Student dean Romke Biagioni is committed to help students have an easygoing and pleasant time during their studies. She assists students with disabilities, looks for solutions to problems such as housing issues and counsels students with social or financial problems. For MSc student Computer Science…

A number of young researchers recently took part in a knowledge mission to Indonesia, aiming to build a lasting relationship with the country. How did they find the trip, what did they do, and how are they creating new connections with scientists in Indonesia?

André Leliveld has won a grant of 100,000 euros within the Comenius Senior Fellow programme for the project ‘Learning globally, acting locally: co-creation of an international multidisciplinary online learning environment around Frugal Innovation'. André is academic coordinator of the Leiden-Delft-Erasmus…

There is a real chance of war closer to home, political and military leaders in Europe have warned. What does Frans Osinga, Professor of War Studies, think about the threat and what we should do?

Van studenten verwachten we dat ze kritisch lezen. ‘Maar hoe dan’, zeggen ze. ‘Je leest een artikel en het klinkt allemaal logisch en overtuigend, waarom zou het niet waar zijn.’ Psycholoog Anouk van der Weiden wil studenten leren om artikelen kritisch te lezen. En meer, daarvoor ontvangt ze een Co…

The Executive Board appointed Sanneke Kuipers as full professor effective January 1, 2022. Her chair is Crisis Governance. She combines this chair with her position as education director of ISGA, the Institute of Security and Global Affairs. A conversation about working 24/7 in crisis management, her…

This February Metje Postma will stop teaching and retire. But she is not done with the discipline yet: she will finish her PhD and there are still five films on the shelf that she plans to complete.

Why do some smokers quit much more easily than others? Can we think ourself to insomnia? And does playing music together help to calm conflicts? Psychology students investigated these questions and presented their findings during the Psychology Science Day 2023.

Now that war is once again raging in Europe, the question of when you need to stand up against injustice has become more relevant than ever. In his Cleveringa lecture on 24 November historian Gert Oostindie will discuss why colonial domination was not regarded as an issue in Leiden for a long time.

The theme of the opening of this year’s academic year was peace and justice. With the climate crisis and the war in Ukraine, these are turbulent times. During the ceremony those present reflected on what the academic community and universities can mean in times of crisis and conflict.

The interdisciplinary, English-taught minor ‘Violence Studies’ looks at violence from very diverse scientific perspectives. What are the benefits from this approach? Students and lecturers evaluate: ‘This minor’s a goldmine’.

Should we ban snack bars from neighbourhoods where residents are overweight or have diabetes? At the Common Sense about Health knowledge festival, scientists, civil servants and other professionals discussed how South Holland can become healthier. The Healthy Society Map makes it clear where there are…

Echoing corridors, chaotic lessons and the obligatory chit-chat in the playground: for pupils with autism, an average day at school is exhausting. As a result, many of them feel lonely. Elijah, an expert from personal experience, says: ‘In the breaks, I’d sit on my own in a room.’

Using enslaved people as servants, becoming an administrator in the Dutch West India Company or making uniforms for the colonial army. Many people from Leiden played a role in colonialism and slavery. Historians are conducting preliminary research and finding striking examples.

The Honours Academy celebrates its tenth anniversary. How did the institute develop over time, and what are aspirations for the future? We speak with the current Dean and a predecessor who was there at the Academy's founding. A conversation about identity, inspiration, and impact ensues. ‘It is about…

In June 2024 the Faculty of Archaeology welcomed a new Assistant Professor. Dr Jennifer Swerida, originally from the United States, will strengthen the Faculty’s expertise on the archaeology of West Asia. ‘I explore human-environment relationships inside an ancient oasis and the surrounding land. Previous…

Immigration and naturalisation policies are an important theme in the upcoming Dutch elections. The Netherlands should be mindful of its immigration narrative, says PhD candidate Hannah Bliersbach, as this greatly influences the relationship between ‘new’ citizens and their new home country.

Following our Leiden Brussels Alumni Event, I (external officer M. Blaauw, ed.) met our very own Leiden Law alumna Helena-Loutas Paraskeva. An Australian who works for the European Commission. Interesting, how did she get this job, what does she do and how did her Master in Leiden affect or influence…

‘The climate crisis is the greatest threat we face,’ says Leiden University environmental scientist Paul Behrens. ‘And yet, there is hope. In the near future, I think we will wonder why we didn’t make these changes earlier.’

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Leiden University’s Executive Board (CvB) visited Leiden University College in The Hague on Friday 11 November during a working visit tour past the Institutes of the Faculty Governance and Global Affairs. Hester Bijl and Martijn Ridderbos were provided with an overview of the programme, the research,…

Jan Melissen, associate professor at ISGA and editor-in-chief of The Hague Journal of Diplomacy, and his team have been awarded 10,000 euros from the 'Valued' fund. This pilot fund, implemented by the KNAW (Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences) aims to increase the interaction between science…

Suddenly there they were, the Russian soldiers near the border of Ukraine. Since then, reports of tensions between Russia on the one hand and the United States and Europe on the other have dominated the news. What is going on? An interview with Russia expert André Gerrits.

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.

Liselotta Jahnke, Jason Irwin, Rachel Cruickshank and Paula Kovač are the new student members of the Programme Committee (OLC). This committee advises the Executive Board and the Faculty Board of CADS about educational matters, such as determining the Course and Examination Regulations and evaluating…

Eduard Fosch-Villaronga, Hadassah Drukarch and Bart Custers from eLaw - Center for Law and Digital Technologies, explore together with Pranav Khanna, eLaw alumnus, the influence of automation on human–robot interaction and responsibility in surgery innovation.

