Marike van Aerde was at the brink of traveling to India for fieldwork when that country closed its borders, three weeks ago. Only a few days later, Leiden University followed suit in temporarily banning all fieldwork trips. With her research team scattered across different continents, she does her best…

During the 2019 Reuvensdagen, PhD candidate Femke Lippok was awarded the prestigious W.A. van Es-prize for her research master’s thesis The Pyre and the Grave, written in 2017. The jury lauded Femke for her pioneering work and making use of big data analysis, while adding an admirably expansive and…

He presented his PhD research entitled “Kick-starting drug development; translational systems pharmacology using innovative zebrafish experiments and advanced computational modelling”. During his presentation, Rob highlighted the advancements he made in using zebrafish as model in system pharmacolog…

Two thousand years ago, the Middle East found itself caught between the rise of the Roman Empire in the west and the Parthian Empire in the east. PhD candidate Nolke Tasma has been awarded an NWO grant to investigate how local inhabitants experienced these changes.

For an assignment for the course Medical Anthropology, students were asked to choose a theme related to the Covid-19 pandemic, find information and present their work in a creative way. The results are impressive.

Pakistani archaeologist Abdul Ghani Khan (MPhil) and Dr Marike van Aerde (Leiden University) have been awarded the Prince Claus Heritage Emergency Grant for the rescue and preservation of ancient rock art in the Karakorum mountain range of the Pakistani Himalayas. The project will run for a year, from…

PhD defence

For over six centuries, the Tatars have been part of Poland’s social and cultural fabric. In this 8-episode series, released weekly, professor Maurits Berger and assistant professor Ewa Górska explore how this Muslim minority has maintained its identity across generations, how Islam is practiced in…

Lecture, Boekpresentatie

Many conflicts in Africa have been studied and described as location and time bound. Yet conflict is rarely confined and contained, and instead reaches across communities, borders, and generations.

This PhD project investigates how literary translators and journalists react and respond to machine-translated metaphors and what the repercussions for professional practice are.

The compulsory reading list is infamous among secondary school students, and for all the wrong reasons. This prompted the Faculty of Humanities and the Onderwijsnetwerk Zuid-Holland (South Holland Education Network) to launch the Alternative Reading List Award, in search of books that motivate young…

Postdoc and linguist Evelyn Bosma receives the Keetje Hodshon Prize for her dissertation. For her research on the multilingualism of Frisian children, Bosma previously won the Klokhuis Science Prize and the Campus Fryslân Science Prize.

The soya sauce in our kitchen cabinets is not a recent acquisition. This sauce is an important element in a long history of exchange between Asia and Europe. This is what Anne Gerritsen claims in her inaugural lecture for the Kikkoman Chair on Friday 12 December.

Linguist Ingrid Tieken-Boon van Ostade retired in July, but is pressing on regardless with her languages in The Hague project. An online tour of her Hague Proverbs launched recently and Tieken also has academic publications in the pipeline.

Festival, Graduation Ceremony

Alumna Simay Çetin received the award for her Master thesis: ‘Interpreting Culture through Embodied Practice: An anthropological study of sexuality among Dutch Women with Turkish Migrant backgrounds.’ Nova, Marta, Iris and Emma were awarded for their Fieldwork NL report.

Study information

Nadine Akkerman's book Spycraft, which she co-wrote with historian of science Pete Langman, has garnered top publications, with reviews featured in The Telegraph, Literary Review, The Spectator, History Today, and the Times Literary Supplement.

What do ten-year-old children and chatbots have in common? PhD researcher Bram van Dijk studied language development in both children and AI language models. ‘It’s actually quite practical that we attribute human traits to a chatbot.’

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.

University lecturer Andrew Gawthorpe of Leiden University reflects in Global News Canada on the global implications of Donald Trump's foreign policy.

The LUCL has a new Scientific Director. Professor Sjef Barbiers took over the reins from Lisa Cheng with effect from 1 January. 'This is a great opportunity to contribute to a wonderful institution.'

Professor Antje Wessels has received an NWO Open Competition grant to research fragmentary texts.

How do you study the growth of microorganisms, the spread of epidemic diseases or the healing of wounds, without actually performing experiments? Daoyi Wang, PhD candidate at the Mathematical Institute, worked on a specific mathematical model that can describe the growth of microorganisms and many other…

Rahul Gandhi, former president of the Indian National Congress, was on the Hague Campus on 10 September.

Predicting the collective behaviour of systems, like a large group of people electing one of the parties, is no easy task. But there’s a theory that scientists have been using for decades to do just that: the theory of Gibbs measures. Last week, mathematician Mirmukhsin Makhmudov earned his PhD for…

By making use of artificial tax arrangements via the Netherlands and other countries, corporations and wealthy individuals worldwide together manage to avoid paying $472 billion in tax.

Plants not only sense when they are touched, but they can also adapt to it. For example, by strengthening or defending themselves. But how do plants do this? The Green TE (Green Tissue Engineering) consortium has been granted a Gravitation grant of almost 23 million euros to investigate exactly this…

After years of development, the moment has finally arrived: a massive cryostat, a highly advanced freezer that keeps the sensitive components extremely cold, has arrived in Leiden from Zurich. The device is the largest component of METIS, one of the first instruments for ESO’s Extremely Large Telescope…

Economic law, environmental law and human rights are important fields of law for sustainable development. But they do not interact sufficiently, which makes it difficult to implement sustainable development.

Hydrogen can help to solve the climate problem. At least, if we start producing it in the right, clean way. Leiden researchers mapped out the global environmental impact of hydrogen production and looked ahead to 2050. They published their work in Energy & Environmental Science.