How do games help shape our perception of the past? Associate Professor Angus Mol receives a Vidi grant to answer this question.

How can I align science, society and myself to address today’s major challenges? That’s what students of the Honours College track ‘Science, Society and Self’ aim to find out. How do their classes at honours differ from their regular education?

Just like the professional riders from the Jumbo-Visma team, amateur cyclists will soon be able to analyse and improve their performance. Leiden data scientists working with the cycling team are making their smart data model available so that every serious cyclist can keep track of their fitness.

Older people are often approached from the perspective of their limitations when there is often much they still can and want to do. According to Professor Tineke Abma, art is a good way to continue to participate.

‘Everyone’s talking about it, everyone thinks everyone else is doing it, but the reality is disappointing,’ says biochemist Gerard van Westen in his 3 October University lecture in the Van der Werfpark. In the full marquee, he gets a laugh with this suggestion that artificial intelligence is comparable…

A shepherd, but also a comparativist and historian with very broad interests. That is how Professor Philippe Buc describes himself. As of 1 August 2021, he will hold the chair of professor of Medieval History at the university. In an introductory interview, Buc introduces himself, his research and his…

Taking a Bachelor’s in Security Studies while starting and running two businesses: student Mohamed Sulaiman never stops. But he wouldn’t have it any other way. PLNT The Hague entrepreneurs’ hub is a source of help and inspiration.

‘Working in Leiden is a dream come true.’ Ákos Kovács studied in his birth country Hungary and worked in Germany, Denmark and Groningen. As professor of Microbiome Ecology at IBL, he immediately started working together with his new colleagues to make discoveries about the versatile bacterial species…

From the new Hortus botanicus podcast to conference call bingo: all the students, lecturers and other members of staff from Leiden University had to switch at breakneck speed to working and studying from home this week. That meant decluttering offices, getting your head around remote teaching and installing…

In April, the Honours Class 'Law, Power and Inequality: Global Perspectives’ will start. Professor of Law & Society Maartje van der Woude has developed and coordinates this unique class which is innovative both in content and collaboration as in design.

Cyclic peptides are investigated as a platform to induce different orientations between various ligands.

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…

What’s the fate of our sun, when in 5 billion years from now our Milky Way will clash with the Andromeda Galaxy? Leiden astronomers have been working on calculations on this collision. They recently gave a visual sneak preview on a big tech conference.

Promotor: Prof.dr. M. de Jong, Co-Promotor: Dr. A.J. Heijboer

Stories of resistance in the Second World War are widely covered in Dutch historiography: Hannie Schaft, Erik Hazelhoff Roelfzema, and Professor Cleveringa are some of the best known. But these accounts largely focus on the Dutch domestic perspective. On the other side of the world, a complex colonial…

Graduation MIRD Class of 2024: 'The world is better off with students like this'

Dr Victor Klinkenberg calls himself a generalist pur sang. As an expert on digital archaeology he has worked on nearly all the regions the Faculty of Archaeology focuses on. “All I need to do is travel to the Caribbean once, and then I have done everything we do in Leiden.” We asked him about his background,…

The 10th edition of the World Congress of African Linguists (WOCAL), hosted by Leiden University, will be held online from 7 – 12 June. Leiden University Centre for Linguistics (LUCL) researchers give us an insight into how important and special this event actually is.

Writing a report for a teacher, getting a grade and then no one ever cares about your research again. Pity, isn't it? That is quite different in the course Personal and Professional Impact (PPI). During this third-year bachelor's course of Cultural Anthropology students apply their anthropological knowledge…

Professor of cardiology Douwe Atsma (LUMC) looks beyond the traditional boundaries of hospitals and healthcare institutions for solutions to increasing pressure on the current healthcare system.

