The Science faculties of Universitas Indonesia (UI) and the Universiteit Leiden signed agreements on Tuesday April 12 that will strengthen cooperation between the Faculties. The agreements were signed at the closing of a two day visit of a delegation from Indonesia. The delegation, which was led by…

Graphene and other layered materials combine into completely new substances. Leiden physicists establish the ground rules for designing such materials by measuring how the layers in the stack interact. Publication on November 29 in Nature Communications.

There are miniaturisation beams, microrobots, and ice skaters who suddenly drop into a hole in the ice. Students of the local MBO Rijnland let their imagination run free while animating Leiden physics research. The result is eleven surprising and very diverse science animations.

Ionic liquids are important in scientific research because they can apply a lot of charge over a surface. Leiden physicists have now found that the charging process of ionic liquids purely depends on opposite charges attracting each other. Chemical reactions are sometimes involved, but not essential.…

Hoping to learn something about the human brain, Leiden researchers are creating a setup to shoot single photons, particles of light, into someone’s eye. ‘The eye is a passageway to the brain.’

An international group of scientists, led by Leiden physicist Sense Jan van der Molen, has developed the first switchable molecular diode. You can turn this on and off through humidity. Vice versa, it is a humidity sensor at the nanoscale. Publication on 4 December in Nature Nanotechnology.

On Thursday 3 November Leiden University will celebrate the official opening of two wall formulas in the city centre. As of now, Snell’s law and the Lorentz force formula shine on two walls in the heart of Leiden. They are part of a project to display at least ten groundbreaking formulas with a Leiden…

Leiden physicists and international colleagues from Geneva and Barcelona have confirmed the mechanism that makes magic-angle graphene superconducting. This is a key step in elucidating high-temperature superconductivity, a decades-old mystery central to physics, which may lead to technological break…

The seventh Leiden wall formula has been finished. Over the last few weeks, mural artists Ben Walenkamp and Jan Willem Bruins have painted Christiaan Huygens' pendulum formula on 'De Brandmeester' an old drill and hose tower in de Plaatsteeg, just behind the Breestraat in Leiden.

Not only does she excel at her research, she is also active in outreach and started a collaboration outside her own field during her PhD. Yevheniia Cheipesh has been awarded the first prize in the For Women in Science Rising Talent Prize by L’Oreal, UNESCO and the Royal Holland Society of Sciences and…

On Friday 28 October, Leiden University organized its annual Physics Ladies Day for female high school students. To mark this festive day, we put the spotlight on four female researchers, who talk about their experiences in physics.

Radio telescope LOFAR maps the sky. It produces incredibly detailed images of the universe - and vast amounts of data. Huub Röttgering, director of the Leiden Observatory, talks about the challenges of working with those enormous datasets.

Leiden Physicists have developed a new technique to visualize electrical conductance in sheet-like nano materials. It shows great promise for devices based on a new family of materials—the ‘Van der Waals materials’. The physicists, who won the 2015 Dutch Vacuum Society prize for their work, present…

The Dutch Research Council (NWO) has awarded Vidi grants to Leiden researchers.

Electrons in graphene behave like light particles; they have no mass and can penetrate everything: very useful if you dream about nano-electronics. But you do have to channel them. Carlo Beenakker will be researching how. He has been awarded an ERC Advanced Grant of 1.5 million euro to carry out this…

Leiden University celebrated its 444th anniversary with a historical procession on 8 February. It celebrated this year’s Dies Natalis in time-honoured fashion with a ceremony in the Pieterskerk, but broke with tradition by sending professors out to primary schools.

Author Bibi Dumon Tak will be the new writer-in-residence at Leiden University from autumn 2020.

South African poet Antjie Krog will be the writer in residence at Leiden University in autumn 2021. Krog is famous for her poetry collections and books, which are often inspired by the history of South Africa. In her role as writer in residence, she will give the annual Albert Verwey Lecture and a series…

Novelist and essayist Karin Amatmoekrim will be writer-in-residence at Leiden University in autumn 2019. She will be the 35th writer-in-residence at the University.

Writer in residence Ronald Giphart will explore a number of his own fascinations with Leiden students.

The author Manon Uphoff from Utrecht will be Leiden University’s new ‘writer in residence’ from autumn 2025. As the writer in residence, Uphoff will contribute to several courses on writing offered by the BA Dutch Language and Culture programme.

