Four scientists from the Faculty of Science will receive a grant of up to 50,000 euros in the Open Competition Domain Science - XS from science financier NWO. This category emphatically strives to encourage curiosity-driven and bold research involving a relatively quick analysis of a promising idea.…

Recently, NWO has decided to grant two interdisciplinary research proposals for national and international consortia submitted by researchers from the Institute of Biology Leiden. One of the proposals is led by Prof. dr. Ariane Briegel, the other one by dr. Remko Offringa.

Four Leiden researchers have been awarded Proof of Concept grants by the ERC. These grants, each worth 150,000 euros, help researchers translate the findings of previous ERC projects into innovative practical applications.

On October 26, the Dutch Embassy in Berlin celebrated the opening of a new research network for Dutch academics in Germany. Dutch minister of Education, Culture and Science Robbert Dijkgraaf gave the starting signal for this new initiative.

On Saturday 3 August 2019 at 10:30 am, a fatal shooting took place in a Walmart in El Paso (Texas, USA). Twenty people died and 26 people were injured. Several researchers from the Institute of Security and Global Affairs of the Faculty of Governance and Global Affairs (FGGA) have appeared in the media…

Willemijn Heeren has, together with dr. Lei He (Department of Linguistics, Tübingen & Center for Forensic Phonetics and Acoustics, Zürich), received a research grant from the International Association for Forensic Phonetics and Acoustics to start a pilot project on “Between-speaker variability in dynamic…

Chiara Piccoli has been awarded a scholarship by the Italian Research Council to work at the Virtual Heritage Lab of the Institute of Technologies applied to Cultural Heritage (ITABC-CNR) in Rome.

On 6 and 7 December, the Centre for the Law of EU External Relations (CLEER), which is hosted by the T.M.C. Asser Institute, celebrated its 10th anniversary with a conference on

On 8 December 2015, Prof. Carsten Stahn gave a Pufendorf Research seminar at the University of Lund. He spoke on International Criminal Justice and Post-Colonial Critique, drawing on a chapter in a forthcoming volume on Contested Justice, published with Cambridge University Press.

Last year, LUCSoR welcomed two new Ph.D. students from Iran: Kiyan Foroutan from Ahvaz and Amir Ardalan Emami from Tehran. Kiyan works on a project on the role of the family in medieval and early modern Zoroastrianism in India and Iran (15th-18th centuries). Ardalan works on a much earlier period, the…

The British House of Commons International Trade Committee quoted Dr. Joris Larik, Assistant Professor of Comparative, EU and International Law at Leiden University College The Hague, in its report on the “Continuing application of EU trade agreements after Brexit”.

We are happy to announce that GARDEN VI will be held February 23rd, 2019 at the German Archaeological Institute in Cairo (DAIK). The conference is jointly organised by the DAIK, the Netherlands-Flemish Institute in Cairo and the American University Cairo!

Various researchers from Leiden University have been awarded NWO (Dutch Research Council) Open Competition funding. Nine social sciences and humanities projects will receive the funding.

Defending your PhD research in front of nearly 300 elementary school students: that was the challenge faced by PhD candidates Jo-Anne Verschoor and Marinka de Willigen during the VUURVLIEGEN competition organised by the Centrum JongerenCommunicatie Chemie (C3). After an exciting competition, the children…

In the context of growing political polarisation, the spread of misinformation, and increases in incivility and intolerance, how can Twitter assess and improve the quality of its conversations? To address this question, an interdisciplinary team of researchers from Leiden University, Syracuse University,…

Where in the model of contemporary art, which can be described as a hybrid and joint undertaking between artists, institutions, curators, theory and discursivity, is the actual 'object' of art located and generated? Where and by whom and in what configuration of positions is it produced? Who or what…

Jelke Bethlehem (Leiden University, Institute of Political Science) gives an overview of many aspects of polls: questionnaire design, sample selection, estimation, margins of error, nonresponse and weighting. As such, it is useful both for readers who want to gain a better understanding of the ins and…

Which plant species grow where - and why? In a new study in Nature Ecology & Evolution, an international research team presents the world's first global vegetation database which contains over 1.1 million complete lists of plant species for all terrestrial ecosystems. Leiden professor of Environmental…

Embryonic stem cells have the remarkable ability to develop into any type of cell. On their way to become for example a liver or a heart cell, they must repeatedly decide between alternative developmental paths. How they make these decisions is largely unknown. An international team of biophysicists…

A common assumption in chemistry is that the coordination number of a catalyst's surface determines the reactivity of the reaction it catalyses. Strikingly, Leiden chemists have now proven that this is not true for nature’s most simple chemical reaction: the dissociation of hydrogen. The researchers…

After four years of hard work, the time has finally come: your thesis is finished. But who of your family and friends will ever read it? Biologist Lizah van der Aart decided to make a magazine for layman. 'It was precisely the explanation of the difficult, fundamental parts that gave me good tools for…

Although domestic violence often affects multiple family members, parents and children are usually treated separately for their traumatic experiences. In collaboration with women's shelter Rosa Manus, forensic partner the Waag, the municipality of Leiden and their colleagues from LUBEC (Leiden University…

Communication is the transmission of information. All day long we are busy explaining and making things clear to each other, but exactly how we do that varies from language to language. Associate Professor Jenneke van der Wal delved into African Bantu languages for a Vidi project.