Jasper Knoester is de decaan van de Faculteit Wiskunde & Natuurwetenschappen. Hoe gaat het met hem, wat doet hij precies en hoe ziet zijn dag eruit? In elke nieuwsbrief geeft Jasper een inkijkje in zijn leven.

Leiden University will not enter into any new research partnerships with companies in the fossil fuel industry that are not intensively and demonstrably committed to achieving the goals of the Paris Agreement. Current projects can, however, be completed.

They hurtle along at over a thousand kilometres per second: the fastest stars in the Milky Way. PhD candidate Fraser Evans conducted research into these elusive hypervelocity stars and discovered that they have a lot to teach us, about black holes and supernovae, for example.

On 25 September, lights throughout Leiden will be turned off for the Seeing Stars event. What makes the urban night so special? We asked university lecturer Sara Brandellero, who researches cities, night and migration.

Neele Boelens is a board member at DWARS, the youth organisation of political party GroenLinks. In addition, she is studying towards two degrees at Leiden University: Linguistics and Public Administration. A busy year, especially with the upcoming elections.

Een internationaal consortium onder leiding van Olaf van Vliet heeft een Horizon Europe subsidie van 3,4 miljoen euro gewonnen. In het onderzoek staat centraal hoe wereldwijde sociale veranderingen zoals migratie, digitalisering en de klimaattransitie de arbeidsmarkt beïnvloeden en wat daar de gevolgen…

Care robots, medical treatments, deepfakes and self-driving cars all with the aid of artificial intelligence (AI). The BrAInpower exhibition at Rijksmuseum Boerhaave shows spectacular applications of AI and explains how it can make such huge leaps. Bas Haring, Professor of Public Understanding of Science,…

Roman philosopher and orator Marcus Tullius Cicero is still used as an intellectual example by politicians and speech writers today. But, he did not go unchallenged in his own day, as a statesman in particular. Classicist Leanne Jansen conducted research into how classical historians judged Cicero’s…

The Caring Universities consortium conducts a survey every year on the state of students’ mental health. Following previous surveys in 2020 and 2021, a new study was carried out in November 2022. This latest survey shows that many students still suffer from mental health problems.

Women confined to the kitchen? Not in Scheveningen around 1900. There, some women ran entire shipping companies. This is according to new research by history student Sjors Stuurman. He compiled the results in a book he wrote for Muzee Scheveningen.

Lack of manliness, avaricious or too imaginative. These are just a few of the accusations with which British scientists discredited each other over a hundred years ago. PhD candidate Léjon Saarloos researched British scientists around the year 1900 and their idea of what makes a good - and therefore…

Lichens enthusiast Sander van Zon was eager to use his knowledge for his internship. He wrote an excellent thesis on lichens’ biodiversity in the city, of which his first scientific publication will appear soon. With it, he is nominated for the Leiden Science Young Talent Award 2022.

Women’s football is steadily gaining attention. It’s as though the sport is becoming emancipated. And yet in conversations with professional female footballers philosopher Nathanja van den Heuvel discovered that a male culture still prevails. Female footballers often feel like second-class athletes,…

After having been cancelled in 2020, this year the Summer School in Languages and Linguistics is going online. From 12 – 23 July, language and linguistics enthusiasts from all over the world can once again learn about a variety of rare languages and linguistics topics. Director Sasha Lubotsky tells…

Antibiotic resistance is an economic problem. Pharmaceutical companies cannot earn much from antibiotic research, so they do not invest in it. This makes it important that universities do so, says Ned Buijs.

More efficient use of phosphorus fertilisers would make it possible to meet food demand in 2050, without using more of the world’s land for agriculture. This is what environmental scientists José Mogollón and colleagues have discovered by working out various future scenarios for food production and…

The International Bachelor Psychology is looking for enthusiastic and committed student mentors to familiarise first year bachelor’s students with university life, as well as studying and living in Leiden.

Jasper Knoester is the dean of the Faculty of Science. How is he doing? What kinds of things is he doing and what does his day look like? In each newsletter Jasper gives a peek into his life as dean.

CWTS will get a new board of directors for the coming three years, starting on 1 January 2024. The Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences of Leiden University has appointed Ludo Waltman as scientific director and Tjitske Holtrop, Wolfgang Kaltenbrunner and Clara Calero Medina as deputy directors.…

Climate and human rights will again become major issues on the world stage by the end of 2023. The new series of lunch seminars by the interdisciplinary research programme Global Transformations and Governance Challenges (GTGC) seamlessly tie into these events. All Leiden researchers and students are…

In collaboration with the Honours Academy at Leiden University, Eduard Fosch-Villaronga and Hadassah Drukarch from eLaw - Center for Law and Digital Technologies, coordinated a Pre-University Class on Robot Law.

Even embryos can become embroiled in an evolutionary arms race with another species. Leiden biologists demonstrate this with larvae of the rosy bitterling that parasitize the gills of freshwater mussels. They published their research on February 19 in PNAS.

Education

A patent for what may be a potent, new antibiotic. And: a clear overview of promising approaches to overcome a crucial resistance tactic employed by bacteria. In the span of one week, two researchers from Leiden are receiving their PhDs, each of them on an important step in the battle against bacteria…