Researchers and policymakers are welcome to attend the AI & Society Conference in The Hague on Friday 23 June. The SAILS interdisciplinary research programme will be taking a nuanced look at the state of the art of AI technology. And offering fresh perspectives.

Linguists Alwin Kloekhorst and Alexander Lubotsky from Leiden University made a great discovery this summer. They deciphered a few dozen inscriptions on pot shards found in Daskyleion (North-West Turkey) as Phrygian and Lydian, and thus proved the presence of the Phrygians and Lydians in that area.

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…

Cooperation is the solution to international problems, demonstrated the final seminar of the Master Honours Class ‘Smart Regional Integration’ – even when it is sometimes easier said than done. “You can see the students struggle with that.”

For the students of our Dutch institutions, the Netherlands Embassy supported an ‘academic retreat’ at hotel Stella de Mare in Ayn Sukhna. During this two-day retreat, our students discussed with students of al-Azhar University in Cairo on various topics. It was an open exchange of ideas and feedback…

The Hortus Botanicus is celebrating its 425-year anniversary this year. It’s the oldest botanical garden in the Netherlands, but how did it come into existence and what kind of research takes place there?

Two radio telescopes in Green Bank, West Virginia have brought together a few remarkable people. A new photo exhibition in the Old Observatory visitor centre gives an insight into the remote community. Due to the corona crisis, the Observatory is not open to the public. That’s why we’ve selected a few…

Research into depression in children, Leiden alumni in the Dutch House of Representatives and an exceptional achievement by one of our students: what do this topics have in common? They are among our most read stories of 2021.

From pipetting in the lab to shining in front of the camera at a global student event. With 8.000 viewers watching the livestream, Marjolein Crooijmans presented the iGEM Giant Jamboree in Paris.

How do I conduct research? How do I structure, conduct and record what I’ve thought of and done? The Bio-Pharmaceutical Sciences Programme didn’t just want students to perform a series of tests for the Cellular Biochemistry practical course. After a complete re-vamp - ‘From traditional cookbook lab…

The year 2023 saw the earthquake in Turkey and Syria, the Wagner Group rebellion and wildfires and floods as all the weather records were smashed. Our most-read stories were about the climate crisis and the elections: here’s the list.

Leiden University's International Honours College, Leiden University College The Hague (LUC) experienced empty halls and empty classrooms this past year on the residential campus on the Anna van Buerenplein in The Hague due to the global pandemic. Dr Paul Hudson designed a Covid-proof course that enabled…

The mission in Uruzgan Province in Afghanistan was a formative experience for Dutch soldiers in which many lessons were learned. But most of those lessons have already been forgotten.

Peter Burger is a university lecturer at the master in Journalism and New Media and co-founder of Nieuwscheckers. He now teaches the course Factchecken at Leiden University. He also supervises theses and internships and conducts research into the trustworthiness of news and messages on social media.

'You don't have to kick the door open', Judi Mesman tells participants of the Leadership for a better tomorrow symposium. During this inspiring afternoon, students, teachers and partners will discuss leadership with Judi and each other. 'To really understand leadership, you have to look at patterns.…

In an essay Professors Jan Willem Erisman (Leiden University), Chris Backes (Utrecht University) and Wim de Vries (Wageningen University) suggest amending nitrogen policy in the Netherlands. They call for a shift from a deposition to an emissions policy, with sectors responsible for reducing their own…

In the context of Panama’s independence month, the Panamanian Embassy in the Kingdom of The Netherlands decided to recognize Natalia Donner’s contributions to the study of Panamanian history and culture, as well as her role in a massive repatriation project.

The Executive Board has adopted a new Code of Conduct on Integrity for staff. This new code encompasses all the existing regulations within Leiden University, including in the field of research, behaviour towards students and purchasing. 'This Code of Conduct is a very clear statement,' commented Rector…

In the world of Ancient Greece the interpretation of supernatural signs was a versatile tool to facilitate decision-making. This is the central hypothesis of the PhD dissertation of historian Kim Beerden. Defence on 14 February.

Why do some bacteria lose their protective cell wall under the influence of stress? Microbiologist Dennis Claessen of the Institute of Biology Leiden receives a Vici grant of 1.5 million euros from the Dutch Research Council (NWO) to investigate this paradoxical feature.

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The Gravitation programme NETWORKS has been awarded a COFUND grant of 3 million euros. Half of this comes from the European Commission's Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions programme, with industry partners paying the other half. Of the fourteen new PhD candidates, two will join Frank den Hollander's research…

LUC students got an immersive newsroom experience on a field trip to Dutch broadcasting company NOS. Five students who took the LUC course Multimedia Journalism in block 3 got a three-hour tour of the NOS newsroom in Hilversum.

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…

A lot has changed for students during the corona crisis: no physical education, exams behind the computer, and lecturers who accidentally mute themselves during an online lecture. How do students experience online education? ‘During one of the lectures in Teams, someone kept on kicking people out of…

What causes depression in a child and how can they get over it? Leiden Professor of Psychology Bernet Elzinga and behavioural scientist Carine Kielstra recently hosted a webinar on the subject of depression in teenagers. The level of interest was overwhelming.

