Dutch and Flemish partners, including Leiden University, are joining forces as the European Digital Media Observatory (EDMO) in the fight against the spread of fake news, and have received the support of the European Commission.

Minority governments only become an option when attempts to form a government collapse. PhD candidate Corné Smit explored why such governments have become rare in the Netherlands and what advantages they might offer. ‘Broad majority coalitions often fail to make substantial progress on key issues.’

Good education starts with good educators. The university has taken various steps in recent years to help our teaching staff develop. But new teaching staff require particular attention, say staff who work on teacher professionalisation.

Prisoners who are visited regularly by family or friends are less likely to be reconvicted in the short term than inmates who rarely or never receive visits. Visits should therefore be encouraged and facilitated, according to PhD candidate Maria Berghuis, who will defend her doctoral thesis on 23 June…

Wars, climate change and the effects of covid have caused a global decline in children’s well-being. In her inaugural lecture Ann Skelton, Professor of Children’s Rights in a Sustainable World, points to the disastrous effects of multiple interacting crises.

Traces of the past remain hidden in rivers, lakes and seas. In his inaugural lecture Martijn Manders will explain why underwater archaeology is important to understanding our history.

On 1 July – Keti Koti, in the year ahead, our university community will be able to reflect extensively on the history of slavery by engaging in research, education and many other activities.

Juan Masullo (Leiden University Institute of Political Science) receives a grant from the Elise Mathilde Fund/Leiden University Fund to conduct his research project ‘Forging an Anti-Mafia Culture: Observational and Experimental Evidence from Italy’. Masullo aims to find out what ordinary Italians think…

We need to dispel the arrogant and misguided idea that modern humans are superior to earlier human species. It is thanks in part to all our predecessors such as Neanderthals that we are who we are today. This is what Marie Soressi, Professor of Hominin Diversity Archaeology, will argue in her inaugural…

The fight against insurgents, guerrillas and resistance movements is an ‘incredibly unpopular’ topic with experts and military personnel, says Professor by Special Appointment of Military History Thijs Brocades Zaalberg in his inaugural lecture. He warns that ignoring these forms of irregular warfare…

Mingmin Gong

Prof. Hanneke Hulst has been appointed Scientific Director of the Institute of Psychology by the Board of the Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences. She will start on 1 February 2024 for a period of 3 years, succeeding Andrea Evers and interim director Serge Rombouts.

Three projects affiliated with the university will receive grants from the Leids Mediafonds (Leiden Media Fund ed.). The money is to be spend on creating a journalistic production in collaboration with a local media partner.

The winners of the JSVO teaching prizes for academic year 2020-2021 were announced at the opening of the faculty year on 7 September 2021.

Sustainable biotechnology, new insights into genome evolution and combining forces in mathematics. The NWO has awarded grants to these three innovative Leiden research projects in the ENW-M Open Competition.

The second quantum revolution is in full swing, bringing all kinds of new technologies to within reach, and offering many opportunities as well as challenges. Leiden and Delft decided to join forces.

Het asielbeleid blijft een hoofdpijndossier voor het kabinet. Een akkoord zou bereikt zijn waarin iedere partij een kleine concessie zou doen. De VVD gaat uiteindelijk toch niet akkoord met deze nieuwe asielwet die gemeentes kan dwingen om asielzoekers op te vangen. De VVD fractie heeft moeite met ‘dwang’…

Many humanities graduates find work in digital heritage, but a good pedagogical model to match education is lacking. University lecturers Karin de Wild and Peter Verhaar want to change this with a Comenius grant.

On 10 June 2022, a conference on topical issues in Dutch subsidy law was held at the Old Observatory building of Leiden University. With almost 90 enthusiastic participants, it was a huge success!

Professor Ian Lilley, the Faculty of Archaeology’s Willem Willems Chair in Archaeological Heritage, was invited by Her Excellency Mrs. Marion Derckx, Ambassador of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Australia, to present the 2022 commemoration speech for Netherlands Memorial Day on May 4th at the Netherlands-Australia…

Research

In September 2022, Ruben Ros started working at the Institute for History as a PhD candidate. Below he introduces himself!

Der Spiegel reports about the planned reform of the EU Code of Conduct aimed at tackling harmful tax practices of EU Member States. A reform is urgently needed to tackle remaining forms of tax competition, which cost EU countries billons of euros every year.

