Maurits Berger worked as a lawyer in Amsterdam and as a journalist and researcher in Egypt and Syria. Since 2008, he has been a Professor of Islam in Leiden. Now he finally gets to do what he really wants: bringing his social knowledge and experience with Islam to the academic world. His call to the…

An international and interdisciplinary collaborative effort, the Honours Class ‘Sustainability Beyond Frustration: Saving the Planet as an Academic Skill’ aims to present students’ ideas to sustainability experts that know how to bring them to fruition.

Professor Ignas Snellen has developed an online platform where exoplanet researchers can post videos about their work: exoplanet-talks.org. ‘For young researchers in particular it’s a way to bring their research to people’s attention.’

The touring exhibition 'Presenting with the city' has touched down in the Lipsius Building. In the presentation, students and researchers show how their research has contributed to the city.

How do surgeons avoid causing nerve damage or leaving cancerous cells behind? An interdisciplinary research group at the LUMC hopes to improve operations and make them less invasive with the aid imaging techniques. They are working with medical companies to make these techniques widely available.

The LUCAS Impact Committee, consisting of Jan van Dijkhuizen, Rick Honings, Casper de Jonge, Angus Mol, Thijs Porck and Aafje de Roest, has offered this year’s LUCAS Public Engagement Award to Dorine Schellens and Peter Verstraten.

How can business strategies help us solve social problems? This was researched by students of the Master Honours Class 'Social Innovation in Action' over the past twenty weeks. During the final seminar of the class they presented their creative enterprises to tackle child poverty in Leiden. ‘It’s not…

The earlier you introduce children to a language, the sooner they can be captivated by it and see that there is more than just Dutch and English. That is the basis for the language lessons for primary education that Alisa van de Haar, university lecturer of French, collaborated on. ‘Deans from different…

Discovering whether a chick is male or female while it is still in the egg. Leiden biotech company In Ovo, a spin-off of Leiden University, has been given an investment of several million euros to further develop its unique test method. The founders - both Leiden alumni - Wouter Bruins and Wil Stutterheim…

Minou van der Werf advocates applying insights from social psychology to financial behaviour. Even small practical interventions can help people to make sensible financial choices, Van der Werf discovered as a result of her field studies. PhD defence 10 December.

The Etymology Calendar for 2020, which was compiled by five linguistics students from Leiden University, has now hit the shops. After the resounding success of the first Etymology Calendar last year, this year’s version is being published by big-name publishing house Brill.

A CT scanner to treat eye cancer, energy-efficient software for the future and a test to identify male chick eggs. Three projects by researchers from Leiden University are to receive funding from research funder NWO’s Open Technology programme, to which the business sector also contributes.

Since the beginning of September, urban criminologist Marianne Franken has been the linchpin of a special partnership between Leiden University, the municipality of Leiden and the police. As a PhD candidate she will spend four years conducting research into how safe the people of Leiden feel.

Dutch troops, judges and politicians collectively condoned and concealed the systematic use of extreme violence during the Indonesian War of Independence. Historians have now shown how this could happen. ‘It was scandal management rather than prevention,’ says Leiden historian and research leader Gert…

Erwin Muller, Dean of FGGA and Administrator of Campus The Hague, and Koen Caminada, Vice-Dean, share their thoughts on how ‘we’ as a faculty are doing based on three themes. A discussion about the balancing act between what is and what isn’t possible and the natural urge to continue to grow, the utility…

Many students and members of staff at Leiden University are politically active. In the run up to the local elections on 21 March candidates in The Hague and Leiden explain why you should vote for them, and what they want to do if they are elected. In this article, the Leiden candidates.

Birds sing to be heard, but how do they cope with increasing noise levels? Which species persist in cities and why? And do they thrive or suffer in the urban soundscape?

In the National Think Tank, 20 young academics spend four months mulling over a solution to a societal problem. Two Leiden alumni tell us more.

PhD defence

Working Group

PhD defence

PhD defence

The international travelling exhibition Caribbean Ties will open at Museon in The Hague on Saturday 25 May. It tells the untold story of the indigenous peoples of the Caribbean and their lives before, during and after European colonisation. Caribbean Ties will be on show simultaneously in 11 countries…

Freshwater is an important resource, but at a great risk of species decline due to habitat loss, pollution and over-exploitation, and invasive alien species.

