Research

Lecture, VVIK lecture

To find out more about student well-being, check out the information below.

The James Webb Space Telescope continues to surprise us with stunning pictures, but of what exactly? Astronomer Nienke van der Marel shows with three images how massive stars lead short but explosive lives.

Jaïr van Rhenen studied Medicine in Leiden and is now a GP in the largely religious Veenendaal. Before this, he worked as a tropical medicine doctor in Lesotho. ‘If you have the prospect of an afterlife, you often respond differently to illness.’

Infecting each other with viruses and bacteria while protecting yourself with medicines and vaccinations. Sounds like a fun evening, right? Master students Life Science & Technology Rafael Jezior and Dennis de Beeld certainly think so. Together, they developed ImmunoWars: an exciting card game based…

Many children eat too many high-calorie foods and too few vegetables from an early age. PhD candidate Merel van Vliet researched the role of parents in this. ‘Don’t force children to clean their plates.’ PhD defence on 15 June.

Study information, Webinar

We are saddened by the news of the unexpected passing of prof.dr. Pieter Sjoerd van Koningsveld on 28 July 2021.

What is it like to participate in the Erasmus+ grant programme as a Master's student from Ukraine? Yevhenii Radchenko did an eight-month internship at Leiden University in 2018. Soon after, he returned as a PhD candidate. 'You have little to lose, but a lot to gain.'

Pichayapat Naisupap recently joined the Institute for History as PhD candidate. Below, he introduces himself.

Bruno Allahissem and Luca Bruls recently joined the Institute for History as PhD candidates in the NWO-funded project 'Digital warfare in the Sahel: popular networks of war and Cultural Violence', led by Mirjam de Bruijn and Jelena Prokic (LUCL). Below they introduce themselves.

In 2024, Professor Joanita Vroom received a substantial grant from the Packard Humanities Institute (PHI) in support for her Hinterlands of Medieval Chalcis Project (HMC Project) in Greece. PHI, a California-based non-profit organization, is dedicated to archaeological research as well as to the preservation…

Lecture

The master thesis: for many students it is a true crowning glory. Some theses are truly excellent. Those are rewarded with the FSW Thesis Prize. This year, this award was won by Roosmarijn Goldbach (master’s Psychology) and Matija Čuljak (research master’s Psychology), who respectively researched borderline…

'How can public leadership contribute sustainably to solving societal problems?'

Loes Janssen would like to foster well-being of families by using an app and sending families short and fun activities each day to do together. For the Synergy Award ’21, PhD candidates were invited to submit their innovative idea on how to create societal impact. Watch the final on 4 February and vote…

Jasper Knoester is the dean of the Faculty of Science. How is he doing, what exactly does he do and what does his day look like? In each newsletter, Jasper gives an insight into his life.

Psychologist Bramesada Prasastyoga discovered that small business owners who engaged in entrepreneurship mostly for the pursuit of rewards and opportunities tended to be more willing to grow their businesses than those who engaged in entrepreneurship mostly due to the need for security and necessity,…

The excuses for the slavery past? It would have been better if the cabinet had taken some more time on that, thinks university lecturer and Atlantic slavery expert Karwan Fatah-Black. 'Too bad they didn’t wait for the results of the study.'

Minister Dijkgraaf van onderwijs wil het aantal internationale studenten terugdringen. Maar mag Nederland dat wel? En zo ja, is het ook wenselijk? Deze vragen behandelde Mark Klaassen, universitair docent bij het Europa Instituut, tijdens de slotbijeenkomst van het Honours College Law op 12 juni.

Sharing scientific data, transferring money, or sending other sensitive information online: with cryptography, applications make sure your data does not fall into the wrong hands. Mathematician Thomas Attema (CWI/TNO/Leiden University) helps with this. For his PhD research, he developed a new technique…

Lecture

The Executive Board of the Institute of Psychology has a new Director of Operational Management. It’s the perfect role for Paula van den Bergh. ‘For me, “connection” is a nice word. If you see the connections between things, you immediately see the logic behind the processes.’ Her career has taken her…

Jasper Knoester is the dean of the Faculty of Science. How is he doing, what exactly does he do and what does his day look like? In each newsletter, Jasper gives an insight into his life.