Writer and columnist Nicolien Mizee will be Leiden University’s new writer in residence from autumn 2023.

Alexandre Genest will defend his PhD dissertation ‘Performance Requirement Prohibitions in International Investment Law’ as part of a double PhD programme at the Universities of Leiden and Ottawa.

In March 2021, Prof. dr. Jan Aart Scholte, Professor Global Transformations and Governance Challenges at Leiden University, co-edited with Dr. Blayne Haggart and Dr. Natasha Tusikov the volume Power and Authority in Internet Governance.

“BABYLON” investigates the extent of the similarities between Babylonian and post-exilic forms of cultic and social organization and explores the question how Babylonian models could have influenced the restoration effort in Jerusalem.

From Soledad Acosta de Samper and Albalucía Angel to Hazel Robinson Abrahams and Amalialú Posso Figueroa. During the Symposium & Workshop Experience and Voice: Library of Colombian Women Writers, we focus on books written by Colombian women writers from different historical periods. The symposium and…

After almost twenty years the record for the most distant radio galaxy has been broken. A team of astronomers led by Leiden PhD candidate Aayush Saxena has discovered a radio galaxy from the time when the universe was just one billion years old. The galaxy is at a distance of 12 billion light years…

An international team of astronomers led by researchers from the Leiden University has discovered a whirlwind of dust and pebbles in orbit around a young star. It is possible that a planet is forming in the pebbles. The team of scientists made the discovery during the time that designers and developers…

Fourteen promising researchers from Leiden University have been given the opportunity to realise their research plans for the coming years thanks to a Veni grant from the NWO. This year, these subsidies have been granted to studies of the influence of noise on the great tit, the conditions necessary…

Stack two layers of graphene, twisted at slightly different angles to each other, and the material spontaneously becomes a superconductor. Science still can't explain how something so magical can happen, but physicists use special equipment to reveal what is taking place under the surface.

This message is to remember his inspiring contributions to the global development of air and space law, the formation of innovative aviation policy and his dynamic commitment to the International Institute of Air and Space Law at Leiden University.

PhD defence

Lecture

Hugo Koning, an expert in Greek mythology, has won the Lucas Public Prize because he has brought his research to the attention of the general public in so many different ways. This is the first Public Prize awarded by the Leiden University Centre for Arts in Society (LUCAS). Hugo says with a smile:…

Materials that are built up from individual granules exhibit a special phenomenon called ‘jamming’. With research into the nature of this phenomenon, a team of scientists led by Leiden physicist Prof. Martin van Hecke has made it to the cover of the prominent journal Physical Review Letters. ‘Jammed…

Of the 32 historic buildings that are opening their doors to the public on the Open Monument Days on 8 and 9 September, five are University buildings. The Hortus Botanicus is also open.

Lecture

Leiden University is home to over a hundred specialists studying the Middle Ages and the Early Modern period. From 2017-2018 onwards, they will join forces to offer two new options for specialisation within existing MA programmes: Medieval Studies and Early Modern Studies.

This year, NWO has awarded a Veni subsidy to 143 young researchers who have recently obtained their PhD. 17 of these researchers are at Leiden University and one works at the LUMC. The successful applicants will each receive 250,000 euro to develop their ideas and carry out research over a period of…

Lecture

Arts and culture

Programme management of research programme “Strengthening knowledge of and dialogue with the Islamic/Arab world”

Whether finding signals of dark matter or discovering hydrogen in the vicinity of exoplanets, Leiden astronomers are world players in their field, and they are part of a long tradition: Leiden was the first university in the world to have its own observatory.

This project focuses on a striking parallelism between two macro-groups of languages: southern Italian dialects and the so-called split-ergative languages, like Basque, Georgian, Dyirbal, Hindi/Urdu.

An interview with Assistant Secretary General for Emerging Security Challenges David van Weel, and NATO Secretary General’s Special Representative for Women, Peace and Security (WPS) Clare Hutchinson

The projects of nine researchers at Leiden University have received funding through the new NWO Science Diplomacy Fund. The Fund is for scientific activities that will improve relations between the Netherlands and other countries.

Patients who can’t afford medicine. Refugees who need help. Expats who are ill. All alongside research into obesity. Having trained as a doctor, Dennis Mook-Kanamori chose the hard reality of life as a GP together with a job as a researcher at the LUMC.

Lecture