The Netherlands has DigiD, Portugal ‘de Cartão de Cidadão’, and Ireland MyGovID. Europe now wants one uniform digital identity card - the same for all Member States. For the Dutch government, the European successor to DigiD is a prestige project. State Secretary Van Huffelen wants to roll out an app…

In 2018 NETWORKS organised a very succesful masterclass on networks and their applications for secondary school students with the title 'NETWORKS goes to school'. This week, NETWORKS published the collection of contributions with an extensive introduction. The aim of both the masterclass and this…

On 11 May 2016 a prestigious NWO Vidi grant (NWO's Innovation Research Incentives scheme) has been awarded to Nadia Soudzilovskaia for her research proposal entitled “Do mycorrhizal fungi mediate soil carbon fate?”, aimed to understand mycorrhizal impact on soil carbon sequestration.

Researcher Adam Lichtenheld received the ISA Distinguished Book Award for the best book in the study of international politics of ethnicity, nationalism and migration. The prize was awarded by the International Studies Association.

An interdisciplinary international consortium to address critical healthcare gaps for older adults in indigenous Dayak communities has been awarded an LDE Global Support grant (INUCoST).

Agressie op de werkvloer treft drie op de vier zorgverleners. Barend Barentsen, die gespecialiseerd is in bedrijfsongevallen en beroepsziekten, zegt in een uitzending van Zembla dat zorginstellingen tekort schieten in adequate nazorg van hun personeel die gewond zijn geraakt, kampen met PTSS en stre…

Compared to other countries, Dutch prisons have relatively few inmates. But who are behind bars in our prisons? Professor of Criminology and Comparative Penology Miranda Boone: ‘It's not the bad, but often the sad and the mad.’

Vanuatu, an island nation in the South Pacific, announced last month that it will seek an opinion from the International Court of Justice to clarify the legal obligations of all countries to prevent and redress the adverse effects of climate change.

No two pandemics are ever the same. The current coronavirus crisis, for instance, is clearly very different from the deadly plague outbreaks in the 14th and 15th centuries. Can historians learn anything from the coronavirus crisis? And what can we learn at the moment from historians? These are questions…

We talked to Hester Bijl about the worldwide protests sparked off by the death of George Floyd. A demonstration against racism will also be held in Leiden on 14 June. How does she, as Vice-Rector responsible for diversity and inclusion, view this issue? What steps is the University taking? And how can…

The secular West is struggling with the rise of AI, but so too is Muslim Southeast Asia. What can we learn from each other?

Canal Watch (De Grachtwacht), which has been cleaning canals since 2018, has received the Dutch Research Council (NWO) Communication Initiative Award.

Giving all scientists at the Faculty the same opportunities, that’s what assistant professor Emily Strange stands for. As women face different challenges as scientists, RISE (Researchers in Science for Equality) provides a network and support group for women at the Faculty. Two months ago, Strange…

ChatGPT, the text-generating chatbot, has recently become available for anyone to use. Is this artificial intelligence (AI) tool a threat to our teaching?

Natalia Grincheva (2020). Museum Diplomacy in the Digital Age. London: Routledge. ISBN 978-0-8153-6999-8, 164 pp., £27.99 (paperback).

It is late June, and on a windy meadow north of Leiden known as the Vrouw Vennepolder a group of archaeology students just hit the last ice age. Considering this involves manually pushing a ground core to a depth of 10 meters, this is no small feat. Even so, the taking of ground samples in this, at…

Using the motto 'Exploring humanities through the life of objects' the Thingsthattalk platform gives a voice to historical objects that are usually kept behind closed doors. Objects from various Leiden collections are going to be made public and placed within a historical and user context.

Accelerating the development of new cancer medicines by joining forces—that’s the mission of Oncode Accelerator, a Dutch consortium that recently welcomed three Leiden-based PhD candidates. Under the guidance of Gerard van Westen, Marc Boef, Remco van den Broek, and Lucina-May Nollen are exploring how…

Our digital infrastructure brings new opportunities, but it also makes us vulnerable. The answer does not lie in technology alone. But how do we help organisations get to grips with the complex theme of digital security? Welcome to the world of cybersecurity governance, the world of Bibi van den Ber…

In the ‘Educatips’ column, lecturers in Child and Education studies share their most important insights on teaching. This month: Tirza Smits, Kim Stroet and Marit Guda observed frustration among students working in groups, often due to poor communication. So they decided to build a tool to help.

Three Humanities lecturers received the Senior Qualification in Education (SKO) this year. University lecturer Bruno Verbeek is one of them. What does he think makes for good education?

It’s been a turbulent, bizarre and extraordinary year, 2020. Coronavirus turned the lives of everyone at our University upside down. Out teaching, research and all the events that are held in a year: nothing was the same as before. That this affected all of us is clear from the highlights and many reactions…

Supercomputer ALICE has been expanded, making it even more powerful and faster. This means researchers and students can work with heavier models. From language research to brain activity scans, this expansion is good news for a variety of disciplines. So who gets to work with this prima donna?

In September, the LeidenGobal seminar series ‘Beyond Discipline and Place in the Social Science and Humanities’ will kick off. The series, targeted at PhD’s and Research MA students, engages with the question what it means to be an interdisciplinary researcher. “These seminars can help you define your…

It was more than two years in the making, but despite the delays, giving up was not an option. In May, eighteen staff members of LUCAS and the Faculty of Archaeology visited NIMAR.