Deze week sluiten we het academisch jaar af met verschillende FGGA-studenten, waarin zij hun zomer- en toekomstplannen vertellen, maar ook terugblikken op het afgelopen jaar: ‘Ik vond het ontzettend prettig om weer terug te komen naar de fijne sfeer op Wijnhaven.’

What motivates citizens to participate in a citizen science project on plastic pollution? And does that motivation change over time? Liselotte Rambonnet tried to answer these and other questions with her research on the Clean Rivers (‘Schone Rivieren’) project. Rambonnet is a PhD student at the Institute…

Long into the 19th century, seascapes were considered an expression of patriotism. Artists who painted in a 17th century style were valued more. This tradition stifled innovation in the genre, Cécile Bosman has concluded. She will defend her PhD thesis on 13 October.

From assistance in the event of natural disasters to peace-keeping missions. As a communication adviser, Leonoor van Poelgeest goes to all those destinations where the Royal Navy are active. Why did she choose this work and how has her Public Administration study helped her?

In 2019, Federico Cappadona was one of the first students to enroll in the new master’s specialisation Applied Archaeology. He recently graduated and he is happy to share his experience.

Organisation

What developments preceded modern Standard Dutch? PhD candidate Iris Van de Voorde conducted research on ‘pluricentricity’, or the idea that language norms arise in different places and spread outwards from there. PhD defence on 19 April.

Master

On 1 August, Egbert Fortuin has been appointed Professor of Russian Language and Linguistics. After a five-year term as vice-dean of the Faculty Board, he is eager to fully devote himself to the study programme. His appointment can therefore be summarised in three words: 'I am back'.

We started this year as we ended it in 2021: in a lockdown. But the world continues to open up. We are occasionally allowed to go into the office and students are able to return to Campus. Continue reading to find out what the rest of the year has been like.

Lecture, Sociolinguistics & Discourse Studies Series

In 2011, the University of Hussein Bin Talal in Maan and Leiden University initiated the joint Udhruh Archaeological Project, led by Professors Fawzi Abudanah and Mark Driessen.

After two years in the Faculty Board, Student Assessor Zoë van Litsenburg makes room for a successor per September 1, 2022. Let’s meet the new Student Assessor Imen el Idrissi. ‘I want to focus on the communication between the Faculty and the students.’

Assistant Professor Lucie Zicha at Leiden University College (LUC) in The Hague is on a mission to bring statistical literacy to all undergraduate students.

Lecture, Ancient History study trip Trier 2022 information session

Organisation

An impressive 875 students from all corners of the globe are taking part in Orientation Week Leiden (OWL). After all the lockdowns in their own countries, they’re glad to meet up in real life in Leiden. What do they expect of their studies here?

Today, Leiden University announces who the new Cluster Zuid on the Witte Singel will be named after. Summer 2023, a ballot determined the name of the complex on the former Van Wijkplaats/Van Eyckhof, which is expected to be completed in March. It was already established that the complex would be named…

Helping first-year students at the Faculty of Governance and Global Affairs find their way in a rapidly changing university world because of Covid-19. That was the goal of the mentor project that has been running since this academic year. At the end of January, the first phase ends and in February new…

It will be a summer filled with conferences at the Faculty of Humanities in Leiden. In the coming months, there will be something for everyone at the university, especially in the field of languages and cultures of Africa and the Middle East.

From time to time, manuscripts that have remained hidden for centuries turn up in library collections and archives. In the archives of the 17th-century Bibliotheca Thysiana at the Rapenburg in Leiden, kept in the Leiden University Library, Rotterdam researcher Erik-Jan Bos discovered a hitherto unknown…

Panel Discussion

We are living in turbulent times. Various conflicts in other parts of the world at times give rise to feelings of anxiety, unrest and anger in our country too. We also see this happening in our academic community.