Minister Dijkgraaf (Education, Culture and Science) has appointed Ionica Smeets and Alex Verkade as coordinators of a new national centre for science communication. The centre will foster a dialogue between researches and society and will gather and share expertise to make science communication more…

For the eleventh time in a row, Leiden University’s unique liberal arts and sciences programme has been awarded the ‘Top Rated Programme’ quality seal by Keuzegids universiteiten 2024.

Most young alumni who graduated during the COVID-19 pandemic did not get a graduation ceremony, nor did they have the chance to sign their name in the Sweat Room. Thanks to the Alumni Office, they now have the chance to do so after all.

Artificial intelligence can help doctors analyse images such as MRI scans. In future it may even be able to predict how a tumour will grow. And that is badly needed to relieve the pressure on healthcare workers.

Krista Murchison, University Lecturer at the Leiden University Centre for the Arts in Society, received a Veni grant of 250.000 euros. Her Veni-project will explore the ‘immaterial archive’ and its social and historical significance by digitally recreating manuscripts that were destroyed during World…

PhD candidate Wouter Verschoof-van der Vaart has received the Stichting Elise Mathilde Fonds grant from the Leids Universiteits Fonds (LUF) to work on a research project focusing on the landscapes of the Second World War. ‘We will combine citizen science with deep learning to uncover traces of the c…

Leiden and South Africa have long standing historical ties in the field of mathematics. These ties have now been strengthened thanks to an Erasmus+ International Credit Mobility (ICM) grant. Four researchers from Pretoria are now visiting Leiden. ‘No matter how good we are at dealing with Teams and…

How can The Netherlands, France and Germany cooperate more closely on issues such as European security and defence. Join the kick off of The European Strategic Dialogue Series, an initiative by the Institute of Security and Global Affairs and its partners in France and Germany. Joachim Koops tells more…

Psychology teacher of the year is Anouk van der Weiden. The master thesis awards are for Irina Verhülsdonk and Christel Klootwijk. Eliška Procházková receives the PhD publication prize; Katja Cardol and Judith Tommel the PhD wild card: the Open Science Award. Conny Binnendijk earns the OBP prize and…

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,…

Education

The alignment of the James Webb Space Telescope is complete. The space observatory is able to capture sharp, well-directed images with each of its four powerful scientific instruments on board. The MIRI instrument, on which Professor of Molecular Astrophysics Ewine van Dishoeck also worked, was the…

Master’s students in Industrial Ecology and Governance of Sustainability have helped answer organisations’ questions about sustainability

Cells in our bodies are often threatened by errors in our own proteins. The FLOW consortium, comprising scientists from various institutions including Leiden, is poised to meticulously map out for the first time how cells control proteins, correcting or removing faulty ones. This endeavour holds promise…

In six months' time, Leiden City of Science 2022 will begin. Rob Zwijnenberg, chairman of the Faculty Steering Committee, talks about the plans.

The Voices of Africa platform is ten years old and has just recently won the annual popularisation prize of the Netherlands Graduate School of Linguistics (LOT). High time for a chat with Jenneke van der Wal, Maarten Mous and Nina van der Vlugt about the importance of the platform and plans for the…

From a new generation of antibiotics and more-effective vaccines to a map of dark matter and new light on Hindu traditions. Four researchers from Leiden University have received a prestigious €2.5m ERC Advanced Grant to develop their research.

New sampling and analytical strategies give archaeologists a better understanding of the nutrition and survival of ancient populations. Publication in PLOS One.

Are maps objective or do they convey hidden messages that you would miss at first glance? A map is always a simplification of reality. Mapmakers reduce, distort and select. This allows the reader to be guided literally and figuratively. Leiden University Libraries (UBL) and the Museum Volkenkunde jointly…

The first staff symposium on Student Wellbeing – from abstract idea to practical tips – will take place on 15 March 2022. Why have we chosen a practical approach and what can you expect? Sonja Wagenaar (SEA) is project manager and she tells us more about it.

Antoaneta Dimitrova, Professor Comparative Governance, presented the Cleveringa Lecture at the Vaclav Havel Library in Prague last week. We spoke to her about her experience.

Organisation

Working for a social client during your studies: this is what happens at Urban Studies. For the course Urban Studies in Practice, third-year students carry out projects for public clients, such as the municipality of The Hague.

