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.

‘Rudy van Vliet is always willing to go that extra mile to help us,’ is what students say about him. The lecturer in the Computer Science bachelor’s programme not only teaches his regular courses but also offers additional classes to prepare students for programming competitions. His dedication to students…

Algorithms solve problems. But which algorithm is best suited to which problem? During his doctoral research, Diederick Vermetten developed methods to figure this out. And that is important for the entire field.

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…

A fair distribution of goods and services is the most important factor in justifying political power. This is the conclusion of Honorata Mazepus in her PhD dissertation 'What makes authorities legitimate in the eyes of citizens?' PhD defence September.

Mirjam van Reisen favours big data built up from local inputs in developing countries and suitable for local use. The new Professor of Computing for Society at Leiden's Faculty of Science connects data science with development sociology. Inaugural lecture 10 March.

On Tuesday, November 18, 2025, Ambassador Bert Theuerman (Austrian Ambassador to The Netherlands) hosted a Coffeehouse Discussion exploring the position and impact of women in science and arts at his residence in The Hague.

Festival

In the future, computers will be able to base their decisions on intuition. Professor Jaap van den Herik, director of the Leiden Centre of Data Science, posed this statement today in his Valedictory Address at Tilburg University.

By spreading fake news via TV spots and Twitter with the use of Social Bots, Pascal professor Heike Trautmann is investigating the characteristics of fake news. She is calling on Leiden researchers to cooperate in the project.

In The Hague, the Leiden Centre of Data Science (LCDS) in close collaboration with the Centre for Professional Learning (CPL) is developing a Legal Technologies programme. They do so in cooperation with three faculties of Leiden University, namely the Faculty of Governance and Global Affairs (FGGA),…

On 29 January 2019, Robbert J. van Eijk will defend his Ph.D thesis, in which he investigates the online advertisements that seem to follow you.

How do we navigate the continuously developing landscape in research integrity, ethics, and open science? Anna van 't Veer and Eiko Fried discuss the underlying principles and values of science with all psychology units in their Responsible Scholarship workshop.

In FameLab contestants explain their research to the public in a three-minute presentation – without using PowerPoint or other presentation tools. The Leiden heats of this international communications competition will be held on 7 March. Anyone is welcome to come and watch!

Without academic freedom, we might not have antibiotics, nor a deep understanding of human behaviour. Literary criticism, climate models, and ecological restoration would be severely limited; just like ethical reflection on artificial intelligence, justice, trauma, parenting, faith and hope. All these…

AI ultrasounds: LUC alumna empowers women in rural Africa

The Klokhuis dedicates a special episode to Leiden alumnus and famous scientist Christiaan Huygens. Part of the episode was recorded at the Leiden Observatory. Leiden researchers also helped shape the episode, which debuts on Tuesday 2 November.

Who authored the best theses in Leiden University's Political Science BSc programmes?

Biologists today have to be able to work with big data. Data analysis skills should be taught from the start of the degree programme, or - even better - in secondary school. This is the message of Vera van Noort, new Professor of Computational Biology. Inaugural lecture 22 January.

From video glasses for the deaf to protecting endangered languages. The Taalmuseum's new exhibition in the hall of the University's former library demonstrates how language research contributes to societal issues such as health care and disappearing cultures. The exhibition is open from 14 September…

But how do you do it? At the annual Education Showcase, lecturers at the Faculty of Humanities could talk to their colleagues about teaching methods and teaching. Plenty of tips were exchanged during the information fair, workshops and drinks. Five participants talk about they learned.

On 2 November, more than 800 students visited Leiden's Humanities Faculty to explore their options during the Master's Open Day. Read some of their stories here!

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.

For ten months, PhD student Sanne Rotmeijer worked on the editorial boards of various news media on Curaçao and Sint Maarten. She also tracked how news goes around on the streets and circulates on social media. The aim? To find out how stories became 'the news'.

