In 1960, Albert Winsemius started to help the city state of Singapore achieve its rapid rise out of economic misery. He helped the Singaporean government understand how the Netherlands had managed to rebuild so quickly after the Second World War, with the help of the American Marshall Plan. PhD defence…

Health conditions and social problems often go hand in hand. To address this complex issue in families in The Hague, researchers, managers, support services, policymakers and residents are joining forces. What are the results of this transdisciplinary approach?

The Senior Teaching Qualification is for experienced lecturers who have done more than lecturing alone. Ten quotes from the first ten lecturers to receive the STQ award.

Professor Leo Lucassen often adds his voice to the public debate on his specialist field. If there is talk of a 'flood of migration', he feels compelled to give the issue some historical perspective. 'Concerned? Yes, I am.'

How do you co-create with researchers in other parts of the world? LDE wants to gather and share knowledge on the grand challenges and to do so across national borders. A delegation of 27 researchers will therefore travel to Indonesia at the end of October to take part in the LDE-BRIN Academy.

Emeritus professors Dirk van Delft and Frits Berends both channelled their inner Sherlock Holmes as they delved into the life and work of the great physicist Hendrik Lorentz. Their voluminous biography ‘Lorentz: gevierd fysicus, geboren verzoener’ (Lorentz: celebrated physicist, born mediator) is published…

Leiden University celebrated its 444th anniversary with a historical procession on 8 February. It celebrated this year’s Dies Natalis in time-honoured fashion with a ceremony in the Pieterskerk, but broke with tradition by sending professors out to primary schools.

Politicians in Barcelona are preparing for a new political battle. Nationalists fighting for Catalan independence have announced that they will organize a referendum this autumn, just as they did in 2014. Other parties claim that it will lead to new court cases because the referendum is unconstituti…

The Hague Journal of Diplomacy regularly updates its digital bookshelf with recommendations of recent books on diplomacy, global affairs, and international studies.

Many of the challenges of our time are too complex to be resolved within the confines of a single discipline. Leiden University is a broad-based university where an incredible number of research fields converge. That makes us the ideal breeding ground for, and practitioners of, interdisciplinary research…

This research project, that started in September 2008, aims to explore how personal and public memories of the Dutch Revolt in the seventeenth century evolved and interacted to create new political and cultural identities for the societies that eventually were to become the kingdoms of the Netherlands…

On Friday 23 November 2018 the Institute of Immigration Law and the Department of Child Law (both Leiden University) will organize an international conference on ‘Safeguarding children’s rights in immigration law’ at Leiden Law School.

An international team of astronomers have become the first in the world to detect isotopes in the atmosphere of an exoplanet. It concerns different forms of carbon in the gaseous giant planet TYC 8998-760-1 b. The research will be published in the scientific journal Nature on Thursday.

Anyone who thinks that #MeToo is a new phenomenon, can think again. Subjects such as sexual intimidation, female self-defence and subjection to male desires can be found as early as in Medieval Islamic literature. Senior lecturer Asghar Seyed-Gohrab explains further on the Leiden Medievalists Blog,…

Digitalisation can make a huge contribution to a greener future, but it must also be as sustainable as possible. To make significant progress, more collaboration and national leadership will be needed. Leiden University has therefore signed the Digital Sustainability Manifesto, which was presented on…

Developing a digital guest lecture for high school students. Jan Sleutels was immediately enthusiastic when he got asked to do this. The end result? Together with his colleague Maarten Lamers, he created the guest lecture 'Thinking about Artificial Intelligence'.

After Columbus landed on the island of Hispaniola (present-day Haiti and the Dominican Republic), the farming culture of the indigenous people quickly disappeared. This has been demonstrated by Leiden archaeologists and colleagues from other universities on the basis of soil research. Publication in…

The European Union has invested ten million euros in the so-called iNEXT-Discovery consortium. The goal of this new consortium is to enable European researchers to extend innovative structural biology research. The Netherlands Centre for Electron Nanoscopy (NeCEN) is also part of iNEXT-Disovery, which…

For some devout Muslims, going to the cinema or viewing certain images is provocative and problematic. Ahmad Nuril Huda investigated the development Santri (young, pious Muslims) have undergone in this field over the past ten years. The Cinematic Santri is the result of his PhD research.

On Thursday 11 December 2025, Daan Roovers, the philosopher and former Denker des Vaderlands (Philosopher Laureate), will give the 54th Huizinga Lecture at the Stadsgehoorzaal in Leiden. Under the title What’s at stake: The boundaries of politics and fair play, she will reinterpret Johan Huizinga’s…

Margrethe Vestager, European Commissioner for Competition, will deliver the Europa Lecture on 14th June 2017 in the Grand Auditorium of the Academy Building at Leiden University.

A consortium of researchers from the Leiden Institute of Physics (LION), the Institute of Biology Leiden (IBL), and the Leiden Institute of Chemistry (LIC) received a FOM program grant to develop a novel way of studying individual proteins inside a cell using gold nanorods.

From indigenous space to colonial setting. Archaeological investigations at El Chorro de Maita in Cuba wins prestigious prize.

Advanced fluorescence microscopy techniques have revealed how steroid receptors move inside the nucleus. The results were published by a team from Leiden University and the Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam, led by IBL-researcher Marcel Schaaf.

