Seven researchers from Leiden University have been awarded an ERC Starting Grant. This will enable them to start their own project, build their research team and put their best ideas into action.

Patients who feel understood will recover faster. But how can doctors become more empathetic? By reading literary works, suggests emeritus Leiden Professor of Medical Psychology, Ad Kaptein. He discusses this issue in his book ‘Helende woorden – romans over ziek-zijn’ (Healing words - novels about…

The European Union can only remain in existence if all Member States continue to be inspired by the spirit of compromise. Those words comprised the core message of Herman van Rompuy, President of the European Council, who delivered the third Europa Lecture on 10 October at Leiden University.

Bachelor’s students Dana Huisman, Marleen Kop, Sam Wichers Schreur and Adriënne de Zoeten were granted the Speckmann Award for their Fieldwork NL report ‘Samen Verder: een project gefocust op vrouwen, taal en integratie'. Alumna Shirley van der Maarel received the Master's Speckmann award for her innovative…

Alumnus Ben Smulders has worked for the European Commission for the past 33 years. ‘The discipline and depth that I experienced during my student days has helped me through various stages of my professional career.’

The European Project SUNRISE, ‘Solar energy for a circular economy’, has been selected as one of the six Coordination and Support Actions (CSA) within the Horizon 2020 programme of the European Commission. Funded with 1 million euros, it will set the base for a large scale European research project.…

Professor Joanita Vroom, together with the Royal Netherlands Institute in Rome (KNIR) offered the course Byzantine Rome in September 2023. The course, co-taught by Vroom, Letty ten Harkel and various guest lecturers, investigated the transition of the city of Rome from Late Antiquity to the Middle Ages,…

Leiden researcher Ethan Mark has a mission, he explains in the alumni magazine Leidraad. He wants us to take off our Eurocentric glasses when we study the Second World War. We have focused on ourselves for far too long; after 75 years, it’s about time we listened to stories from the rest of the worl…

For many students, a summer school abroad is a fun and useful way to spend the summer. This year, because of the travel restrictions, many summer schools were held online. There was no less interest from students though. What is it like to study in a different country, but digitally? Or to travel abroad…

European Commissioner for Competition, Margrethe Vestager, gave a warning in the Europa Lecture on 14 June about large companies that abuse their power. 'An honest society begins with honest markets.'

Neanderthals were able to outwit straight-tusked elephants, the largest land mammals of the past few million years. Leiden professor Wil Roebroeks has published an article about this together with his German colleague Sabine Gaudzinski-Windheuser in the Science Advances journal.

The Europaeum academic community was awarded the Scaliger medal on 23 September in recognition of its promotion of academic values. Andrew Graham, trustee to the Europaeum and founder and honorary advisor to the Scholars Programme, was presented with the medal by President of the Executive Board Annetje…

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.…

She has had the idea for seven years, but now environmental scientist and conservation biologist Kat Stewart finally gets to work on it. She has been awarded a Vidi grant by NWO to find out how DNA from water can be used to shed light on invasive species and their impact on native populations.

The winner of the highest scientific distinction in mathematics, an explanation for wine tears and much more mathematical theory and application. From 8 to 12 July, 550 mathematicians will meet in the center of Leiden to discuss differential equations.

Chiara Porro from Australia studied International Relations and Diplomacy at Leiden University and has been Australia’s Ambassador to the Holy See since August. How did she end up at the Vatican and what is it like? ‘The Pope told me his door was always open!’

Scientists often need to make sense of complex systems without knowing the important parameters or even without access to all the information. A collaboration of network theorists, including Diego Garlaschelli (IMT Lucca/Leiden), has now published a review article in the inaugural issue of Nature Reviews…

Full lecture halls, a crowded information fair and a queue for coffee in the basement: during the Open Day, the Faculty of Humanities was inundated with curious prospective students.

Ruurd Halbertsma combines his work as a curator and professor by special appointment with writing thrillers. 'I'd rather respond to the discussion on looted art this way than by joining talk shows.'

Maxine David is a lecturer in European Politics in the Institute for History and is a busy bee when it comes to teaching. When countries started locking down due to the corona virus, she was in the United States. After some difficulty getting a flight back to her home country, the United Kingdom, she…

Learning to cycle without a handbrake, saying sorry if you're late for a lecture and fathoming out the weird sounds of Dutch. Leiden's new international students get a crash course in Dutch culture during their introduction week.

