Yeast, alpacas, and antibodies. They may seem unrelated, but within the project of the Leiden iGEM students, they come together perfectly. For the international synthetic biology competition iGEM, the team is working on an innovative method to produce nanobodies—a special form of antibodies—using brewer’s…

Buurtlab 070 is a new Leiden University project in which residents, researchers and students from The Hague work together on climate, sustainability and biodiversity solutions. What do they expect of the lab?

Hak, lawyer, international imagery law lecturer, and adjunct associate professor, talks about his PhD research on the use of images in international criminal prosecutions. He was a public prosecutor in Canada for over 30 years and dealt primarily with the prosecution of homicides and other major cri…

The Executive Board appointed Sanneke Kuipers as full professor effective January 1, 2022. Her chair is Crisis Governance. She combines this chair with her position as education director of ISGA, the Institute of Security and Global Affairs. A conversation about working 24/7 in crisis management, her…

Leiden University has an active open science community. Open science means transparency in all phases of research by precisely documenting every step of the way and making this publicly available. ‘It’s time to be open,’ say psychologists Anna van ’t Veer and Zsuzsika Sjoerds. There is increasing awareness…

The Sustainable 100 is an initiative by Dutch newspaper Trouw, consisting of a list of the top 100 sustainable civil initiatives. In October of 2020, the Jonge Klimaatbeweging (Youth Climate Movement NL) became the first youth organization to win first prize. An interview with LUC Alumna and Board Member…

Photographing fluorescent flowers, searching for frogs and shooting tropical cucumbers out of trees: this is only a small part of the course Tropical Biodiversity and Field Methods. For this class, master’s students biology traveled to Malaysian Borneo for two weeks to gain experience in fieldwork.…

‘Teaching is not merely a profession; it’s a calling.’ These were the words of Ayo Adedokun on winning the LUS Teaching Prize at the opening of the academic year on 6 September. The prize is for the best lecturer of the year.

What does a student member of the Faculty Council do? What is it like to be a member of this representative body and how useful is it to be a member? Students Rassoul Coelen (FC 2020-2021 and presently member of the University Council) and Max Garcia Hoogland (FR 2021-2022) talk to us about their experiences.…

After ten years and one day, Leiden Observatory has a new director. As of 1 September, Ignas Snellen will set the course for the astronomical institute. In this interview, you will get to know Ignas. Or at least a little. That is why we gave him five dilemmas and asked the people around him who he really…

After 2.5 years as defence minister, it is time for Kajsa Ollongen to hand over the baton. In front of a packed audience, she gave her farewell speech at Leiden University in The Hague on Tuesday, which included personal lessons and memories, from sleeping on the ground with the prime minister to the…

The slogan of the Faculty of Archaeology, ‘The Future of the Past starts at Leiden University’, might sound like empty marketing speak. But there is something to it. The past can teach us a lot about climate change and that could make us fear the worst for our future. Archaeologist Gerrit Dusseldorp…

The COVID Radar app is citizen science at its best. More than 200,000 users in the Netherlands are answering questions about their health and behaviour to help predict the development of the pandemic. Niels Chavannes, Professor of General Practice at Leiden University Medical Center, explains how the…

What is written in law and what equality, inclusion and diversity mean in practice is not always the same. This was the focus of this year’s D&I symposium on 13 January. The plenary sessions were watched by hundreds of participants and there was a wide range of workshops covering different aspects of…

Three Psychology students will present a poster of their thesis research on Alzheimer’s and dementia at the international conference AAIC Neuroscience Next. ‘I remind myself to recognise - without fear or shame - when I don't know something.’

Op dinsdag 10 januari 2022 zijn tijdens de facultaire nieuwjaarsreceptie de jaarlijkse Meijersprijzen en de scriptieprijzen uitgereikt.