Why are morpho butterflies blue? That is what high school students Frederique Kerstens and Koen van Griensven investigated in their high school profile paper at the Leiden Institute for Research in Physics. In doing so, they won the KHMW Profielwerkstukprijs 2023. ‘We didn't expect it, but are of course…

The European PANVIPREP research project started at the Leiden University Medical Center on 11 March. The participants are virologists, biochemists and pharmacists from 14 European countries. Their mission is to develop antiviral drugs to protect Europe during pandemics. At least two such antivirals…

During the Opening of the Academic Year 2024-2025, we asked guests for their wishes and ideas for Leiden University's anniversary year in 2025.

On May 8, the Faculty of Archaeology celebrated its yearly End of Academic Year Event. The event was a chance for staff and students to mingle, while enjoying a nice meal together.

It is with sadness that we have learned of the passing of our former colleague professor Herman Schaper on Tuesday 30 November this year. Herman held the Pieter Kooijmans Chair in Peace, Law and Security at Leiden University from 2014 to 2017.

Drug use during pregnancy seems like a choice without any consequences. However, the Dutch Public Prosecution Service (OM) has decided to prosecute a mother for using alcohol and drugs during her pregnancy. Mariëlle Bruning, Professor of Child Law, tells current affairs programme ‘Nieuwsuur’ that she…

In the University elections in April, the eight student seats on the University Council have gone to six parties, and newcomers the Liberal Student Party and the Party for Biomedical Students have each won one seat.

From 25 March to 15 April, the photo exhibition 'NATO and the Netherlands: A Journey' will be on display on the third floor of Wijnhaven.

Research

In the 1970s and 1980s, Argentina faced a severe dictatorship. The regime did not shy away from using brute force and torture. People who showed their dissatisfaction also regularly disappeared. For her PhD, Ana Saab researched how the memory of these disappeared people was kept alive anyway.

On 6 June 2023, Melanie Fink gave a ‘conférence’ at the University of Liège, Belgium in the context of its EU Studies Seminar Cycle, organised by Ljupcho Grozdanovski.

On Tuesday 8 November, a workshop for lecturers was held on skills that students acquire throughout their studies. The workshop was organised by KU Leuven as part of the Erasmus+ project ASSET-H.

On Monday 26 February the terrible news reached us that our gifted former Egyptology student – and former student assistant at the Leids Papyrologisch Instituut – Juan Archidona Ramírez had succumbed to cancer.

Organisation

The Faculty Board and the Institute of Private Law have agreed to combine the disciplines of child law, international children’s rights and health law into one Department of Child Law and Health Law.

Mike Schmidli has been awarded a fellowship at the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study (NIAS). From September 2021, he will spend 5 months at NIAS working on his research project titled 'Human Rights, Democracy Promotion, and U.S. Interventionism in the late Cold War'. Read the abstract of his…

Education

Research

On behalf of trade union FNV, Egbert Jongen and Heike Vethaak from Leiden University conducted a study on income distribution over the past 40 years. Dutch national media outlets have given extensive news coverage to their study.

Rebekka Grossmann awarded Gerald Westheimer Career Development Fellowship for research on the effects of migration on visual codes of global solidarity

Lukas Milevski is a lecturer in International Studies at the Institute for History. He introduces himself.

A KIEM grant was recently awarded to a diverse group of Leiden researchers, aiming to organise an interdisciplinary conference with the title ‘Ancient Religions and the Materiality of Danger’ in 2026. The topic of the conference marks a shift towards the study of the role of objects.

Salma Balazadeh, Víctor Carrión, and Jos Raaijmakers, biologists at the Institute of Biology Leiden (IBL), have successfully applied for an NWO grant and got awarded 730.000 euros. The board of NWO Domain Applied and Engineering Sciences awarded funding for their project within the Open Technology Programme…

The Dutch Research Council (NWO) has awarded a grant of €2,858,000 from the Dutch National Research Agenda (NWA) for tackling sexually transgressive behaviour and sexual violence (SGOG). Mischa Dekker, assistant professor and member of the Violence and Violence Prevention research group, is a co-applicant…

Self-employed workers’ hours have significantly decreased during the coronavirus crisis. Their average hours worked decreased most at the start of the crisis, by more than five hours per week. And it was difficult to return to their pre-crisis hours in the quarters that followed. This is the conclusion…

ASTRON en de Universiteit Leiden beginnen samen een nieuwe leerstoel over sterrenkunde en AI. Bijzonder hoogleraar Joeri van Leeuwen gaat deze positie vullen.

Philosophy alumna Naomi Rebekka Boekwijt returns to Leiden University on 20 June to present her latest novel Stemmen (Voices) in Plexus. ‘I wanted to show that things could be done differently in psychiatric care.’