Dr. Ahmad Al-Jallad and Prof.dr. Peter Akkermans have been awarded with the NWO Free Competition Grant for their research project 'Landscapes of Survival: Pastoralist Societies, Rock Art and Literacy in Jordan's Black Desert, c. 1000 BC to 500 AD'. Together, they study settlements, burials and inscr…

‘Timmermans says more Polish workers are staying in Poland, but there aren’t any figures to back this up,’ was the headline of NU.nl news website during the European elections in 2019. This was after Nieuwscheckers, the fact-checkers at Leiden University, had checked a statement by PvdA politician Frans…

The Public Day of the Leiden Institute of Brain and Cognition (LIBC) has grown in recent years into one of the most popular popular-science events in Leiden. Tickets are selling fast for the upcoming edition on Friday 11 October in Stadsgehoorzaal in Leiden. Professor Bernet Elzinga tells us more.

Researcher Max van Duijn and PhD student Bram van Dijk apply language models to stories told by children to investigate empathy. For this research, they received the Best Paper Award at the Computational Natural Language Learning Conference in Singapore.

Give Nikki IJzerman a football and she’s happy. The midfielder was named Player of the Year by ADO Den Haag last season, as well as obtaining her master’s degree in Journalism and New Media.

Neighbourhood newspapers, newsletters and Facebook groups: Leiden residents have dozens of ways to keep each other informed about news in their neighbourhood. Students from the pre-master's programme in Journalism and New Media mapped out all these different media and asked themselves: what is the future…

Translating poetry is notoriously difficult. Translating poetry in such a way that the humorous nature of a poem remains intact is even more difficult, even though it is precisely jokes that can encourage children to read more, notes PhD candidate Alice Morta.

Register now for the World Press Freedom Conference 2020 digital edition (9 – 10 December 2020)!

Julia van Alem had never held a camera before, but she and her classmates were appointed as the City Photographer. ‘This project helped me learn how to create my own work better.’

The AI chatbot ChatGPT has a clear left-liberal bias when filling in the Stemwijzer voting advice application. This was discovered by master's student Merel van den Broek during an assignment for the Machine Learning for Natural Language Processing course.

Rector Magnificus Carel Stolker will retire on 8 February. If there’s one theme running through his career, it’s the links between the University and society. In this series of pre-retirement discussions, Stolker will talk one last time to people from within and without the University. This time he…

The university may seem a bit subdued in the run-up to the Dutch elections on 29 October. The media has barely mentioned education as an election issue, but behind the scenes the university is lobbying hard, says acting President of the Executive Board, Timo Kos. ‘We’re fighting for the future of our…

Great things are expected of Young Academy Leiden. The first 13 members of this society for young researchers will provide the Executive Board with fresh ideas on teaching, research, policy and how to connect with society. The researchers themselves will benefit from the contact with their peers from…

How many species of plants, animals, fungi and moss live in the gardens surrounding the Oude UB at Rapenburg 70? On Tuesday May 20th, the Citizen Science Lab led an investigation in the front gardens and back courtyard of the Old UB at Rapenburg 70, together with 15 colleagues working in that buildi…

Gianclaudio Malgieri, Associate Professor of Law and Board member at eLaw, has been appointed to the Programme Committee of PLSC, the Privacy Law Scholarship Conference, one of the world's most attended academic privacy conferences. Gianclaudio is the only representative from a Dutch university and…

CML researchers has contributed to development of the first-ever Global Soil Biodiversity Atlas , which has been published recently by the European Joint Research Centre (EU JRC) and the Global Soil Biodiversity Initiative (GSBI).

A mix of data research, artificial intelligence and archaeology led to lively discussions on 31 January. On that day the unique event 'AI & Data Science @ Archaeology' took place in which the Data Science Research Programme (DSRP), SAILS and the Faculty of Archaeology joined forces.

Last week Saturday LUC hosted a Symposium about Brexit for students and alumni. Many interesting perspectives were shared by the speakers, as well as comments and questions from the public.

Leiden University has received a Lifelong Learning grant that will enable it to significantly expand its learning for professionals, for example for the government in The Hague and the Leiden Bio Science Park.