Visual art played an important role in the development of cooperative human behaviour. This is the finding of Larissa Mendoza Straffon, a PhD candidate in archaeology, whose dissertation explores the biological and psychological foundations of visual art.

Neurological diseases, such as Alzheimer's disease, are characterised by aggregates of protein in the brain. The connection of these aggregates to the disease itself is unclear. Martina Huber, Enrico Zurlo and colleagues published a new method to monitor the formation of these aggregates.

Charles Darwin received an Honorary Doctorate from Leiden University on 9 February 1875. What traces did he leave behind in Leiden?

Media all around the world reported about it: the most detailed images yet seen of galaxies, shot by radio telescope LOFAR. The international team behind these amazing results were led by Leah Morabito at Durham University and included three talented Leiden astronomers.

Spitting cobra venom composition has been influenced by defensive behaviour according to an international research team. This may have originated from the arrival of human ancestors. Students at the Institute of Biology Leiden made an important contribution to the study. Publication in Science on 22…

Microorganisms that temporarily ‘go to sleep’ play an important role in the evolution and survival of a population. Mathematician Shubhamoy Nandan conducted research on the effect of this characteristic called ‘dormancy’ in a novel mathematical model.

Two Vidi subsidies for Faculty of Archaeology.

Population growth, economic expansion and the associated land use caused an increase in the number of bird species facing extinction and a reduction in carbon storage worldwide. These are the findings of an international team of scientists, also from the Leiden University Institute of Environmental…

Leiden biologists have found a mutation in flour beetles that allows them to speed up their development. The study has been published in Nature Ecology and Evolution.

The idea that modern humans displaced Neanderthals because they were better protected against toxic smoke components is now under fire. An earlier study that put forward this suggestion has now been refuted by genetic research by scientists from Leiden and Wageningen. This new research was published…

An international research team consisting of Katharina Riebel as leading PI and two international collaborators were awarded a Human Frontier Science Program grant for their proposal ‘Seeing voices’: the role of multimodal cues in vocal learning.

No less than four Leiden research teams have been awarded a grant by NWO. On 27 July NWO honoured 21 applications in the Open Competition ENW-XL. NWO awards the grants to consortia in the exact and natural sciences who are doing unconnected fundamental research that is 'driven by curiosity'.

Since the end of the nineteenth century Arabic book designers have influenced the social and cultural situation in the Middle East with their work. Huda Smitshuijzen Abi-Farès has written the first global overview of this neglected field of science. PhD defence 10 January.

The European Union has awarded a COFUND grant to a consortium of researchers from the universities of Groningen and Leiden for a collective PhD programme called ‘Evolve’. The 7.1 M€ programme, which is co-financed by the participating universities, will recruit and train 17 PhD students to conduct world-leading…

Tim Koopmans is one of the great minds in the history of Dutch and European legal scholarship. He taught law as a professor in Leiden and other universities, among which Ghent, Cambridge, Utrecht. He practiced it as a judge in the European Court of Justice and Advocate-General in the Dutch Supreme Court,…

Although seen as the fastest and cheapest way to global climate protection, a uniform global carbon price would have major consequences for the economic competitiveness of countries. Hauke Ward, who recently joined Leiden University, showed in the journal Energy Economics that modern western countries…

Behavioural biologist Wouter Halfwerk has been awarded a 2-year outgoing Rubicon-grant from NWO. He will be working at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute with bats and frogs to understand the evolution of multimodal communication.

On Tuesday 22 November 2016 at 4.15 PM Clarence Charles will publicly defend his dissertation entitled Calypso Music, Identity and Social Influence:The Trinidadian Experience at the Academiegebouw in Leiden!

Nature News reported on the use of bow-and-arrow for hunting based on the research made on small points found in a 54,000-year-old cave site in southern France.

Together with three other scholars Adriaan van der Weel successfully applied for a COST research network subsidy.

State Secretary Sander Dekker of Education, Culture and Science received the national research agenda Nature4Life on 31 January. This research agenda, in which Leiden University is involved, focuses on research on biodiversity, ecology and evolution.

The Hague Diplomacy Podcast aims at bringing the themes of the journal's research off the page, and onto the discussion table. Each episode will feature a guest who will share their insights and personal experience within their practice of or research on diplomacy. Available via SoundCloud, Apple Podcasts…

During the 57th Leiden-London meeting, held on 30 June 2018 in Leiden, the Editorial Board of the Common Market Law Review awarded the 2017 Common Market Law Review Young Academics Prize to Dr Ermioni Xanthopoulou, for her article entitled “Mutual Trust and Rights in EU Criminal and Asylum Law: Three…

The Water Resources and River Management course (300-level) took a day long field trip to exotic… South Holland! Here students were able to examine a variety of ways in which densely populated deltas confront issues related to water management and flooding, from a Dutch perspective.