For years, the late professor Marten Durieux personally mentored and funded students from Sudan to study physics in the Netherlands. Colleague Sense Jan van der Molen calls his endeavour remarkable: ‘Marten Durieux has done a great job with these students, at a time when diversity was not yet a big…

‘It's right and proper that we have policies to prevent terrorism,' says Francesco Ragazzi, university lecturer in International Relations at Leiden's Institute of Political Science. 'But the way the policies are designed and implemented can have unintended consequences. For example, when teachers are…

For medical research, researchers often recreate tissue in the lab. Organ-on-a-chip technology emulates organs, right down to the blood that flows through them, thus creating a realistic test model for drugs or research into disease processes. Researchers from the LUMC are coordinating an NWO Gravitation…

Predicting whether someone will fall ill and which treatment will benefit them most: that is the aim of the techniques that Professor of Analytical Biosciences Thomas Hankemeier and his research group are developing at Leiden University. In order to scale up and further develop this technology, he works…

Auke-Florian Hiemstra is the Leidsch Dagblad Person of the Year 2022.

Health psychologist Andrea Evers is one of the 19 new members, selected by the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW), who have been inaugurated on 16 September 2019. The Academy has now about 550 members.

Leiden University opened its doors on Leiden Museum Night, with a whole host of things to see and do at the Academy Building, Hortus botanicus and Old Observatory. Take a look at the photos and see.

In 2016, the 23 members of the League of European Research Universities (LERU) generated a collective economic value of €99.8 billion in Gross Value Added and 1.3 million jobs. These and other figures, which appear in a just published report by LERU, demonstrate the impressive contribution that LERU…

Since January the Dutch public have been able to follow a free course on artificial intelligence (AI) and its far-reaching impact on our lives. Leiden scientists Marlies van Eck and Valerie Frissen, from the Institute for the Interdisciplinary Study of the Law at Leiden's Law Faculty, are part of the…

Artificial Intelligence (AI) can help humans in many different ways: from customised medicine and self-driving cars to preserving our cultural heritage. On 4 April academics from Leiden will talk about the achievements and opportunities of AI. A research dossier on AI is also online now, which looks…

An international consortium of research groups is aiming to develop novel antibiotics against the tuberculosis bacteria and two other deadly bacteria. The European Union has awarded a total of 18 million euros to the RespiriTB and RespiriNTM projects. Researchers from the Leiden University Medical Centre…

Climate change and energy transition were an important theme of the Dutch provincial elections: how should we invest in new sources of energy? Leiden University conducts multidisciplinary research into renewable energy solutions. Read more about this in the ‘Renewable Energy’ research dossier.

‘The Hague is rapidly developing to become a knowledge city and Leiden University is making an important contribution to this development.' These were the words with which alderman Joris Wijsmuller opened The Hague Day of Architecture on Saturday 20 May 2017. Wijnhaven was the focal point of the day…

Biodiversity in the Netherlands is having a tough time. Professor of Natural Capital Koos Biesmeijer combines research with practical advice: from the greening of industrial parks to solutions inspired by hi-tech nature. Inaugural lecture 9 March.

What are the key issues in conducting LCA of bioenergy systems? What is the environmental sustainability status of second generation bioethanol? How much would the final results of biogenic carbon neutrality assumptions deviate from the true values based on a complete inventory? How to assess the impact…

From learning modules for primary schools to a ‘Fixer-Upper Day’ and from a platform for returning broken electronic devices to a call to government: the National Think Tank has presented ten solutions that should help create a circular economy. We spoke to three Leiden members of the Think Tank about…

How can the Dutch Sand Motor strengthen our coasts in a natural way? And how can this knowledge and experience help prevent coastal erosion in Jamaica? Researchers Alexander van Oudenhoven (Institute of Environmental Sciences Leiden) and Arjen Luijendijk (Delft University of Technology) have compiled…

Anyone who follows the Faculty of Archaeology on social media must have noticed that something changed in September. Videos on research projects, interviews with staff and students, and embracing memes: the content has become more varied and engaging. We speak with students Grace Alonzo and Thomas Prins,…

An archaeologist as a modern-day shaman. An unexpected comparison Professor by Special Appointment of Public Archaeology Luc Amkreutz will make in his inaugural lecture.

It was a unique meeting at the Academy Building on 10 April. Around 200 local entrepreneurs came to a networking event hosted by Leiden City Centre Management and Leiden University.

What do you do when you’re suddenly given access to a whole lot of data but don’t know how to organise and analyse it? Maritime historians in the Faculty of Humanities joined forces with vocational college (MBO) students to build a database. ‘We’re so compatible with each other.’

The list of substances prohibited by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) is huge. PhD candidate Jules Heuberger looked at many of these, as well as at the methods used to detect them. He concluded that for very few of these substances is there is evidence that they actually do enhance performance. PhD…

He’s sometimes called Your Safeness. Leiden law alumnus Pieter van Vollenhoven, husband of Princess Margriet and the driving force behind the Dutch Safety Board, returned to the University yesterday for the symposium ‘A critical safety watchdog?’ to mark his 80th birthday. With a host of dignitaries…