Many an archaeologist, at some point in their career, is asked what type of dinosaur they discovered. Instead of once again patiently explaining that we do not do dinosaurs, the Faculty Board has now decided to listen to society’s call. ‘It is clear that the general public feels that dinosaurs are relevant…

Conference

Lecture

In 2020, many of our staff and students have again won prestigious prizes and been awarded important research subsidies.

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

The research of the Mathematical Institute is driven by the curiosity of its members and has many internal and external connections. It can be characterised as fundamental but with an open attitude towards applications.

Predictors of work functioning in persons with multiple sclerosis

In welke mate hebben domaniale structuren de machtsvorming en nederzettingsontwikkeling in en van het gewest Holland bepaald?

The Institute of Criminal Law and Criminology’s ‘Vulnerable Groups and Inequality’ research project draws on a number of disciplines.

Kool made a conscious choice to work for a non profit organisation. Recently, inspired by the pandemic, she also made a career switch.

PhD defence

PhD defence

PhD defence

PhD defence

PhD defence

PhD defence

PhD defence

PhD defence

He could also have written a paper for his honours assignment,

Met de val van Balkenende IV laait de discussie over het functioneren van politieke partijen binnen ons democratisch bestel weer op. Opgeblazen ego’s, overambitieuze politici en partijpolitieke machtspelletjes zouden echte democratie in de weg staan. Maar die discussie is niet nieuw.

The Belgium Netherlands Artificial Intelligence conference (BNAIC) is an annually organized conference bringing together AI researchers from all over the Benelux. This year it was supposed to be held for the first time in Leiden. Due to the continuing lock-down, it was organized online. A trend started…

The Netherlands in September 2021 could be characterised as a low-trust society. Trust in the government has declined significantly in the past one-and-a-half years: from almost 70 percent in April 2020 to less than 30 percent in September 2021. There has also been a slight decrease in trust between…

In October, LUCIS and NIMAR will host a two-day workshop in honor of the 50th anniversary of Islam Observed, Clifford Geertz' comparative study of Islam in Morocco and Indonesia. Send in your proposal and get a chance to share your work in Rabat this fall.

Three weeks into intelligent lockdown and more to go. An extraordinary situation in which we are now working from home. How do our colleagues do that? Meet ups 'in the flesh' at the printer, having lunch and coffee in the FSW cafe or conferring live and lecturing in the Pieter de la Court Building are…

Alumnus Rennie Roos lives and works in Indonesia. What took him there, what does he do there and what inspires him?

Advanced microscopy to understand life and fight disease: that’s the goal of the new NL-BioImaging network that will develop and integrate state-of-the-art microscopy technologies and services. Researchers from all Dutch universities, including Leiden University and the Leiden University Medical Centre,…

Digital diagnostic tools should improve the diagnostic process of patients with musculoskeletal complaints, so that they can receive the right treatment more quickly.

The ‘Contagious!’ exhibition was set to open at Rijksmuseum Boerhaave in April but had to be postponed because of the corona crisis. The museum hasn’t been twiddling its thumbs in the meantime. The exhibition will now open on 16 July, and the corona crisis has a major role.

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.

People who are attracted to more than one gender often experience a disadvantage in the workplace and labour market. How can the workplace can be improved for bi+ people.

When do we define a piece of nature in the city as a park? And when is something a tree or shrub? It may seem obvious, but in scientific literature the definitions vary quite a bit. That makes comparisons difficult. Environmental scientist Joeri Morpurgo looked at the differences and designed a general…

Pope Francis has appointed astronomer Ewine van Dishoeck to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences. She joins an illustrious list of Nobel Prize winners, such as Ernest Rutherford, Max Planck, Niels Bohr and Erwin Schrödinger. What is her view on this? An interview with our professor of Molecular astrop…

Why are the local parties so popular? Researchers at Leiden University gave their reaction the day after the elections of 21 March.

