What was the year like for the FGGA faculty board & office? A number of departments share what 2021 was like for them.

Senior Researcher at the Institute of Security and Global Affairs and Associate Fellow of The Hague Program of Cyber Norms François Delerue was awarded the 2021 Book Prize of the European Society of International Law for his book Cyber Operations and International Law published by Cambridge University…

The LUCAS Audience Award 2021 has been awarded to Nadine Akkerman. This is a prize for researchers who appeal to an audience wider than the academic community. The prize consists of 1000 euros, a trophy and eternal fame.

Using artificial intelligence to find new antibiotics. With that, researchers from Leiden University are nominated by magazine KIJK for the Best Tech-idea of 2021. From September 14 onwards people can vote to crown one of the nominees as the winner.

The Philip C. Jessup International Law Moot Court Competition is the world’s largest moot court competition. The Competition is a simulation of a fictional dispute between countries before the International Court of Justice. This year more than 570 law schools from across the world participated.

2021, again, sees a rich harvest of bachelor theses in Political Science. Students have been tackling fascinating subjects—ranging from European solidarity in the COVID-19 crisis to the representation of women in democratically elected parliaments—and crowning their research projects with interesting,…

The University of Oslo and Leiden University have joined forces to organise a Tutorial on Robots and Society: Ethical, Legal, and Technical Perspectives on Integrating Robots in the Home and Healthcare Systems and Services at the IEEE International Conference on Robot and Human Interactive Communica…

A live online New Year’s event on Tuesday 12 January marked the start of the New Year. Dean Joanne van der Leun toasted 2021 and as usual at this event, the annual Meijers prizes and thesis prizes were awarded.

The number of students suffering from stress and anxiety has decreased slightly compared with 2021. But around half still suffer from mental health problems. This is according to the National Mental Health and Substance Use Monitor.

Leiden students are fairly satisfied with their degree programme. This is clear from the first results of the National Student Survey 2021, which was held this spring. The scores are somewhat lower than the national average. Students are most positive about their lecturers, their contact with them and…

The Leiden University Centre for the Study of Religion (LUCSoR) and the Beheerstichting Theologische Fondsen hand out two biennial thesis prizes, one for the best bachelor thesis and one for the best master thesis. Each of the prizes comes with a cash prize of €500. The prize money comes from the Fund…

The Max van der Stoel Human Rights Award is presented every two years on 10 December (Human Rights Day) in recognition of outstanding academic works in the field of international human rights.

In the 2020 presidential elections, voters in several, mostly southern, electoral districts of the United States saw ‘their’ polling stations closed by the local authorities. In order to cast their vote, they had to travel further or use the mail ballot. Media reports and civil rights activitsts often…

Claire van den Helder (fourth-year Cultural Anthropology student) and Orestes Kyrgiakis (second-year Cultural Anthropology student) won the Pieter de la Court Medal 2021. The Pieter de la Court Medal is an initiative for students by students and is awarded annually to students who voluntarily contribute…

The Leiden University Centre for the Study of Religion (LUCSoR) and the Beheerstichting Theologische Fondsen hand out two thesis prizes each year, one for the best bachelor thesis and one for the best master thesis.

The LUCAS Dissertation Prize has been awarded to Dr. Renske Janssen for her PhD thesis Religio Illicita? Roman Legal Interactions with Early Christianity in Context.

Benjamín Maldonado, Orestes Kyrgiakis, Roos Capel and Iskra Cvitković are the new student members of the Programme Committee (OLC). The board advises the Executive Board and the Faculty Board about educational matters, such as the determination of the Course and Examination Regulations and the evaluation…

It is the fifth year in a row that the Faculty of Archaeology is placed in the top ten of archaeological institutes worldwide. The QS World University Rankings by Subject looks at criteria like academic reputation and citation ratios. Dean Jan Kolen is pleased with this news: 'In recent years, the Faculty…

Simay Çetin won the FSW Master’s Thesis Prize 2021 with her thesis “Interpreting Culture through Embodied Practice: An anthropological study of sexuality among Dutch Women with Turkish Migrant backgrounds”. She was supervised by Prof. dr. Peter Pels. According to the jury is Simay’s thesis not only…

Natalia Sobrino-Saeb, third-year student at Leiden University College The Hague, won the challenge by the Ignitor Fellowship Program held by the Nobel Peace Center for her essay on the threats to journalism in Mexico. On December 10th Natalia met the Committee of the Ignitor Fellowship in Oslo and attended…

The Jaap Doek Children’s Rights Thesis Award is an annual award for the best thesis in the field of Children’s Rights granted by Defence for Children and the Department of Child Law of Leiden Law School.

Seven hundred and three independent student flats will be built in the entrance area of the Leiden Bio Science Park (LBSP), close to the University Sports Centre. Construction will begin this year and the accommodation is expected to be completed by the start of academic year 2023-2024.

Natalia Sobrino-Saeb has attended the Nobel Peace Prize award ceremony in Oslo. She was awarded this honour after winning the essay competition of the Nobel Ignitor Fellowship, a programme that seeks to inspire young changemakers around the world – for change can be made by all of us: “You never know…

Bachelor's students Kirsten S. Barink, Milène van der Geest, Claire van den Helder and Pim L. Ruhe are granted the Speckmann award for their Fieldwork NL report 'If it would have been a colour it would be pitch-black', a report on people suffering from the phenomenon of 'Electrohypersensitivity'.

