On Monday the 8th of December, the annual symposium of the IBL will be organized at the main building of the LUMC Leiden. This year’s theme is “Integrative Biology towards Healthy Communities”.

Promotores: Prof.dr. G. Miley & Prof.dr. J.M. van den Broek

With the Liveable Communities – Liveable Planet project, Marja Spierenburg, Professor of Anthropology of Sustainability and Livelihood, is showing that scientists are driven by ambition, hope and faith. She is linking Vrouw Vennepolder, a polder in Zuid-Holland, to the UN climate goals.

Although both government and the public would like scientists to share their work with the widest possible audience, this does not always seem an easy route for scientists.

The Repository from the Drug Disease Model Resources (DDMoRe) consortium provides a home to a collection of computational models of disease and drug action that have been used in pharmaceutical and/or academic research. This publically available open-access resource will make it easier for researchers…

Promotor: Prof.dr. L.J. Slikkerveer

Grassroots heritage initiatives and community engagement

How can we bridge the gap between experts and the general public?

Astronomer and science communicator Pedro Russo is awarded the K.J Cath Prize and € 2,500 for his outreach efforts that bring science to the general public. ‘There are so many bright scientists, and so few people communicating about science.’

How can misleading graphs be effectively corrected, specifically for people with low graph literacy?

OSCNL, the international network of Open Science Communities, receives recognition

How can we broaden youth participation in STEM Learning

As of January 2022, Ivo van Vulpen has been Professor by Special Appointment of Science Communication at the Leiden Institute of Physics (LION). Van Vulpen will be researching science communication in general and will aim to underline the value and importance of science communication.

The first location of the Open Science Centre network was opened on 7 July in Figueira de Castelo Rodrigo, Portugal. A Portuguese Minister and a State Secretary inaugurated the Plataforma de Ciência Aberta, which is a collaboration between Leiden University and the municipality of Figueira de Castelo…

Science communication is a lot more than writing a column or giving a lecture now and then. The communication itself also has to be firmly based in sound scientific research, is the message of Professor Ionica Smeets in her inaugural lecture.

The international astronomy outreach project IAU100 has won the first Communication Award by the Dutch Research Council (NWO). The initiative was founded by Leiden team manager Pedro Russo and team members Jorge Rivero González, Bethany Downer, Lina Canas and Marieke Baan.

A call to join an exploration into new ways of publishing

Are you a frontrunner at your faculty when it comes to Open Science, or do you want to be? Do you like organising workshops?

On 18 November 2021, the Andean Community (CAN) signed an agreement with the Development Bank of Latin America for the implementation of Andean Community Interoperability - INTERCOM. This technical cooperation agreement aims to aid in trade facilitation and digitization between the Member States of…

Purple clothing and a pride flag flying from all University buildings: Leiden University is once again taking part in Purple Friday. How do people experience this day? We asked some employees and students of the Faculty of Humanities.

Many poor people in Indonesia mainly rely on their family members, neighbours and the local community as a social safety net. One of the forms of aid from the community is called ‘jimpitan’ in Central Java. PhD candidate Ayu Swaningrum researched how this social security system works.

In his dissertation Michiel Hooykaas outlines the results of six empirical research projects focused at biodiversity awareness in the Netherlands, specifically people’s knowledge about animals.

The study association of honours education SLHC established an international commission concerned with the closer involvement of international students in the Honours Community. The language of communication will become English where possible, and more upcoming activities will be organised in The Hague…

Leiden physicist Julia Cramer receives 50 thousand euros in funding for 'Let's talk about quantum', a research project on communication about quantum computing. A project for high school students by education expert Henk Buisman is also included in the NEWA ELSA funding.

A festival that combines music and science, and a digital 'time machine' for science history: four Leiden projects that focus on science communication have been awarded a subsidy in the context of the National Science Agenda.

In 2015 the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency revealed that German car manufacturer Volkswagen had illegally installed software to produce fake NOx-emissions results. This study aims to analyze how the German news media framed VW’s role.

Leiden University's interdisciplinary research programme SAILS funds young interdisciplinary scientists working at the intersection of AI and other fields. Researcher Matthijs Westera talks about his experiences working within SAILS and the Leiden academic community.

On Thursday evening, 7 December, the Centre for Professional Learning (CPL) gave the government's external communication pool a glimpse of what there is to learn about Public Affairs and the scientific research that is being done about it within the Faculty of Governance & Global Affairs.

Scientists regularly appear in the media. They participate in science cafés, write a popular-science book or visit school classes. In that way, they want to convey their knowledge and enthusiasm to society. But do they succeed? To answer that question, a new website is launched, with a toolbox full…

Annelot van Esbroeck-Weevers, PhD student at the Molecular Physiology research group at the Leiden Institute of Chemistry, headed by Dr. Mario van der Stelt, has been awarded the Best Oral Communication Prize at the 8th European Workshop on Cannabinoid Research, held from 31 August to 2 September 2017…

The Astronomy & Society group of Leiden Observatory takes a new turn in science: they have decided to share their rejected research proposals with the scientific community. ‘We put a lot of effort into them, and now hopefully others can benefit from our work. Maybe it even results in new collaborations,’…

Sense Jan van der Molen and Ivo van Vulpen have been awarded the first ENW Communication Award by funding agency NWO for their Wall Formula project. The award aims to encourage scientists to communicate about their research. It consists of a sculpture and a 10 thousand euro sum for science communica…

This thesis mainly focuses on multimodal understanding and Visual Question Answering (VQA) via deep learning methods. For technical contributions, this thesis first focuses on improving multimodal fusion schemes via multi-stage vision-language interactions.

Lots of efforts are being made to promote open science practices in scholarly publishing. However, information on the openness of scholarly journals is highly fragmented. There are various data sources that provide information on specific aspects of openness, but there is hardly any integration of these…

How can we adapt the Dutch we use at the University so that everyone feels comfortable and included? This was the subject of debate during a panel discussion on 28 June at Leiden University.

In November, Somalia was the latest country to join the East African Community (EAC). This follows the Democratic Republic of Congo's accession to the regional intergovernmental organisation in March.

As Director-General of the ESO for the past ten years, Leiden University astronomer Tim de Zeeuw had ‘the best astronomy job in the world’. Back at the Leiden Observatory, he is focusing on the first 3D map of the Milky Way.

Robin Smith, post-doc of the 'Food Citizens?'-project wrote an interesting blog for the Leiden Anthropology blog on the basis of her previous fieldwork on the role of trust in the wine industry in Istria.

The availability of indicators based on social media has opened the possibility to track the online interactions between social media users and scholarly entities.

Humans and songbirds learn their vocalizations early in life by exposure to the vocalizations of adult conspecifics. Often, better learning outcomes are achieved with live, social, tutors than with audio-only exposure to vocalizations.

On November 25, Dr Araceli Rojas presented her book El tiempo y la sabiduría: un calendario sagrado entre los ayöök de Oaxaca. The event took place in the Central Public Library of the State of Oaxaca, in the heart of Oaxaca City, at 7 pm.

The sixth issue of Ex Novo explores how ‘peripheral’ regions currently approach both the practice and theory of public archaeology placing particular emphasis on usually underrepresented regions of Eastern and Central Europe, the Mediterranean and beyond.

The Europaeum academic community was awarded the Scaliger medal on 23 September in recognition of its promotion of academic values. Andrew Graham, trustee to the Europaeum and founder and honorary advisor to the Scholars Programme, was presented with the medal by President of the Executive Board Annetje…