How can you ensure that more experimental drugs reach the finish line? At the moment, only one in twenty cancer drugs that are tested on humans makes it to the market. This is an enormous loss for patients and society. With a grant from the National Growth Fund, Oncode-PACT aims to efficiently select…

In de rubriek ‘Onderwijsheden’ delen Psychologiedocenten hun belangrijkste inzichten over college geven. Deze maand: Anouk van der Weiden ontwikkelde met een team collega’s en studenten een lespakket kritisch lezen, toepassen en schrijven. ‘Studenten denken: wie ben ík om kritiek te geven op een gepubliceerd…

Following our Leiden Brussels Alumni Event, I (external officer M. Blaauw, ed.) met our very own Leiden Law alumna Helena-Loutas Paraskeva. An Australian who works for the European Commission. Interesting, how did she get this job, what does she do and how did her Master in Leiden affect or influence…

Members of the End Fossil climate action group, including students from Leiden University, have occupied two rooms in the Lipsius building at the Faculty of Humanities today (23 November 2023).

Immigration and naturalisation policies are an important theme in the upcoming Dutch elections. The Netherlands should be mindful of its immigration narrative, says PhD candidate Hannah Bliersbach, as this greatly influences the relationship between ‘new’ citizens and their new home country.

The story of Tutankhamun, the Egyptian pharaoh, is world famous. But did you know that the Ancient Egyptians mummified not only people but animals too? The National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden recently put a bunch of animal mummies through a CT scanner. This was in collaboration with Canon Netherlands…

There is a real chance of war closer to home, political and military leaders in Europe have warned. What does Frans Osinga, Professor of War Studies, think about the threat and what we should do?

On 15 December, Director of the MIVD General Jan Swillens, visited the Institute of Security and Global Affairs (ISGA) to give a lecture on international intelligence cooperation together with ISGA/NLDA researcher Pepijn Tuinier. This event, co-organised by the Intelligence and Security Group and the…

The freedom to be who you are – woman, man, homosexual, heterosexual, transgender, religious, atheist, and so on – is perhaps the Netherlands’ greatest attribute. The principle of equality and the right not to be discriminated against are in the very first article of our constitution. Yet there is a…

Countries that import plastic waste recycle an average of at least 63 percent of it. This is surprising, as we previously believed that the vast majority was incinerated or ended up as litter. This was discovered by PhD candidate Kai Li and his colleagues from the Institute of Environmental Sciences in…

Student well-being is an enormously broad subject. Students and researchers can gain inspiration and exchange knowledge at the online EUniWell symposium ‘Good Practices on Student Well-Being’ on 30 September and 1 October. We take a look at the forthcoming symposium with co-organiser Jasper Bitter:…

The Leiden University College (LUC) education team behind The Learning Mindset (TLM) has received 800,000 euro’s during the Dutch Higher Education Award Ceremony 2022. The LUC team was second behind Universteit Twente. The prize was awarded during the annual Comenius Festival of the Comenius Network.…

Once a year, former employee and avid runner Dennis Hoencamp returns to his old workplace. That’s when he competes in the Leiden Science Run. As an event coordinator, he once devised the relay race as an anniversary activity. It grew into an annual event for the entire University and the Bio Science…

Stack two layers of graphene, twisted at slightly different angles to each other, and the material spontaneously becomes a superconductor. Science still can't explain how something so magical can happen, but physicists use special equipment to reveal what is taking place under the surface.

The Academy of Creative and Performing Arts (ACPA) recently appointed a new academic director. Erik Viskil is taking over from Henk Borgdorff, who held the post for the past four years. What has been achieved in those years? And what does ACPA’s future look like? In this double interview we discuss…

Changes to halt further biodiversity loss are more urgent than ever and feasible, says IPBES, the United Nations biodiversity panel. In two reports released this week, the panel calls on governments worldwide to develop coherent policies that address biodiversity, climate change, water, food and health.…

Jyothi Thrivikraman set up a Virtual International Collaboration project with a university in Myanmar.

Conference, Mini symposium

Lecture, Symposium

Conference, D&I Symposium

INTERDISCIPLINARY SYMPOSIUM

Study information, Major Choice Event

Lecture, Histories Connected: Masterclass

Arts and culture

Lecture, CHiLL series

Lecture, Adriaan Gerbrands Lecture

Lecture

Symposium

Lecture, Seminar

Lecture, RIAS-Sciences Po Seminar Series on Modern North American History

Lecture

Lecture