What do ten-year-old children and chatbots have in common? PhD researcher Bram van Dijk studied language development in both children and AI language models. ‘It’s actually quite practical that we attribute human traits to a chatbot.’

Researcher Max van Duijn and PhD student Bram van Dijk apply language models to stories told by children to investigate empathy. For this research, they received the Best Paper Award at the Computational Natural Language Learning Conference in Singapore.

Lecture, Food for Thought

University ceremony

The human dimension must be brought back to the fore, Prime Minister Mark Rutte said in response to the child benefits scandal. But how? A group of researchers – including Leiden psychologist Sandra van Dijk – have written a book offering practical suggestions. They presented the book to Rutte on 28…

During the LACDR Fall Symposium, Niek Kijk in de Vegte received the annual Suzanne Hovinga Award for the best master thesis. Niek performed his RP1 research under the supervision of Dr. Natalia Ortiz Zacarias and Prof.dr. Laura Heitman in the Molecular Pharmacology group at the Division of Drug Discovery…

As coordinator and lead promoter respectively of the Leiden Healthy Society Center, psychologists Sandra van Dijk and Anke Klein use interdisciplinary collaboration to resolve the major health problems of the present day. How are they going to do that in the coming period?

In our collective journey to bridge social, economic, and cultural inequality in society, we must al play a part, says Wilco van Dijk. Unfortunately, notes Carolien Rieffe, minority groups are often not included in this 'we.' This became a focal point of discussion during the fifth Psychology Connected…

At the Dies Natalis Willem Otterspeer, Professor Emeritus of University History, presented the fourth and final volume of Groepsportret met Dame, his series on the history of Leiden University. De 'Strategie van de Aanpassing' covers the period 1876-1975. Otterspeer talked about his book in a podcast…

Master's students of Vitality & Ageing work together with older individuals in the so-called ‘Living Lab’ to combat loneliness. You can watch four brief video’s that show their creative solutions for the course ‘the older individual’ that is coordinated by health psychologist Sandra van Dijk and former…

Medici kunnen veel repareren, maar ziekte voorkomen of uitstellen is beter. Daarvoor is vaak leefstijlverandering nodig en dat blijkt lastig. Gezondheidswetenschappers Sandra van Dijk (Universiteit Leiden) en Valentijn Visch (TU Delft) doen onderzoek naar de vraag hoe je mensen kunt helpen met gedragsverandering…

Maarten Feteris, the former president of the Court of Appeal and an alumnus of Leiden University, composed the piece ‘Intermezzo’ to mark the transfer of the rectorate during the Dies Natalis on 8 February 2021.

As a result of the current corona measures, attendance at the Opening of the Academic Year on 6 September will be restricted to a maximum of 75 persons. The ceremony can, however, be viewed online by taking part in a video wall.

The question of land property titles is a common source of conflict between indigenous communities and federal authorities all over the Americas. A new Panamanian law have led indigenous communities to reach out to archaeologist Dr Natalia Donner. A grant from the Centre for Indigenous American Studies…

Last November, Dr. Natalia Ortiz, Martijn Bemelmans (MSc), and Prof. Laura Heitman published a review in Trends in Pharmacological Sciences (TIPS) on targeting the chemokine system in cancer (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tips.2021.08.001). The review was written in collaboration with Prof. Tracy Handel…

Why are health problems such as loneliness and obesity so persistent? What causes them to occur more frequently in some neighborhoods than others? And how can we solve them? You will learn about these topics in the new minor 'Co-creating a Healthy Society'.

PhD candidate Agnes van Steen researched the history of the Leiden women’s rights movement (1860-1990) and found that the university produced many feminists.

Preventing or delaying disease often requires lifestyle changes, which turns out to be difficult. Valentijn Visch and Sandra van Dijk are researching how to help people change their behaviour.

Education

Special achievements, grants and a top 10 ranking, a great calendar year for the Faculty of Archaeology! See the overview of 2023 in the hall of fame below.

How can the people of Leiden age as well as possible? And what is needed to reduce health disparities? That is the mission of Leiden Healthy Society Center, a new partnership between the Municipality of Leiden, Leiden University and many other partners in the city.

Over the past 20 years, levels of common crime throughout the world dropped, except in countries that are plagued by poverty, have large families and have been afflicted by civil wars. This was established in a study that compared safety in 166 countries.

On 15 June 2022 Professor Anthropology of Sustainability and Livelihood Marja Spierenburg was one of the invited speakers at the round table in the House of Representatives of The Netherlands.

As of 1 September 2021 Andrea Evers has been appointed Scientific Director and will represent the institute at faculty and university level as chair of the Board of the Institute of Psychology. Eric van Dijk will take on the personnel and finance domains and Sander Nieuwenhuis will take on the research…

Teachers at Leiden University are experts in their field and passionate about educating students in their discipline. It is also important that they can work effectively as a member of a team, together with colleagues and students, and that they feel committed to our organisation. We will therefore…