After a process of more than two decades, the new Greek-Dutch dictionary was presented on Wednesday 5 June. University lecturer Lucien van Beek acted as manager of this project headed by Ineke Sluiter for the last nine years. He is also one of its editors-in-chief.

Nationalism is so prevalent in our society that we hardly realise it once didn’t exist. In his new book, senior university lecturer Eric Storm reveals the global history of the phenomenon. ‘Nationalist movements have always influenced each other.’

Conference

On 8 March, International Women’s Day, equal opportunities for women worldwide, empowerment, and gender equality take centre stage. For years, the role of women in the past has been nearly invisible. Four archaeologists reflect on this inequality of focus, from hunter-gatherers in the palaeolithic to…

As an interdisciplinary institute in the field of Security Studies, the Institute of Security and Global Affairs (ISGA) covers various topics in its research, one of which is the United Nations and the impact of this global organization in the world.

Lecture

For two years, assessor Olivier Fajgenblat was a familiar face of this faculty. Starting September 1st, it will be up to Jonatan Wirix-Speetjens to look after the interests of students in all kinds of matters. Together they look back on and look ahead to being assessor at the Faculty of Humanities.

Permission was recently given for all members of the examining committee and co-supervisors at PhD ceremonies to wear academic dress, even if they’re not full professors. How historic is this change?

Recently, archeologists of Leiden University made an excavation in Oegstgeest, where they found a unique silver bowl from the first half of the seventh century as well as imported pottery and winebarrels. Thijs Porck, lecturer in Old English language and culture at Leiden University, places the Oegstgeest…

Every year, an NWO PhD in the Humanities grant is awarded to a prospective PhD candidate at the Faculty of Archaeology. This year, the grant went to Maia Casna, enabling her to study respiratory disease in the past. ‘My hypothesis is that the rapid formation of cities in the medieval Netherlands, must…

As part of Mariana Françozo’s BRASILAE project, a group of representatives of the Ka’apor people was invited to visit Leiden. The Ka’apor, an indigenous people from Brazil, are some of the present-day relatives of the Tupi-speaking peoples who used to live in the northeastern region of Brazil, claimed…

‘Archeologists don’t dig up explanations, let alone certainties,’ says Joanita Vroom, Professor of Archaeology of Medieval and Early Modern Eurasia. ‘Their job is to bridge the gap between the sherds that they find and people’s everyday lives. What do ceramics from the past say about people’s eating…

Lecture, LUCIS What's New?! Series

Debate

Lecture, LUCIS What's New?! Series

The LUCDH foster the development of new digital research by awarding a number of Small Grants each year. These are our past awardees.

In the Pioneers of Leiden University series we talk to past and present students who were the first in their families to go to university. In this third instalment we talk to Jos Schaeken (1962) dean of the Honours Academy and Professor of Slavic and Baltic languages and Cultural History: 'I had to…

Thijs Porck, expert in medieval English, has won the LUCAS Public Prize because he has made his research and education visible to a wider audience. Thijs has reached the national media, secondary schools and a lot of views with his blogs and videos. The prize consists of a certificate, trophy, 1000…

Study information

Arts and leisure

From cloth to serge and from ‘frame lands’ to a wool factory. Archaeologist and historian Roos van Oosten was pleasantly surprised by what she found out about Garenmarkt in Leiden. The historical research on the site of the new car park, which opens to the public on 19 February, has added a new chapter…

Lecture, LIMS seminar

'How do you write a slogan to win an election?' Steven Ooms answers this question in his PhD research into ideas about good prose in the time of Caesar and Emperor Augustus. This period is considered a high point for the development of literature. The Roman Cicero and the Greek Dionysius of Halicarnassus…

Lecture, Global Questions Seminar

Sanjar Golomov is a senior scholar at the Al-Biruni Institute in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. In Leiden he will deliver two lectures and one masterclass for MA and PhD students as part of the Erasmus Mobility Plus project between Leiden University and the Al-Biruni Institute. The project is coordinated and…

Lecture, LUCIS What's New?! Series

On Monday, 4 July 2022, the graduation of the two-year Advanced MSc International Relations and Diplomacy (MIRD) programme was commemorated in the iconic Academy Building in Leiden. Students and guests were welcomed by the Program Director, Professor Madeleine Hosli.

That's just learning parrot-fashion. This was the argument with which the proposal to establish a language lab at Leiden University was rejected in 1962. But six years later, the language lab was launched. And now the Academic Language Lab is celebrating its 50-year anniversary.