With his speech in protest against the sacking of his Jewish colleague, Rudolph Cleveringa, Dean of the Faculty of Law, became the foremost symbol for Leiden’s resistance against the Nazis. But there are also other brave professors who should not be forgotten: what are the stories of Ben Telders, Ton…

What does it take to be a good historian? What are the capacities or dispositions needed to thrive as an historian? Put differently, what are the talents, skills, and virtues that historians qua historians have to cultivate? What are the “passions” or the “vices” they are expected to resist? And how…

In a festive and intimate award ceremony, plant scientist Omid Karami received the first edition of the Krijn Rietveld Memorial Innovation Award out of the hands of Wim Klop, Director of the Biotechnology Center at DSM. Several speakers spoke about Krijn Rietveld and why Karami deserves the prize that…

The whole world gets raw materials from Latin America, but at the expense of nature. Håvar Solheim researches the role of organised crime in this environmental crime and Soledad Valdivia researches sustainable urban initiatives in Latin America. What do these university lecturers think the future of…

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…

Smooth platinum electrodes roughen and wear when subjected to repeated cycles of oxidation and reduction, which causes nanometer-scale mounds to grow. Leiden chemists Leon Jacobse and Marc Koper, together with physicist Marcel Rost, discovered the exact details, using a unique tunneling microscope.

'Writing is not science, but art,' Lucas van Osenbruggen says. Last semester, he attended the Honours Class 'Creative Writing'. Together with his teacher Pauline Slot, he looks back on a course that is 'really different'.

The Repository from the Drug Disease Model Resources (DDMoRe) consortium provides a home to a collection of computational models of disease and drug action that have been used in pharmaceutical and/or academic research. This publically available open-access resource will make it easier for researchers…

The theme for this year’s Week of the Classics (19 to 27 March) is war in Classical Antiquity. Leiden Classics scholars are organising various activities, including the popular Know-Your-Classics Pub Quiz.

Each year on or around International Women’s Day, the university hosts the Annie Romein-Verschoor Lecture. You are welcome to attend − even if you wouldn't call yourself a feminist, says professor and organiser Nadine Akkerman. ‘You get the best discussions with a diverse audience.’

At the beginning of the corona pandemic, our Faculty appointed student mentors to guide first-year and international students. What drives these mentors, and what is it like to be back at the Faculty again? Mireia and Marten tell us all about it.

Secret services are engaging in increasingly extreme forms of cyber espionage. But nobody talks about this. Dennis Broeders knows why and is trying to have an open conversation about new forms of espionage. As Professor of Global Security and Technology, he will give his inaugural lecture on Friday…

Wil Roebroeks, Professor of Palaeolithic Archaeology in Leiden, is to be awarded the ‘Academy Professors Prize’ of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Sciences (KNAW). Roebroeks has drastically changed academic thinking about the behaviour of early hominins and our knowledge of the earliest colonisation…

A series of upcoming activities by PhDArts co-director Janneke Wesseling, docARTES researchers Bobby Mitchell, Giuliano Bracci, and Dick de Graaf, and PhDArts researchers Brigitte Kovacs, Danne Ojeda, Jack Segbars, Mikala Hyldig Dal, Ato Malinda, and Thalia Hoffman

What can we learn from Cleveringa’s courageous protest speech? ‘Without imagination and a strong community, people do not stand up for one another,' says Cleveringa Professor Michael Ignatieff in his lecture on 26 November.

The illicit trade in stolen cultural property is booming. Countless works of art and antiquities will be lost if we don’t do more to stop this. This is what experts warned at a Leiden Global congress at the National Museum of Antiquities.

Three Leiden students who have made their dreams of studying abroad come true this year with the aid of a VSBfonds scholarship talk about their experiences.

How does the government know whether science policy has the desired effect? According to Professor Barend van der Meulen, a variety of evidence about the effectiveness of science policy and proper gathering of this evidence are more important than a strict scientific method. Inaugural lecture 27 Ma…

A group of confidants including a former student of Meijers managed to avert his deportation to a death camp. In her lecture on 27 November, Cleveringa Professor Marjan Schwegman revealed the history of the persecution of the Jewish Professor Eduard Meijers.

Our motto is Praesidium Libertatis, or ‘bastion of liberty’. How did it come into existence, and in what way is Leiden University staying true to its meaning? Five questions about our motto.

On Friday 16 February 2024, Rudolf E. de Jong passed away unexpectedly in Cairo. Since 2012, he was the director of the Netherlands-Flemish Institute in Cairo (NVIC), which he skillfully managed for 12 years. He was laid to rest in Amsterdam on 27 February. Rudolf was 65.

On October 15, 2020, international academics, practitioners, and students gathered online at the conference 'Leadership in Progress: Science Meets Practice' organized by the Leiden Leadership Centre. Together with renowned speakers from academia, politics and the civil service a multidisciplinary exchange…

Can we truly connect with each other through video calls? Yes, according to a recent study. Psychologists found our bodies synchronise almost as much in digital conversations as in real life. But this doesn’t mean we should skip in-person meetings altogether, says researcher Fabiola Diana.