Who assembled the collections of museums? The answer to this question seems to point to men as collectors. Apart from for rare exceptions, female collectors hardly seem to exist. Yet there were indeed women collectors. For the project Museums, Collections and Society, researcher Holly O'Farrell will…

After receiving positive feedback from peers, socially anxious young people feel as confident about themselves as their non-anxious counterparts. 'These young people are then able to handle new social situations more confidently,’ says Leiden psychologist Anne Miers. Her research is published in the…

Professor of Fungal Genetics and Biotechnology Arthur Ram explains how fungi can help us be more sustainable.

It is one of the most famous moments in Dutch TV history: the twenty-three hour long marathon broadcast of Open het Dorp. But what happened to the commune for people with disabilities after that? Monika Baár and Paul van Trigt received a NWO grant of 750,000 euros to map the development of Het Dorp.

De Leiden Lawcast: de facultaire podcast door en voor studenten. Iedere aflevering bespreken de hosts een actueel onderwerp met een interessante gast die het onderwerp belicht vanuit hun wetenschappelijke of juridische expertise. Na een mooi startseizoen in 2022 hebben Irem Çakir en Hamza Duprée het…

Six researchers from Leiden University have received an ERC starting grant. This grant of on average 1.5m euros will enable the researchers to launch their own project, form their own research team and develop their best ideas.

The Greater Angkor Region in contemporary Cambodia was dramatically more urbanized in the 13th century than previously thought, and home to 700.000 to 900.000 people. These discoveries were made by a research team led by Sarah Klassen. Their findings are published in Science Advances.

How should the Quran be read? The manuscript of this holy book makes different interpretations possible. Researcher Marijn van Putten has been awarded an ERC Consolidator Grant of two million euros to explore centuries-old recitations.

Current antibiotics only address very few target proteins in bacteria to kill them. Researchers know that there are more possible target proteins to tackle the bacteria. The question is: which ones. Thanks to the NWO Vidi Grant, Assistant Professor Molecular Physiology Stephan Hacker and his team can…

The challenge is considerable, but so is the satisfaction when it succeeds: creating complex sugar molecules that play a role in biology.

On Friday 3 February, all new incoming exchange students for the Spring semester were invited to attend their own Faculty’s introduction session.

Have you ever experienced the feeling of awkwardness when attending a party where you didn’t know anybody? Ever felt shy at a party within the first few minutes? While this feeling is labelled loosely as feeling socially anxious, social anxiety disorder goes to a much further extent.

The University Council is the central participation body at the University. It is looking for a new chair as of 1 September. Until then Charlotte de Roon is at the helm. She talks about her experiences as chair of the University Council.

The Grotius Centre for International Legal Studies is proud to announce a fortified partnership with the International Bar Association to annually stage the largest moot competition focused on international criminal law: The International Criminal Court Moot Court Competition.

‘Very interesting’ is what two bachelor students have to say about the stories by Liesbeth van Vliet and Niki Antypa during the Psychology Science Day. The icing on the cake were the poster presentations about the bachelor's theses, admired and commented on by scientists and fellow students. Teachers…

We do it every day but barely give it a thought: chewing our food. But the ‘simple’ process of masticating food may have played a crucial role in the evolution of our jaws, facial muscles and teeth.

With an off-the-charts number of downloads, outstanding media coverage, and more than 300 tweets, a small team behind the Scientific Reports article led by a Leiden PhD Igor Djakovic is living every researcher’s dream.

Mathematics can help predict thrombosis. Mathematician Mark Alber has developed models that even aid in suggesting treatments. In the Kloosterman lecture on 27 June, he will explain how this works.

New Online Platform Launched to Support Global Children's Rights Legislative Reform

Studying and being an entrepreneur at the same time? Stan (21), a master's student in Crisis and Security Management, is doing it. With the knowledge gained from his master's, he developed a game about cybersecurity: HackX. Through HackX, he wants to make others aware of dangers online.

Leiden University Academy is making lifelong learning even better! The entire range of programmes on offer for professionals has been expanded and united under this name.

If we want to solve the complex issues now facing us as people and as an organisation, leadership is an absolute necessity: and then not only from supervisors and managers, but from everyone. You can use the set of cards and the animation developed specially for this purpose to gain insight into your…

Research

Leiden physicists Carlo Beenakker and Bas Hensen receive 35 million euros in a consortium with researchers from QuTech and Delft University of Technology. They will investigate the fundamental limits of quantum physics.

Students in the third year of the BA International Studies programme follow the Practicing International Studies (PRINS) consultancy course. They conduct a project put forward by real clients and then present them with their research results. PRINS is so successful that it has now been running for 10…

A clean street, public transportation, or taxes: these are all public goods that keep society running. But how do people decide which public good to invest in, if at all? These are the kind of questions PhD student Laura Hoenig explores.