Did you know that Arabic was for centuries the lingua franca in an area stretching from the south of Spain to the Chinese border? And that the Middle East under Muslim rule was the world’s beating heart of trade, but also of science and scholarship? Want to learn more? Then sign up for the new MOOC…

Matthias Barz has been appointed full Professor of Biotherapeutics Delivery at the Leiden Academic Centre for Drug Research (LACDR).

What’s new, BAIS alumni? This summer, the BAIS Alumni Association hosted the yearly alumni reunion, organized in virtual format for the second time after the previous reunion also took place online in 2020. Feeling the need to compensate for the lack of in-person interaction, the Alumni Association…

On the brand-new Leiden Teachers Blog, Leiden teachers share their experiences with educational innovation. They show colleagues, students, and everyone else who is interested the different facets of creating university education.

In September 2016, the Leiden University Institute for History starts with a new MA sub-track 'Governance of Migration and Diversity'. This so-called LDE Master (a joint program of Leiden, Delft and Erasmus) is part of the MA History specialization Cities, Migrations and Global Interdependence (CMGI…

Bradley Efron is a statistician from Stanford University best known for proposing the bootstrap resampling technique, which has had a major impact in the field of statistics and virtually every area of statistical application. The bootstrap was one of the first computer-intensive statistical techniques,…

NVIC welcomes Ahmed Hassan, a PhD candidate at Indiana University as a guest researcher.

On 22 May 2017 Dr Carolien Metselaar (54) will be appointed Secretary to the Executive Board / Director-General of the Administration and Central Services Department at Leiden University.

A series of workshops at Leiden University and the University of Hamburg will act as a forum in which international legal scholars whose research adopts a behavioural approach can present their works-in-progress and gain feedback from a broad range of peers, including scholars in economics and cognitive…

Leiden Physicists have found evidence for the Berry-force that could be used for driving tiny nanomotors, just like a river drives a water wheel. Nanomotors could be used for drug delivery in the human body. Publication in Beilstein Journal of Nanotechnology.

Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, Professor of International Relations and Diplomatic Affairs at the Institute of Security and Global Affairs, says we must block and expel Putin wherever possible.

The programme focuses on the medieval dynamics of intellectual life in the Rhineland and the Low countries, nowadays divided over five countries (Switzerland, France, Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands) but one cultural region in the later Middle Ages.

On 22 June 2018, Prime Minister Rutte announced that Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, Professor of International Relations and Diplomatic Practices at the Institute of Security and Global Affairs (ISGA), together with former ministers Sybilla Dekker and Winnie Sorgdrager, will become Minister of State.

On 19 April NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, will talk to students about 'Adapting NATO adapts to a changing world', followed by a Q&A.

Archaeology has always been at the forefront of innovation. Now, an inventive collaboration between archaeologists Tuna Kalayci and Alex Brandsen brings together the winning combination of robotic technology with an archaeological AI. While an impressive new step in the archaeological technology, this…

Biophysicist Alireza Mashaghi and his collaborators are taking up the fight against muscular dystrophy: genetic disorders that cause muscle weakness. They want to inhibit the clumping of proteins that results in toxic aggregates. For this, the team receives 550,000 euros from Health Holland. The team…

The documentary Einstein’s Light by director Nickolas Barris shows in a dazzling manner what scientific breakthroughs resulted from the special friendship between Albert Einstein and the Leiden physicist Hendrik Antoon Lorentz. The documentary premiered at the Leiden International Film Festival on 2…

The Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) has awarded Veni funding to four Humanities researchers in at Leiden University. This award offers promising young scientists the opportunity to develop their own ideas over a period of three years.

Exchanges between different cultures and institutions of learning have taken place for centuries, but it was only in the twentieth century that such efforts evolved into formal programs that received focused attention from nation-states, empires and international organizations.

Where does Europe begin and end? How have the European Union and its precursors decided which countries are eligible to join the community and which are not? Few issues are more hotly debated, more important for the course of European integration, or more consequential for individuals in and around…

Citizens, journalists and scholars notice that foreign policy in, and of, the European Union, is ‘de-Europeanising’. Political scientist Daniel Thomas (Leiden University) offers a theoretical exploration of the likely implications. He expects that it will become more difficult for the EU to achieve…

The Municipality of The Hague called on researchers to come up with a proposal for an innovative research project on problems big cities face such as energy transition. Four of the five projects that have been granted funding come from researchers from Leiden University.