Roughly arrested and subjected to extreme isolation. Using his experience, expert Jason Bhugwandass spoke to 50 young people who have spent time on Zikos wards (‘very intense, short-term observation and stabilisation wards’). He concluded that they’re ‘mostly locked up’ and leave ‘even more traumatised’…

He has had to accept early retirement due to his military profession, or ‘FLO’ (Functioneel Leeftijdsontslag) as it is more commonly referred to within the Dutch Ministry of Defence, but the words ‘retirement’ or ‘winding down’ do not appear to be part of Frans Osinga's vocabulary. His appointment at…

Kim Duistermaat will become the Campus The Hague Director on 1 April. In this new role, she will monitor Campus The Hague projects and drive them forward. ‘I think it will be great to contribute to the successful realisation of the concept of “one university in two cities”.’

All supermassive black holes in the centres of galaxies appear to have periods when they swallow matter from their close surroundings. But that is about as far as the similarities go. That's the conclusion reached by British and Dutch astronomers from their research with ultra-sensitive radio telescopes…

Anar Ahmadov is one of eleven Leiden University researchers that have been awarded a Vidi grant by the Dutch Research Council (NWO). The 800.000 euro grant enables Ahmadov to start his own research group on western institutions, finding answers to the question: do they promote or preclude democracy?

Mathematician Oliver Nagy still vividly remembers the first time he learned about a random walk. ‘The lecturer told us to imagine a company of drunken students who wander in the streets. At each intersection, they would spin one of them around and all would go in the direction where he or she came to…

There are some lecturers who are better equipped to provide remote education than others. And then there is Aris Politopoulos, who already owned professional streaming gear long before he could apply this in his education. Now he lectures on ancient Assyria while sitting in an Assyrian palace, moving…

Using the James Webb Space Telescope, an international team of researchers, including Leiden Professor of Molecular Astrophysics Ewine van Dishoeck, has discovered a palette of hydrocarbons in a planet-forming disc around a young, low-mass star. The results confirm that discs around very lightweight…

Hoping to learn something about the human brain, Leiden researchers are creating a setup to shoot single photons, particles of light, into someone’s eye. ‘The eye is a passageway to the brain.’

It was his thesis supervisor during his master's in Film and Photographic Studies who encouraged Shivan Shazad to pursue a second master's in diversity policy at Ghent. He is now Manager of Diversity and Inclusion at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.

This remarkable statement appears in Yi-Wen Cheng’s dissertation on state monopoly and forms of competition in the Chinese tobacco industry. Cheng presents her conclusions and looks back on her fieldwork. ‘I had to accept a lot of drinks in order to establish a network of contacts.’

We catched up with Annette Righolt, Honours College coordinator at FGGA, about a grant, a new course and the new year.

It is sufficiently plausible that the professor from the Faculty of Archaeology exhibited the ‘inappropriate and unacceptable behaviour’ detailed in the advice of the investigating committee. That is is unless the professor provides counter-evidence. This is the conclusion of the Subdistrict Court…

Space is becoming increasingly busier due to the launching of satellites and tourists. But no binding international agreements have been made since 1979. This is problematic, warns space lawyer Tanja Masson-Zwaan. ‘Everyone’s putting their own interests first.’

PhD defence

What are the host immune defence mechanisms that control intracellular infections and how are these subverted by pathogens?

The new University Sports and Exam Centre is another step closer. Bigger sports and exam halls, plenty of room for meeting people, an open feel that integrates with the Campus Square and the sports fields, optimal acoustics and an uncompromisingly sustainable building with a green facade and solar panels.…

The EL CID introduction period is mostly online this year. But all first-years get to come to Leiden for a day for a taste of studying and student life. We came to have a look on Wednesday 12 August.

PhD defence

This thesis describes the development of a variety of mannosylated conjugates. Antigen presenting cells bear mannoside recognizing receptors that actively transport antigen into the cell. This thesis exploits this feature for the development of improved vaccines.

PhD defence

This special issue focuses on emerging trends in the implementation of the WPS agenda. In reviewing the resolution 20 years since the passing of Resolution 1325, Newby and O'Malley have highlighted the gaps in implementation.

New and reemerging infectious diseases call for innovative and efficient control strategies of which fast vaccine design and development represent an important element.

PhD defence

PhD defence

PhD defence

Workshop

Workshop Series

Workshop

Workshop