Young people are particularly susceptible to misleading information on social media. Yet insights from developmental psychology show that they also have unique strengths to build resilience. In new research led by developmental psychologist Ili Ma, scientists, schools, parents and policy makers are…

Why do we give students fictional assignments when there is a multitude of real-world problems just waiting to be solved? Leiden University, Leiden University of Applied Sciences and the Municipality of Leiden are joining forces with partners from the public sector in the Learning with the City project,…

Point your talented students to Inter-Section! That is the main message of the journal’s Editorial Board. But what exactly is Inter-Section? ‘It is meant for students to create an opportunity to publish a peer-reviewed article during, or just after, their study.’

Over 30 ambassadors strengthened their ties with researchers and university leaders in a recent visit to Leiden University. Cross-border collaboration (both literal and figurative) was the theme of presentations and a tour of the Hortus botanicus.

Starting your PhD during two major crisis in your country; it happened to Kamaran Palani, PhD student at the Dual PhD Centre and ISGA who lives in Erbil, the capital of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. In spite of the difficulties in his county, Palani (34) stuck to his PhD-research about the fluidity…

Friday 5 July 2019 was the graduation of the Advanced Master International Relations and Diplomacy (MIRD). ´If the MIRD is like a good wine, this has been a vintage year'.

Staff members, alumni, and students were greeted by a warm spring day to follow the various programmes during the reunion and career day of BA South and Southeast Asian Studies. From alumni panels and yoga session to informal activities such as board games.

Three lecturers from Leiden University have been awarded a €100,000 Comenius Teaching grant within the Senior Fellows programme. A further two lecturers have been awarded a €50,000 grant within the Teaching Fellows programme. The grants will enable the lecturers and their project teams to realise an…

Jorik ter Veer studied Political Science in Leiden. How does he look back on his student days?

What do people like Martin Luther King Jr. and Barack Obama have in common? They have mastered the art of public speaking. There are plenty of books on learning this skill, but one aspect of rhetoric remains underexposed in science: how do you make sure the audience remembers your message? Martijn Wackers…

Eva is in her third year at Leiden University College The Hague, but she is also very active outside her studies. Besides Youth Ambassador of The Hague she worked for Plan Nederland and UNICEF, where she cooperated in exciting projects on a national as well as on an international level. In order to…

‘Space Antenna LISA will open an unprecedented window on the Universe,’ says astronomer Elena Maria Rossi. The mission will be the first one to detect Gravitational Waves from space. These can tell us more about the beginning of our Universe and the formation of black holes. With an NWO grant of twelve…

On April 14, 2025, Dr. Hans Petschar, the recently-retired Director of the Bildarchiv und Grafiksammlung at the Austrian National Library in Vienna, delivered the Sixth Annual Austrian Studies Lecture 'Austria’s Present Past: A visual journey through Austrian history 1925 – 2025'.

Already during their bachelor’s programme, students in Pharmaceutical Sciences are presented with challenging projects. One of these is the Bachelor Research Assignment (BOO in Dutch), which is often their first real experience with scientific research. This means a lot of responsibility and failures,…

Over recent years Leiden University has taken some significant steps forward in innovation in teaching and learning and in diversity. But there is still a lot to be done. These were the comments by governors, lecturers and scholars during the farewell seminar for Vice-Rector Simone Buitendijk on 27…

More severe droughts that will also last longer: this will primarily be a problem for irrigated croplands, as discovered by environmental scientist Qi Chen. Mixed forests with a variety of plant species will be the least vulnerable. Chen compared the effects of drought on different ecosystems across…

What is the best way to restore dune ecosystems? The project TERRA-Dunes researches the role of soil microbes in the development of natural dune areas. Recently, the project went into a new phase: planting 412 oak seedlings grown in different type of soils.

Leiden chemists have developed a new technique with which they can determine the role of kinases – a group of proteins – in a living cell. This technique makes it easier to find new drug targets for diseases such as cancer and rheumatoid arthritis. The team published the findings in the journal Nature…

Compare human social behaviour at a country level and you will find differences. Japan has the highest score whereas the Netherlands is just above average. This is what psychologist Niels van Doesem discovered in research with an international team of 64 colleagues in 31 industrialised countries. Their…

In mid-March 2020, the global coronavirus outbreak changed everything in the Netherlands. Staying at home as much as possible and the 1.5 metre rule became the standard. One year on, we reflect on the past year with four Leiden Law School ‘insiders’. What kind of year did they have? And what are their…

Rianne Scheerhoorn is a government trainee at the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Policy and the Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality. After completing her Bachelor's and Master's degrees in Public Administration, she was sure that the Central Government Traineeship Programme (Rijkstraineesprogramma)…

Back to university to attend lectures with master's students: that's what professionals did at the Leiden Leadership Programme. Conclusion of the experiment? Learning about leadership leaves one wanting more. 'Great that this is possible.'

The EU’s programme for research and innovation Horizon Europe is funding the ISGA project ‘NET-ROL: Networks and the Rule of Law: Uncovering Socio-Economic Outcomes’. The funding amounts to 3 million euros, with 760,000 euros going to ISGA. Researchers Antoaneta Dimitrova and Jaroslaw Kantorowicz are…

On 7 July 2020 medical lecturer Luuk Willems received his SKO certificate (Senior Teaching Qualification) and may now officially call himself a senior lecturer. The course has meant that he now has clear ideas about what he wants to achieve in his teaching. ‘I want to strengthen my role as a coach and…