Are disturbances to the brain, such as Alzheimer's or autism, linked to specific defects in the underlying communication networks in the brain? If this is the case, subtle changes in the networks can act as a marker for brain disturbances. Neuroscientist Serge Rombouts will be investigating this, together…

On 5 October, mediator Johan Remkes presented his report on the nitrogen crisis and what he thinks is the best way forward. Leiden University professor and nitrogen expert Jan Willem Erisman responds to Remkes’s recommendations. ‘It’s a step in the right direction.’

Leiden University is under fire: it is allegedly doing too little to tackle antisemitism. Rector Hester Bijl responds to this accusation and to a video from 2014 on social media in which extreme remarks are made. ‘We can be short about such comments: they are unacceptable. The university is and always…

Joost van den Vondel is considered to be the greatest Dutch poet and playwright of his time, but he certainly wasn’t the most popular. The 17th- and 18th-century public preferred to watch ‘Spanish theatre’. University lecturer Olga van Marion has written a book about this, together with Frans Blom (University…

The enthusiastic finalists of the Sustainable Business Battle proved that sustainability and business can go together well. Fire in their bellies, they pitched their green solutions, ranging from an Energy Race app for DUWO to a cycle parking facility covered with plants at the Bio Science Park.

A tenacious postdoc researcher persuaded Professor Marc Koper to research the oxygen reduction reaction. In Koper's eyes, there was little of interest there. But they promptly discovered a whole new way to improve fuel cells on hydrogen and oxygen. Their article appeared in Nature Catalysis on 07 Ju…

Over hundreds of thousands of years, our region witnessed the comings and goings of various types of hominin. This depended on the temperature as ice ages alternated with warmer periods. In ‘De eerste mensen in de Lage Landen’ (‘The First Humans in the Low Countries’) Leiden archaeologists Yannick Raczynski-Henk…

Woensdag 7 september bezochten de nieuwe eerstejaarsstudenten Rechtsgeleerdheid en Criminologie de Stadsgehoorzaal voor een College Tour met als thema: Strafzaken en de media. Presentatrice Annemarie Brüning, bekend van Hart van Nederland, ging hierover in gesprek met professionals uit het vakgebied…

On average, Dutch breeding birds have become more numerous in the period 1980-2010. The common species have even done better than birds in other European countries. Farmland birds are an exception: they declined sharply both in the Netherlands and elsewhere in Europe.

Benson van der Bij is a family member of Holland's most famous master: Rembrandt van Rijn. What does he think of this relationship? And did he know that Rembrandt was also enrolled as a student here?

Opponents of drastic nitrogen measures argue that the nitrogen calculation model is not reliable enough. Nitrogen professor Jan Willem Erisman: 'It is now much more important to discuss the choices we make on the basis of the outcome. The differences are much bigger than the uncertainties in the mod…

Islamic primary schools contribute to the integration of Muslims in Dutch society, concludes Marietje Beemsterboer in her PhD dissertation. The schools offer children a sense of belonging and prepare them for Dutch society.

Art historian and professor Kitty Zijlmans is on a mission: she wants to get rid of the notion that the West dominates the art world. To no longer put 'the West and the rest', but the exchange between ideas and cultures at the centre of art history. ‘You will see that there has been so much exchange,…

The annual commemoration of the nation’s war dead on Dam Square and at Waalsdorpervlakte, the Dutch apologies for historical slavery and the Cleveringa Lecture itself: our relationship with history is often ritualistic, Cleveringa Professor Frank van Vree will say in his inaugural lecture on 27 Nove…

How much energy and greenhouse gas emissions can Dutch homes save? Xining Yang uses Leiden as an example and shows with his research how enormous the impact can be. At least, if we work harder on becoming more sustainable. Based on the models he developed, Yang will receive his doctorate on 28 June.

While studying Indonesian languages and cultures, Rennie Roos started a company. Today he has been working in Indonesia for more than eight years. Where does his love for this country come from? And how does he look back on his studies? ‘I actually wanted to become a pilot.’

The world is full of wars, and no war is without its dead. What happens to the bodies of fatal casualties of armed conflict? The winner of the faculty Jongbloed Thesis Prize 2015 is Welmoet Wels (Public International Law). Her thesis Dead body management in armed conflict: paradoxes in trying to do…