If there is life outside our galaxy, how could we find it? In his Oort Lecture, James Kasting talks about his search for simple life on other planets. Kasting was in the Netherlands for two weeks, because he was invited as the Oort Professor 2018.

Four Leiden University professors have been appointed to The Royal Holland Society of Sciences and Humanities. Andrea Evers, Erwin Muller, Sjaak Neefjes and Menno Schilthuizen will be joining the oldest ‘learned society’ in the Netherlands.

On 14 May 2021, Melanie Fink spoke at the conference ‘EU Responsibility in the International System: Setting the agenda’, organised by the University of Thessaloniki

In 1993, Prof.Dr. L.J. Slikkerveer was appointed as Chairman of the Pithecanthropus Centennial Foundation, commemorating the centenary of the discovery of ‘Java Man’ (Pithecanthropus erectus) by Eugène Dubois in 1893 in Trinil, Java, Indonesia with an International Conference at Leiden University on…

On Friday 18 June 2021, Leiden University virtually hosted the 59th Leiden-London Meeting, on the EU’s next institutional Reform. It was organised by Alison McDonnell, Managing Editor of the Common Market Law Review, together with members of the Editorial Board.

In the last week of January, Prof. Rex Arendsen and PhD candidate Maarten Manse of the Department of Tax Law at Leiden Law School, taught an ‘Intensive Course on Tax Law' at the Gadjah Mada University (UGM) in Yogyakarta. This week of lectures illustrates the fruitful cooperation between both univer…

On Friday 27 November 2015, the conference ‘Law & Sustainable Development’ took place at the University of Leiden, organised by the students of the Mordenate College .

After successfully completing the Media Technology MSc program, Tom Kouwenhoven became a PhD student. He now investigates how humans and Artificial Intelligence can better communicate with each other, to avoid awkward confusion.

Thomas Bäck wins the 2015 IEEE CIS Evolutionary Computation Pioneer Award for his contributions in synthesizing evolutionary computation.

Researchers from more than 30 countries have been discussing the changes in reading through digitization in the European research network E-READ. Adriaan van der Weel, Senior University Lecturer, spoke about the network’s achievements in the German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.

Five Leiden astronomers tell about science in the podcast Astronomy et al. This podcast was set up by Ricardo Garcia Soto in September 2016 and is focused on anyone who is interested in science.

On 24 April 2024, Carlotta Rigotti and Gianclaudio presented their new report on sexual violence and harassment in the metaverse during a webinar co-organised by AUDRi, Equality Now, and VULNERA.

I am a Lecturer in Contemporary Military History and Security Studies, teaching in both the History and International Relations programmes here at Leiden. I grew up in Yorkshire, England and was interested in history and international politics from a young age. In 2003 I went to the University of Cambridge…

The case note examines the recent views adopted by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child on a communication against Belgium.

All master’s students in Political Science conclude their studies with a thesis, showcasing their academic skills and personal interest. For some, it is the ‘last hurdle’; others see their thesis as a first step in their development as scientists. To acknowledge the importance of the thesis and to stimulate…

By examining the impact of Islam on the daily life of those living under its rule, the goal of this project is to understand the striking newness of Islamic society and its debt to the diverse cultures it superseded. Questions will be the extent, character, and ambition of Muslim state competency at…

The legal distinction between victims of human trafficking and victims of migrant smuggling is unjust, argues De Massol Rebetz in her PhD thesis. In certain instances, smuggled migrants should be treated the same as victims of human trafficking.

The steady decline in lethal gun violence in the EU came to halt in 2012 and some countries, such as Sweden, have even noticed an increase since then. An arms race among drug criminals and an increase in the availability of illegal firearms could lead to more criminal and gun violence. This is one of…

PhD defence

Strategic direction of the Europe Hub lies with a Steering Committee, composed of members from several Leiden University faculties.

Hoe kijken Nederlandse bedrijven naar online prijsdiscriminatie? Kimia Heidary, Bart Custers, Helen Pluut en Jean-Pierre van der Rest schreven hier een artikel over.

The Rutte-III coalition agreement has been presented and the commentary is flooding in. Public administration experts Arco Timmermans and Gerard Breeman examined the new agreement – as they have done for every coalition agreement since 1963 - and made a systematic analysis of it: it is very much about…

Michiel Pronk defended his thesis on 30 March 2016

This NWO project, which is being be carried out in close cooperation with the universities of Oxford (contact: Prof. Robert Hoyland) and Princeton (contact: Prof. John F. Haldon) and the UMR 8167 (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, CNRS, University Paris-Sorbonne, Paris IV, University Panthéon-Sorbonne,…

The Leiden Lectures in Media | Art | Politics (MAP) is a series of talks organized by Pepita Hesselberth and Yasco Horsman. Speakers from various academic backgrounds and in different stages of their careers reflect on diverging ways in which technological and social changes challenge and transform…