An impressive 12 researchers from Leiden University have been awarded an 800,000-euro grant by the Dutch Research Council (NWO). This will enable them to develop their own line of research over the next five years.

Jean-Eric Paquet, a Director-General at the European Commission, visited Leiden University on 20 February. He was impressed by the researchers’ drive, the wide range of topics that they research and the strong collaboration with Leiden Bio Science Park.

On the Day of Privacy, 28 January, the European Commission is calling on citizens to make sure they protect their personal data. But how do you do that, and against what, exactly? Privacy researcher Bart Custers explains.

Every year many Leiden lecturers and students visit an international university for the purposes of research or study. In the coming newsletters a different Leiden scholar will give his or her view from abroad.

An international team of astronomers led by Dutch scientist Martijn Oei has discovered the largest pair of jets from a black hole ever seen. The 'jumbojets' extend a combined length of 140 Milky Ways. The Leiden Observatory played a prominent role in this research. The publication will feature on the…

Dutch households, especially those on middle and high incomes, pay billions of euros more in tax than promised in election manifestos. Companies, on the other hand, generally pay less tax than initially announced. These are the conclusions reached by Wilmar Bolhuis, PhD student at Leiden University.…

The Netherlands Council of State ruled at the end of March that WhatsApp and text messages on the work and private cell phones of civil servants are considered to be official records. This decision puts the government in a difficult position. How are you going to store millions of texts and WhatsApp…

If people with intellectual disabilities are given tailored training, this promotes self-management in their daily lives. They also need less support. These are the research findings of neuropsychologist Janice Sandjojo. PhD defence on 9 April.

Patients who can’t afford medicine. Refugees who need help. Expats who are ill. All alongside research into obesity. Having trained as a doctor, Dennis Mook-Kanamori chose the hard reality of life as a GP together with a job as a researcher at the LUMC.

Professor Bussemaker and Professor Koenders draw lessons from the handling of the current corona crisis. In a blended guest lecture with some 60 students in Wijnhaven and some 250 online participants, they entered into a discussion led by Willemijn Aerdts. The guest lecture took place on May 25.

Academic research on terrorism is getting better all the time. This is the conclusion of university lecturer Bart Schuurman after studying 3,442 articles. He published his study in Terrorism and Political Violence.

Sumerian is a dead language that is not related to any other language. Howeverr, Bram Jagersma managed to compile a grammar of the language, based on inscriptions and clay tablets. Traces of the Sumerian number system can still be seen in our sixty-minute hour. Jagersma received his PhD on 4 Novembe…

The new Erfgoed Gezocht/Heritage Quest website means you can play armchair detective and hunt for undiscovered burial mounds in the Veluwe. This will help stop them being destroyed by construction projects. The website is the initiative of the Leiden University Faculty of Archaeology in collaboration…

Acute care agencies in the Netherlands are overwhelmed and this causes major problems. Physician-researcher Naomi Minderhout therefore spent the past few years at the Health Campus in The Hague researching how acute care in the Netherlands can be improved at all levels so that it remains accessible…

Journalists in the Netherlands are unhappy about the handling of their requests under the Dutch Open Government Act (Wet open overheid, Woo). They say these requests take too long, produce too little results, and that communication could be better.

If European countries rely solely on technological advances, they won't be able to limit global heating to 1.5 degrees. Households will also need to change their lifestyles. This 'inconvenient truth' is the result of calculations done by industrial ecologist Stephanie Cap. ‘It's not a popular message,…

It often takes a long time for people with an eating disorder to seek help and receive treatment. eHealth could be a solution, PhD candidate Pieter Rohrbach has discovered.

September 26 is the European Day of Languages. There are 24 official languages in Europe but some 200 languages in total are spoken on our continent. What good are all these different languages? And should we all learn Azerbaijani or Swedish? We asked Lisa Cheng, Professor of General Linguistics.

On January 7th Minister van Engelshoven of Education, Culture and Science of The Netherlands announced that the project Island(er)s at the Helm: Co-creating sustainable and inclusive solutions for social adaptation to climate challenges in the (Dutch) Caribbean is one of two projects awarded with funding…

one or three sessions per week

Sufyan Al Karaimeh, a guest researcher at the Faculty of Archaeology, is currently involved in the Aerial Archaeology in Jordan (AAJ) Project. Over the past 25 years, the individuals involved in this project have not only compiled an expansive collection of photographs but have also helped discover…

PhD candidate Magda Pucci studied indigenous music in Brazil. She and her group Mawaca travelled through the Amazon and played with peoples there such as the Paiter Suruí, Kayapó, Ikolen-Gavião and the Huni-Kuin. PhD defence on 19 March.

On or around 26 November every year, Cleveringa meetings are organised for Leiden alumni throughout the world. Including in Tokyo, where Professor of Japan Studies Ivo Smits delivered his Clevering lecture to a packed hall.

How is interdisciplinary collaboration faring at Leiden University? And has disciplinarity been completely abandoned? I’d like to reflect on some concerns among colleagues and on our plans for the future.