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The skin has recently gained attention within body studies for its many specific cultural and social associations, in addition to its biology. This project aims to examine the different layers of meaning and the functions invested in the skin in ancient Greece: how did ancient Greek literary and medical…

D.P. Kok defended his thesis on 10 October 2017

Chenyu Cheng defended her thesis on 6 April 2017.

In this dissertation I argue that the proto-daoist text the Zhuangzi and the ethical relation of Levinas are fruitful resources to reconsider the self-other relation in comparative philosophy.

PhD defence

With a grant from NWO, Thomas Hankemeier will develop new methods to better understand the dynamics of the building blocks of life, such as cells, enzymes, and metabolites. He does this together with the University of Amsterdam and a number of companies.

Students from the programmes Life Science & Technology filled out the most National Student Surveys (NSE) out of all Leiden Science students, the assessor announced on 16 March in the Science Club.

Man-made sounds in and around the oceans stress marine life and have an impact on marine species and ecosystems by changing the underwater acoustic climate. Hans Slabbekoorn from the Institute of Biology Leiden pleads for technical solutions to mitigate problems of noise pollution. Science review paper…

An international team led by Leiden astronomers has discovered diverse ices in the darkest, coldest regions of a molecular cloud. To do so, they used the James Webb Space Telescope. This discovery allows astronomers to examine the simple icy molecules that will be incorporated into future exoplanets,…

For many people, five o’clock signals the end of their working day. But not for the motivated students of the Honours College Law. With some drinks and snacks, they keep going well into the evening. This time, they met for the festive conclusion of a course which brought the history of Dutch crime to…

The four thousand war victims buried at the Netherlands Field of Honour at Loenen include a number of Leiden students who were in the Resistance. The War Graves Foundation is looking for volunteers to take part in a special event to honour the deceased.

An online course to teach our international students their first words in Dutch, American presidents in Leiden and how Neanderthals made the very first glue: view a selection of our most read English news in the past year.

We talk to Justin, who was diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder type 1 over 14 years ago. Justin is very candid and talks about his first manic episode at the age of 28, and how he learned to live a stable life. Justin is doing well, and he owes this in particular to his own perseverance. What do you experience…

Early diagnosis, new treatments, and personalised care: all of these are possible if we can better unlock the wealth of information hidden in health data. Unfortunately, this data is often poorly organised, difficult to access, and not interoperable. The new international Leiden Institute for FAIR and…

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…

With this thesis the PhD-candidate aims to enrich the body of evidence concerning the relation between stress and health, and the mediating role of (un)conscious perseverative cognitions, which is captured in the extended perseverative cognition hypothesis.

The red carpet treatment of expats, terrorism studies and women professors who took over the Senate Chamber. These are the best read articles of 2018.

The research article ‘The life history of an enslaved African’ is one of the top 20 read Archaeometry articles in the period of January 2017 to December 2018.

The Leiden University Green Office is pleased to announce the details of its Spring Event, which will consist of a poetry reading and a clotheswap!

The MSc Life Science & Technology receives a bronze medal in EW Best Studies 2023. Every year, Elsevier selects the top programmes in higher education. A medal means that students are above-average satisfied with the quality of their programme.

The connection between programming and reading seems non-existing. Yet in the new reading book ‘De Programmeerbende’ they go together very well. On 26 February author Inge Strijker and co-inventor and computer scientist Felienne Hermans launched the book at the Leiden Institute of Advanced Computer…

The Radboud Institute for Culture and History is looking for a researcher/PhD candidate in the project 'The Social Life of Early Medieval Normative Texts'. Deadline for applications: July 6.

PhD defence

Plastics have become an integral part of modern society due to their versatility and durability.

On Wednesday 11 June 2025 Steffie van Gompel successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated.

How have British cities changed in the years since the Second World War? And what drove this transformation? This innovative new history traces the development of the post-war British city, from the 1940s era of reconstruction, through the rise and fall of modernist urban renewal, up to the present-day…

It has been a long-standing mystery how complex biological structures emerge from such seemingly uncoordinated building blocks as cells and tissues, in the presence of only minimal environmental guidance.

In this study I explore literary structures of identity-formation in the works of assimilated/acculturated Jewish writers: Kafka’s novella “The Metamorphosis” (“Die Verwandlung”, 1912) and David Vogel’s Hebrew novel Married Life. 1929).

In recent years, the Walad Djifir from Chad found themselves in a turbulent environment due to the unrest in Nigeria, Libya and the Central African Republic. How did they adapt? Inge Butter explored their situation in her PhD thesis. PhD defence will take place on 2 July.

The number of life sentences in the Netherlands is rising sharply. This is a clear response to the serious drugs violence and brutal attacks on our rule of law. However, criminal justice experts do not believe that this will deter future offenders from carrying out liquidations.

How did you get to where you are now? This is a key question in the Academic Life Course board game, developed by and for academics. ‘In a normal working week we hardly ever talk about the career choices we make, but with this game, we do.’

This ethnographic exploration of anticipation published in the Journal of the Royal Anthropology Institute draws on fieldwork among people with dementia and their families in the Netherlands.

The court has dismissed Ratko Mladić’s appeal and upheld his life sentence for genocide and war crimes. The verdict is one of Yugoslavia tribunal’s last. Mission accomplished?

The course Designing Your Life helps students navigate their career pathways. As it turns out, these pathways are full of twists and turns and - as with many journeys - you only make progress once you gather the courage to take the first step.

Amino acids are the building blocks for life on earth. They may originate in space and reach the Earth via comets and meteorites. Daniël Paardekooper examined part of this hypothesis. PhD defence on 5 July.

What mismatch of socioeconomic and environmental values is preventing Circular Collaboration in Dutch housing renovations?

When internist Christian Blank made his very first discovery, his field of immunotherapy was the underdog of cancer research. Now, over 20 years later, Blank has been appointed Professor By Special Appointment of Internal Medicine for his clinical research into immunotherapy and will give his inaugural…

Jantien Hadders (50), head of Education and Research Policy at FGGA, lost the love of her life and, to her great sadness, did not become a mother. It was precisely by being able to share her loss in the workplace that she slowly regained trust in herself.

LEAP is a peer-reviewed journal founded in 2021 by a team of junior and senior scholars of Leiden University as part of a Faculty-broad Master course. Each year the journal has a new editorial board and a new theme. Series editors Astrid van Weyenberg and Nanne Timmer guide this process and are assisted…