Predicting cancer survival with machine learning, that is the aim of a new collaboration between the Mathematical Institute, the European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC) in Brussels and Leiden University Medical Center. The focus of this project is to characterise the model…

HERLING (Research Lab for the Study of Heritage Languages of the Netherlands) is a new centre that aims to bridge the gap between scientific research and language communities.

Cosmologists have many possible models for the Universe, of which only one can be true. A new flowchart will eliminate some of them when two specific Universe features are accurately measured. Publication in Physical Review D on 7 November.

Alzheimer’s disease is the most common form of dementia. This makes fundamental research on the precise cause of the illness of vital importance. One of the possible suspects is a certain protein filled with iron. Leiden physicist Lucia Bossoni (LION/LUMC) has now developed a new way of investigating…

LUC historian Jacqueline Hylkema unmasks forgeries from the early modern Dutch Republic in the research project

On Sunday 15 September 'ICM Weekendschool Den Haag' (ICM Weekend School The Hague) gathered at the Wijnhaven location for the first time.

Beatriz Pañeda Murcia, from the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, will be present at our Faculty as a guest PhD researcher over the coming months.

Psychologists Emma ter Mors, Christine Boomsma and other research partners will share results from their work on the crucial issue of societal support for delivering carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS) in Europe. You're welcome to watch the free webinar.

The development of children and their personal academic growth as well as national academic growth programs are interesting topics in Dutch media. Recently media has covered how well equipped teenagers are to plan their homework activities and of course the PISA and TIMSS results that were revealed…

Lillian McCabe is a PhD candidate in the Department of Religious Studies at Yale University and holds an MTS (Master of Theological Studies) from Harvard Divinity School. She studies the history of the occult sciences in Islamicate societies. Her dissertation focuses on Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī’s (d. 606/1210)…

The Scotsman Alan Jope is to succeed Paul Polman as CEO of Unilever, a clear sign in the eyes of Arco Timmermans, Professor Public Affairs by special appointment at Leiden University: ‘It seems to me that Unilever is moving with the market’s demands.’

In the research theme ‘Animal Sciences and Health’, we work with various animal species to gain insights into fundamental biological processes in both animals and humans.

In Dutch society’s discussions about remembering the colonial past, voice is often used as a metaphor for empowerment ('we must raise our voices'), whereas silence is often used as voice’s negative counterpart, signifying a loss or lack of power ('we will no longer be silenced'). Yet, silence is expressive:…

Lecture, Research Seminar

To understand which groups turn against their government, you need to understand the political culture in which they grew up, what they expect from a ‘state’ and what alternatives there are. With its long interdisciplinary experience, ASCL is often considered to be a regional expertise centre. But this…

Using biomethane to produce ammonia, a crucial chemical in agriculture, could drastically reduce the climate impact of the process. In a study published in One Earth, researcher Robert Istrate shows it’s even possible to make ammonia production net-zero or carbon negative.

Past, Present and Future of Nubian Communities in Sudan

Learn to use a visual ethnography framework in each phase of the research process.

Get to know us through our online and in-person events for prospective students!

You can find some tips here on how to maintain your mental health.

The Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) has awarded Veni funding to four Humanities researchers at Leiden University. One of them is Anna Dlabačová. This award offers promising young scientists the opportunity to develop their own ideas over a period of three years.

Last week, Professor of Law and Society Maartje van der Woude (Van Vollenhoven Institute) gave a lecture at the Pontifical Urbaniana University in Rome.

Studying International Relations and Organisations (IRO) you will address transboundary issues from a social sciences point of view. It is an international 3-year programme with a strong focus on current global affairs.

Researchers from the Plant Ecology and Phytochemistry group at the Institute of Biology Leiden (IBL) received an STW (Stichting Technologische Wetenschappen) grant for applied studies in plant herbivore resistance with potential for a novel resistance test.

Here’s a selection of key publications by members of the CPP:

Ewa Snaar-Jagalska, Shuning He and colleagues from IBL, LION and LACDR reported on a new zebrafish study to understand micrometastasis of human cancer cells. They discovered a novel role for neutrophils in assisting metastasis formation, which provides critical insights for anti-cancer therapies.

Nearly six hundred new first-year students visited their new faculty on 15 Augustus during the EL CID introduction week. They were welcomed at the Faculty of Science with a transmitter hunt, photo shoots, warm words and lots of liquid nitrogen.