It’s not a regular occurrence at Leiden University: two professors giving their inaugural lecture on the same day. Berna Güroğlu and Ellen de Bruijn specialise in related disciplines: they both research the influence of social context on processes in the brain – Güroğlu in adolescents and De Bruijn…

Seven years ago, Aris Politopoulos left Athens for a master’s programme at the Leiden Faculty of Archaeology. Now he has nearly finished his PhD dissertation. Furthermore, he has become a lecturer at the research group for the Archaeology of the Near East, and co-founded a foundation that deals with…

The Netherlands is embroiled in a complex nitrogen crisis. Berent Baris wants to use his NitroGenius game to demonstrate the complexity of this crisis.

The Leiden Leadership Programme is going to innovate. After 12 years, the honours track for master’s students will get a new set-up. We asked two of those involved about the ins and outs of the new LLP. ‘You learn what leadership style suits you and how to make an impact.’

According to Law student Jasmijn van Lochem, you can learn a lot in seven months. For the ‘Onderzoeksassistent’ (Research Assistant) course, part of the Honours College Law, she conducted research on the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights in collaboration with Misha Plagis, Assistant Professor…

On 29 October, seven innovative lecturers from different faculties will join the existing ten fellows of the Leiden Teachers' Academy. The current fellows have been engaged for the past year in implementing their innovation projects. How are these progressing?

EUROTYPES is a research project developed by political scientist Adina Akbik, for which she recently received a European Research Council Starting Grant. Her aim is to examine the impact of cultural stereotypes in European multi-level policy enforcement. One of EUROTYPES' innovations lies in its focus.…

The Faculty of Humanities, Leiden University Centre for the Arts in Society (LUCAS) is looking for a: PhD The Illustrated Aesopian Fable in Education in France 1500-2010 (1.0 fte) Vacancy number: 16-123

In november 2023 is Anne Fleur van Veenstra, wetenschappelijk directeur van TNO Vector, benoemd tot bijzonder hoogleraar ‘Governance van data en algoritmen voor stedelijk beleid’.

A previously unknown document about Rembrandt’s student years in Leiden has been found in the archive of Leiden University. The document, which is being kept at the University Library, proves that Rembrandt studied at Leiden University for longer than has always been assumed.

The disappearance and reappearance of species of plants in the Netherlands is a normal phenomenon. In the period from 1981-2000 the number of plants to have disappeared was considerably lower than previously, whereas the number of species rediscovered is much higher. Climate change may be the cause.

For centuries, astronomers have studied the universe by collecting light signals. Since 2015, the confirmation of an important prediction of Einstein allows us to explore the universe in a new way: through gravitational wave radiation. Astronomy PhD candidate Valeriya Korol proposes to use these gravitational…

When delegations from Leiden University visit foreign countries, they often arrange a meeting specially for alumni of the country. Mexico was no exception. On Monday 23 October, some thirty alumni got together in Mexico City.

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.

Kajsa Ollongren, Minister of the Interior and Kingdom Relations, opened a complex of 467 student flats in Leiden on 26 August. This is the (Y)ours development on the sustainable ‘Leidse Schans’ campus at Lammenschans train station.

Types of supervision for prisoners on conditional release include the requirement to report regularly to a parole officer, electronic house arrest or community service. These are all serious measures for the person on whom they are imposed and for society. But it is a subject on which little research…

Her love for China made her study Chinese and go on an exchange trip in her third year of studies. As an Outbound Student Coordinator at the Humanities International Office, Karin Aalderink (45) now supervises students who go abroad.

Life cycle assessment (LCA) reveals the total environmental impact of products or production processes, and EU rules are going to make this even more important.

After completing one bachelor’s and two master’s programmes at Leiden University, alumnus in Philosophical Perspectives on Politics and the Economy Matthieu Agustoni finished his student life with a bang: he got his master's thesis published in a prestigious journal.

On the Indonesian island of Siberut, the term 'hungry' does not just refer to the lack of food, but above all the absence of social contacts to use a meal.

An archaeologist as a modern-day shaman. An unexpected comparison Professor by Special Appointment of Public Archaeology Luc Amkreutz will make in his inaugural lecture.

Students stream into the lecture hall, handing in their mobile phones at the door. Once everyone’s seated, silence descends and all eyes turn to the large screen at the front of the lecture hall. A live connection has been set up with the prison where Marco is a long-term inmate. Today, the students…

Under a typically grey sky, more than 1,300 international students gather around the mentors with their numbered signposts. It is the start of the Orientation Week Leiden: the introduction week specially for international students at Leiden University.

Students, staff and alumni of the Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences joint forces to interact, debate, pitch, and speed date together at the Connecting Social Sciences science festival on Friday 22 November, 2019. After the opening speeches and panel discussion on science and societal impact,…

The LGI is pleased to annouce that seed money has been granted to Dr. Miguel John Versluys (Archaeology), Prof. Caroline van Eck (Art History) and Prof. Pieter ter Keurs (Anthropology) for their research on Globalisation, materiality and the transference of cultures.

Historian Marjan Schwegman is the new Cleveringa Professor. Her lecture on 27 November will focus on Eduard Meijers, the Jewish professor who was dismissed by the Nazis. Schwegman's previous posts include Director of the NIOD Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies.

Dr. Stephan Hacker, an assistant professor in the department of Molecular Physiology at the Leiden Institute of Chemistry of Leiden University has been elected secretary of the board of APNet, the Assistant Professor Network Netherlands. Hacker will take a leading role in the young network organisation…