In line with tradition, the opening of the academic year will see the presentation of the LUS Teaching Prize to the University's best lecturer. Get to know the nominees. This week: Kim Beerden.

Criticism from doctors in the Netherlands about the policy to combat coronavirus is becoming louder. A letter raising their concerns was signed by one thousand doctors. It calls for a new debate on the current measures to deal with the crisis which were recently tightened. Supporters of the letter believe…

This project aims to uncover a series of sites of difference and innovation. In particular, it locates itself in two kinds of distancing: geo-cultural (ie. in the non-European space of Japan) and medial (ie. in innovative expressive media).

Promotor: M.L. van Hecke, Co-Promotor: B.P. Tighe

The Caribbean as we know it today is fundamentally a product of colonial activity and globalisation. Practically everyone that inhabits the Caribbean has ancestors from different continents due to colonial activity, which profoundly affects the area to this day. Caribbean writers, both in the Caribbean…

The project ‘Founding an Inclusive Space’ investigates the histories of various LGBT+ archives in the Netherlands, Germany and the United Kingdom.

It may seem as though adolescents do as they please, but they are more sensitive to their parents’ opinions than they would appear. The adolescent brain reacts strongly to parental criticism or praise. These are the results of a study by an interdisciplinary research group of psychologists and neuroscientists…

Teens with depression appear to be more sensitive to criticism from their parents than their healthy peers are.

On Saturday November 16 Alice Twemlow was awarded the Simon Mari Pruys prize for design criticism for her essay ‘Conflicting Definitions of Key Terms’.

Doctoral research on the history of the critical visitor and their efforts at founding alternative archives including LGBT+-focused, feminist, disability and digitizing projects, resulting in a traveling exhibition on findings (with audio-guides), popular and scholarly article, and a dissertation.

The current production of a number of critical metals is insufficient for the large-scale transition to electric vehicles. This is the conclusion of a report by environmental scientist Benjamin Sprecher and organisations Copper8 and Metabolic. As a solution, they advocate more electric car-sharing,…

Subproject of the NWO Smart Culture Grant research project 'The Critical Visitor'.

Subproject of the NWO Smart Culture Grant research project 'The Critical Visitor'.

With its Green Deal The European Union has set itself much-needed ambitious climate goals. But the energy crisis and geopolitical tensions are making these difficult to achieve. Seven researchers from the Leiden-Delft-Erasmus Universities (LDE) alliance have written a white paper offering solutions.

The Executive Committee consists of the following members:

A controversial comment made by Mona Keijzer of the Dutch BBB party (Farmer-Citizen Movement) calling for the return of Ukrainian refugees and Ukrainian conscription-age men to safe areas of Ukraine has sparked fierce criticism. Mark Klaassen, Associate Professor of Immigration Law and a member of the…

The Dutch asylum application centre in Ter Apel is overburdened, an issue that is currently a prominent feature in the Dutch media. In podcast De Verbranders, PhD students Neske Baerwaldt and Wiebe Ruijtenberg engage in dialogue, and use different angles to examine themes related to migration, borders…

Zijn sociale aspecten van anxiety-like gedrag bij zeer jonge zebravissen al aanwezig? Zijn deze afhankelijk van de coping style (persoonlijkheid) van het individu? Zijn deze gedragingen endocrien te moduleren, bv door oxytocine?

Begin oktober vond de eerste Psychology Connected van dit nieuwe academische jaar weer plaats. Met de vallende herfstbladeren voelen velen zich ook somberder. Onderzoekers delen hoe je een winterdepressie verzacht, en hoe je als ouder het beste kunt omgaan met de depressieve klachten van je kind.

‘Politicians act only in their own interests. The common man does not interest them at all.’ And, ‘The debate in parliament was a sorry sight and demonstrated incompetence.’ These are two pieces of criticism that you might read in tomorrow’s newspaper. But they were actually in the papers at the time…

How and to what extent the historic house (re-)constructs identity through image-making in China.

Join this lecture from professor Daniel Aldrich at the Spanish Steps in Wijnhaven on Wednesday 3 November. Dr. Sanneke Kuipers, associate professor in Crisis Governance, will be the moderator of the lecture and she and professor Aldrich give us a preview of the event.

Giovanni Gruni publishes a peer reviewed paper in the Korean Journal of international and Comparative Law.

Jelle van Buuren, assistant professor at the Institute of Security and Global Affairs (ISGA), does not understand that Mark van Ostaijen puts away the communication after the attacks like: ‘It is a confused man, you can rest easy.’

On Friday 11 March (16.00 hrs.) Minister Dijkgraaf (Education, Culture and Science) will give a speech at Leiden University entitled ‘When knowledge becomes critical’. In the speech, he will address several critical challenges in science and society. The livestream will be open to all.

Leiden psychologist Wilco van Dijk and communication scientist Jaap Ouwerkerk of VU University Amsterdam published a book about the emotion Schadenfreude. The authors describe what the emotion Schadenfreude really is, when people experience the emotion, and what role it plays in social relations.

Do objectively correct solutions to ethical dilemmas exist? Or is ethics always a matter of your opinion against my opinion? How do you know what to do? What kind of thing is ethics anyway? Can you be an expert in ethics?

This project contemplates an ethics of difference and singularity that can effectuate a displacement of anthropocentrism and radical transformation in the way we understand and approach relationality across species borders. PhD defence on 16 December 2019.

Join us at the second edition of the Making Matters symposium, which will take place on Friday 20 and Saturday 21 November 2020 at Het Nieuwe Instituut in Rotterdam and online.

Two open letters are currently circulating among civil servants in the Netherlands calling for the Dutch government to take a different stance towards Israel. Wim Voermans, Professor of Constitutional and Administrative Law in Leiden, says in a national radio broadcast that this is an unusual and unique…

The Dutch temporary bridging measure for self-employed professionals (known as Tozo) was set up to help Dutch self-employed professionals who are experiencing financial difficulties due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Last week, the ombudsman announced an investigation into the scheme for the self-employed.…

On 7 March, Carlos Roos (lecturer, philosopher, researcher) gave a talk about popular music at Utrecht University, organized by the education committee of Study Association Hucbald (Musicology at Utrecht University).

The energy system is at the heart of two of the greatest challenges of the 21st century: decreasing CO2 emissions to meet the ambitions of the Paris agreement while fulfilling the growing energy demand associated with the economic aspirations of a growing world population.

A theoretical project on the insights gained by human (including infant), nonhuman animal and computational studies on artificial grammar learning; identifying the critical questions for future research by developing novel experimental and computational approaches to address these issues.

The theme of the Opening of the Academy Year on 4 September was sustainability and how the university could take the lead as a change agent. How is it going about this and what else can it do? There was also room for a critical note.

Can suffering be positive? Currently dominant discourses, primarily voiced through human rights activism and humanitarianism, maintain the opposite: suffering, mentally and physically, has to be avoided and where it exists, it has to be reduced.

Determined, innovative lecturers are the driving force behind our teaching. Alexandra Langers, a specialist in gastroenterology and hepatology at the LUMC, is an active educator, both within and outside the hospital. She passed the Senior Teaching Qualification at the end of last year. ‘I want to cultivate…

For his PhD, historian and army major Dion Landstra researched the effectiveness of observers in peace operations in the Balkans between 1991 and 1995. What risks are acceptable for bringing about and maintaining peace? Landstra will defend his PhD on 28 September.

Members of our research team give different types of presentations and lectures.