Catia Antunes is one of the main partners in the ‘ForSeaDiscovery – Forest Resources for Iberian Empires: Ecology and Globalization in the Age of Discovery’ project that has been awarded the prestigious Marie Curie – ITN grant for Academic/Civil Society training, cooperation and outreach.

‘This trip gives you the chance to experience at first hand what you learn about in your study programme,’ says Lars Moll, third-year student of Middle Eastern Studies, and one of the students who joined the April excursion to Istanbul organised by Professor Hans Theunissen from Leiden's Department…

On 11 and 19 April, the International Leiden Leadership Programme students got together to participate in a Business Game: a simulation game where the participants get a business case-study they have to solve. The goal? An agreement between all stakeholders – but most importantly: to employ the different…

Curiosity is the driving force behind the research of ecologist Michiel Veldhuis. The associate professor investigates ecosystems in relation to climate change in the savannahs of Africa. More and more, he is also looking at social factors such as the influence of population growth. The KNAW rewards…

It is time for the international community to put a stop to war crimes – especially against medical personnel, argued international chair of Doctors Without Borders Joanne Liu in her Cleveringa lecture.

Mirjam de Baar has been Vice-Dean of the Faculty of Humanities and portfolio holder for education of master’s and research master’s programmes since 2016. As a result of her reappointment, she will continue to fulfil this role for an additional four years. ‘Being asked by the Vice-Rector and the Dean…

There are times when an administrator has too weighty a role in settling bankruptcies. This is the message of Professor Reinout Vriesendorp's inaugural lecture on 24 June.

Professor of Financial Law Matthias Haentjens is recently appointed member of the European Commission’s Expert Group on Conflict of Law regarding Securities and Claims. The Group’s tasks shall be to assist the Commission with its work on conflict of laws on third-party effects of transactions in securities…

Jacques J. M. van Gent (8 June 1932 - 26 March 2021) was director of Leiden University Library from 1983 to 1993. He was librarian in a time of transition and, as director, was able to benefit from the new library building on the Witte Singel. Van Gent was a very different kind of manager from his predecessor,…

Political scientist Wouter Veenendaal received an NWO Veni grant for his research on the political stability of small states. 'I find small states fascinating, they are almost always excluded from comparative research, while in fact they often challenge existing theories in political science.'

The Seeger Center for Hellenic Studies at Princeton University annually offers a limited number of Visiting Research Fellowships for scholars in the humanities or the social sciences worldwide, who wish to spend time in residence at Princeton pursuing independent research projects, free of teaching…

Chad-born youngsters in Paris come into contact with youngsters actually in Chad via Facebook: it would be difficult to find a better way to demonstrate the possibilities social media offer for people scattered across the world by war. Mirjam de Bruijn has been awarded a Vici grant for a study of the…

Youth care in the Netherlands needs to change. A new alarming inspection report says that children’s safety is not guaranteed. Mariëlle Bruning, Professor of Child Law, warns in an Argos podcast: ‘We have a duty to protect children.’

On an apparently normal cube a pattern of hollows and bulges appears when the cube is compressed. A method has been developed to design such three-dimensional structures and to construct these using simple building blocks. Publication in Nature.

How can we best tell the current generations about some of the darkest parts of our past? To answer this question, researchers from Leiden are working with the Gedeeld Verleden, Gezamenlijke Toekomst foundation on public programmes about the Dutch history of slavery.

Leiden University’s Campus the Hague is soon to expand into the Central Innovation District in the centre of The Hague. Plans are under way for a Campus boulevard with a new University building in the area between the Prins Bernhardviaduct and Schedeldoekshaven.

111 years ago, Heike Kamerlingh Onnis liquified helium for the first time, a tour the force that netted him the Nobel prize. It took a laboratory of a size rarely seen. Now, ultracold helium has become a commodity for physics research. In Wolfgang Löffler's lab, it is ready at hand thanks to a coffee…

Leiden University has almost sixty talented students who are studying at the Royal Conservatory in parallel with their degree programme. They will be demonstrating their talents in a series of nine public concerts.

At the opening of the LDE-BRIN Academy on 31 October, the Bosscha Medal was awarded to Professor Taniawati Supali from the Department of Parasitology at the University of Indonesia. She receives the medal for her outstanding contribution to science and her working style, which is characterised by collaboration,…

Leiden University is working on sustainability and should give its efforts more publicity. This is the conclusion of Industrial Ecology master’s students who investigated the extent to which Leiden University is green and sustainable.

Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC), Leiden University and Philips are jointly receiving over 2 million euros from NWO to set up an artificial intelligence (AI) lab. The aim of this lab is to accelerate and improve MRI scans with AI. This is great for patients, and it helps make MRI more accessi…

Archaeologist Victor Klinkenberg examined an old Assyrian settlement in Syria, near to the IS stronghold Raqqa. 'Social life was more important than military life.' PhD defence 27 October.

Dutch politics is becoming increasingly polarised, and forming stable governments seems more difficult than ever. In the heat of the election race, a psychologist and a historian offer cool-headed advice.

Three Leiden astronomers have shown that some asteroids that are considered harmless for now, can collide with Earth in the future. They did their research with the help of an artificial neural network. The results have been accepted for publication in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.

Botanisch filosoof Norbert Peeters vertelt over hoe mensen omgaan met planten in het algemeen, en met onkruid in het bijzonder.