In medical and psychological sciences, little research has been specifically conducted on women. Hormonal fluctuations were considered too intricate. Yes, research into sex and gender differences is complex, acknowledge neuroscientists Ellen de Bruijn and Lara Wierenga, but that’s precisely why it's…

Next generation immunodermatology (NGID) is a nationwide, large-scale project, funded by a large grant of the Dutch NWO to unravel novel biomarkers for six different skin diseases. These biomarkers will drive a high-tech, patient-centric approach in clinical practice. Health psychologist Sylvia van…

The two-year Data Science: Computer Science programme consists of 120 European Credit Transfer System (EC) points and includes courses and electives as well as a Master's Thesis Research Project.

In the coming years, Asghar Seyed Gohrab receives an advanced European Research Council grant of two and a half million euros to spend on his research into non-conformism in Islam. ‘Hopefully I can use this to contribute something to society, to pass something on to future generations.’

How is it that the internet works so well, with billions of users sending millions of gigabytes all together every day? That's because the foundation of the internet is solidly set up. Yet sometimes there are problems on the internet. For example, when certain systems misbehave and disrupt the routing…

How does audio-visual material shape the identity of people when those people do not own their own land and are being oppressed? Bahar Simsek delved into the effect of film on the Kurdish identity. She will obtain her PhD on 4 May.

Last year, chemists Dennis Wander and Hermen Overkleeft contributed to an important discovery about a widely used cancer drug. Their research has now been recognised as Finalist for the PNAS Cozzarelli Prize in the Biomedical Sciences class.

Over 100 participants joined the first grant matchmaking and working session on the call for the Dutch National Research Agenda, on 25 June in the PLNT building. They explored topics ranging from health care to smart cities.

Receiving welfare benefits has a major impact on criminal behaviour. This has been demonstrated by Marco Stam, who defended his thesis on 20 January 2022.

On Thursday 23 November, Professor Betty de Hart delivered the lecture ‘Exploring the Legal Archive on Race: Methodological Challenges’ as part of the lecture series ‘Reconsidering the Socio-Legal Gaze’ organized by the Van Vollenhoven Institute. Over 40 people attended the lecture, held online due…

Genes are active sometimes, and other times they remain dormant for a while. Leiden physicist John van Noort receives an NWO ECHO grant to find out how this happens.

The new startup idea of Arko Ghosh and his colleagues at CODELAB concerns seamless brain assessments using day-to-day digital interactions. The study aims to make algorithms tuned to consumer-grade brain recordings and test the market readiness for this technology. In order to achieve this, the researchers…

With over 200 participants, the first day of the Multidisciplinary International Symposium on Disinformation in Open Online Media (MISDOOM) was a great success. With researchers and practitioners from communication science, media studies, computer science, data science, and journalists and online media…

The environment also benefits when people follow national nutritional guidelines, Paul Behrens demonstrated in research published in PNAS. The publication attracted media attention both at home and internationally.

On Wednesday 7 June 2023, Dr Yvonne Erkens, Kate Verhoeff, Emma Snel, and Fleur Walravens of the Department of Labour Law in Leiden, gave a presentation on The Database of Business Ethics for the Oxford Business and Human Rights Network (OxBHR) at the University of Oxford.

Next April, Leiden will host the seventh annual international Survival Analysis for Junior Researchers conference (SAfJR2018). This three-day event is aimed at career-young statisticians with an interest in the application and development of time-to-event analysis and related topics. The conference…

On 20 November, Special Professor of United Nations Studies in Peace and Justice, Alanna O'Malley, presented her research agenda for the next 3 years. An ambitious agenda full of projects to gain more insight into the origin and functioning of the UN.

Are all murderers calculating psychopaths with an obscene predilection for bloody chainsaws? Yes, if Hollywood is to be believed, but in the real world they are generally everyday people with problematic backgrounds. Professor of Violence and Interventions Marieke Liem therefore calls for the demythologisation…

The new Hugo Weiland Thesis Prize of the Foundation for Austrian Studies is a prize in honour of the long time effort and incentive for the foundation of Mr Weiland and is to be awarded to successful theses dedicated to topics that relate to the history, culture, and politics of Austria and Central…

We would like to draw your attention to the following advertisement which was originally disseminated by the Dutch Breast Cancer Foundation, in collaboration with Leiden University

The battle at the Tollense valley took place in 1300 BC, the Bronze age. The archaeological site now is being threatened by climate chance. In an international collaboration, archaeologist Martijn Manders and his students are involved in the ongoing fieldwork.

Video interview with Subodh Patil, the new assistant professor in Theoretical Cosmology, about the gravitational waves, hidden universes, music, and whether Dutch, Danish and German fit into one brain.

On 9 November 2016 Jan-Peter Loof presented a lecture at the Annual Research Day of the Netherlands School of Human Rights Research (SHRR), which this year took place at the University of Amsterdam.

Two thousand years ago, the Middle East found itself caught between the rise of the Roman Empire in the west and the Parthian Empire in the east. PhD candidate Nolke Tasma has been awarded an NWO grant to investigate how local inhabitants experienced these changes.

Archival research, which student of history has not done it? Many of us have spent days in brick buildings with artificial lights, staring at ancient documents with unreadable handwritten texts, hoping to find something that is useful. To some, this may sound dreadful, but to us? We love this stuff!…

International prosecutors, for instance at the International Criminal Court in The Hague, investigate particularly serious crimes such as genocide. They decide, among other things, whether or not to prosecute. PhD candidate Cale Davis investigated how prosecutors come to such decisions and will defend…

I am an associate professor in health psychology here at the Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences. My main line of work is health behaviour and behaviour change, so trying to understand why people do what they do including clearly unhealthy things. I have done a lot of work on personal goals and…