries, zines and exhibitions to a video installation. Students of the Visual Ethnography master's programme pulled out all the stops to finish their studies in a fantastic way. For one year, the 23 students worked on their own multimedia projects. The screening of the projects took place…

Successful innovation requires more than technological progress alone. Every new concept must first be firmly anchored into an existing context. At least this is the hypothesis of Dutch classicists, working together in the National Research School in Classical Studies OIKOS. They intend to test this…

Psychologist Bramesada Prasastyoga discovered that small business owners who engaged in entrepreneurship mostly for the pursuit of rewards and opportunities tended to be more willing to grow their businesses than those who engaged in entrepreneurship mostly due to the need for security and necessity,…

Christina Toenshoff has been awarded the Virginia Walsh Dissertation Award for her PhD dissertation on corporate climate lobbying. The Leiden Political Scientist, according to the jury, ‘makes a significant contribution to the study of climate and business politics.’

How do galaxies form? That is what astronomer Mariska Kriek will be researching in the coming years. She received an NWO Vici grant of 1.5 million euros to study galaxies in the early universe. ‘This research uses new and unprecedented observations from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). These allow…

The International Workshop 'Maritime Conflicts and their Resolution in Atlantic Europe (13th-17th Centuries)' takes place at the University of La Laguna, Tenerife (Spain) from 21 to 22 April 2017.

Het schilderij van Rein Dool waarop voormalig bestuurders van de Universiteit Leiden zijn afgebeeld, is verhuisd naar de Receptieruimte van het Academiegebouw.

One of the core concepts in the work of philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche is amor fati: the love of one's fate. PhD candidate Hedwig Gaasterland analysed the term and concluded that Nietzsche did not favour a stoical interpretation of the concept. PhD defence 1 March.

During the Dutch famine of 1944–45, people were much more creative in finding food than we thought. Biology student Tom Vorstenbosch discovered that people did not only eat flower bulbs at that time, but also radish leaves and wild plants such as sorrel and chickweed.

Sara Polak, American Studies expert and University Lecturer investigates how American presidents deal with the media and how new, social media influence our collective memory and the political game. ‘Social media algorithms influence us and our political choices in ways we do not foresee’, Polak say…

The ‘right’ amount of dopamine in the brain makes study participants better at solving certain cognitive tasks. This is the conclusion of Bryant Jongkees after experiments and a literature review. PhD defence on 21 February.

People who move most in the afternoon and evening are less insulin resistant than people who move mainly in the morning or spread throughout the day. This makes them at lower risk of type 2 diabetes. These are the results that researchers from the Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC) have published…

An international team of researchers led by Leiden University (the Netherlands) has mapped nine gigantic collisions of galaxy clusters. The collisions took place seven billion years ago and could be observed because they accelerate particles to high speeds. It is the first time that collisions of such…

For her research into migration policy under different political regimes, Katharina Natter has been awarded the Gratama Science Prize for young, talented researchers.

Pandemics, terrorist attacks, environmental disasters... These are real threats, which we cannot ignore. In fact: we need to prepare better for the large-scale crises of the future. Preferably in a way that suits our lifestyle and respects our social values. Over the next ten years, an interdisciplinary…

World War II is never over for those who have lived through it. This is the conclusion of Cleveringa Professor Carol Gluck and her students after reading The Assault (De Aanslag) by Harry Mulisch. The book played a central role in Gluck’s honours course.

Gisela Hirschmann, lecturer and researcher at Leiden University’s Institute of Political Science, has been awarded a 2-year grant of € 170.000 by the German Fritz Thyssen Foundation to study how international organisations react to budget cuts, membership withdrawals and systematic non-compliance by…

The use of fire can tell us a lot about human evolution. Archaeologist Femke Reidsma has developed a more accurate technique to identify how our ancestors used fire. Existing archaeological studies will need to be revised. Reidsma’s study was published in Nature Scientific Reports on 2 November.

Leiden researchers, led by Sebastian Pomplun developed a new method to screen hundreds of thousands of molecules for drug discovery, using mass spectrometry instead of DNA tags. ‘We wanted to make drug discovery faster and more accessible.’

From 7-9 June 2023 Global Transformations and Governance Challenges (GTGC) organises its second international conference in The Hague. Deadline for submissions: 15 February 2023.

When do we say violence was used in an incident? The answer may seem obvious at first. But interim results from a study by Jolien van Breen show that Dutch people are labelling events in increasingly broad contexts as violent.

The Fieldwork NL report prize goes to the “Queer Joy in Motion” report, by bachelor students Dorota Olsavska, Marthe Baalbergen, Rielly Puchalski, and Rosa Graffé. Master student Imogen Cooney receives the Speckmann Award for her thesis ‘Decolonizing Faculty’.