In the Humans of Humanities series, we will do a portrait of one of our researchers, staff members or students, every other week.

Cosmopolis seeks to explore the transnational and cultural dimensions of intra-Eurasian encounters through Dutch sources.

Prior to arriving to Leiden, Dr. Abazon completed her Ph.D. at Yale University's Department of Comparative Literature, where she also taught courses ranging from Introduction to Zionism to World Cinema.

Lecture, China Seminar

PhD defence

Drones are proving to be a good means of mapping man-made changes in the landscape. Geophysicist Till Sonneman and his colleagues (archaeology) are experimenting with drones in inaccessible areas of the Caribbean.

‘The system is failing’, ‘the goals are only being achieved to a limited extent’, ‘we’re letting children down’. These are some of the newspaper headlines that followed the publication of a report by researchers from Leiden University in September. Commissioned by the Dutch Research and Documentation…

In the course of 2020 the Faculty of Archaeology was bolstered by some new staff members. Due to the coronavirus situation, sadly, this went for a large part unnoticed. In a series of interviews we are catching up, giving the floor to our new colleagues. We kick off with Dr Tuna Kalayci, who joined…

Gelderland Heritage and Leiden University’s Faculty of Archaeology have won the European Heritage Award / Europa Nostra Award 2022 in the ‘research’ category with the Heritage Quest citizen science project. ‘Heritage Quest has shown that citizens can play an active role in protecting cultural heritage…

It's now possible to measure how many plastic particles there are in our food. Chinese scientists and Leiden professor Willie Peijnenburg applied their new method to lettuce and wheat. Their results were published January 20 in Nature Nanotechnology.

It’s all hands on deck at the moment to resolve the COVID-19 crisis. Researchers from various disciplines are helping where they can, also from the field of artificial intelligence (AI). AI offers great opportunities both at the frontline of the crisis and in its expected aftermath. Leiden professor…

Katarzyna Cwiertka, Leiden Professor of Modern Japan Studies, was already the recipient of a VENI and a VIDI grant. Now she has also been granted a VICI, worth 1.5 million euro, for her research project Garbage Matters: A Comparative History of Waste in East Asia. ‘I want to do something that hasn’t…

Leiden biologists have shown that a gene present in plants, animals and yeasts does play an important role in plants, although for years the gene was considered unimportant. It turns out the gene plays a crucial role in the development of vascular tissue in plants. Publication in Nature Plants on 11…

The energy transition ranks high on the European policy agenda, but what does it take to get there? René Kleijn researches how we can extract, use and reuse raw materials in a responsible way. Since 1 March, he has been appointed professor of Resilient resource supply.

Tingting Hui started her PhD project at LUCAS in September 2015. Her promotors will be Ernst van Alphen and Yasco Horsman from the Literary Studies department.

The Hague Journal of Diplomacy is pleased to announce the winner of the 2023 HJD Book Award: Ascending Order: Rising Powers and the Politics of Status in International Institutions, by Rohan Mukherjee, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022.

A delegation from Leiden University will be visiting Mexico from 21 to 25 October. The visit aims to strengthen the ties between Mexican universities and Leiden University.

A complete transformation of the steel cycle in the Netherlands with the ultimate goal of a CO2 neutral steel sector by 2050. For this purpose, the Growing with Green Steel program receives €100 million from the National Growth Fund. From Leiden, Professor of Industrial Ecology René Kleijn is involv…

The book: Hegemony and World Order: Reimagining Power in Global Politics will be published this week. Jan Aart Scholte: 'We hope that students, lecturers and policy makers will start to think differently because of this book'

In many student cities, the number of corona infections grows, and in Leiden we can also see rising figures. Especially in student housing, it is sometimes difficult to keep your distance, how do you do that? We asked students about mutual agreements in their student housing.

Almost 100 billion tons of CO₂ could be pulled out of the atmosphere by the end of the century. That is, if high-income countries switch to a plant-based diet. The double carbon profit of returning farmland to its natural state would equal about 14 years’ worth of agricultural emissions, researchers…

Under a sunny sky 44 teams completed the Leiden Science Run this weekend. They raised as much as 3450 euros for refugee-students’ association UAF.

The nominees for the IRO thesis prize 2023 and the Prof. Dr. J.Th.J. van den Berg-prijs 2023. Who wrote the best bachelor theses in Political Science?

The Dutch universities are conducting a joint campaign to promote open access: free access to academic and scientific publications. Many Leiden researchers support open access. Given that it involves a shift in the financing from the reader to the author, they point out the need for effective agreements…

After graduating from Leiden University College The Hague, our students spread out all over the world to continue their studies, do an internship or already start a job. Every other week we will catch up with one of our alumni and put them in the spotlight. They will share their LUC experience and talk…

Each year, Latin American diplomats meet the researchers and students from Leiden University who specialise in their region. This year, they visited the Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences. ‘The social and behavioural sciences have improved our understanding of social unrest.’

From 5-7 November 2018, The Hague Program for Cyber Norms held its inaugural conference at Het Spaansche Hof in The Hague, where they were joined by scholars and participants from across the world, for three days filled with four keynotes and 19 presentations during the parallel sessions.

The Panama Papers and Paradise Papers provide evidence that companies and individuals are evading tax on a large scale. Worldwide tax agreements can put a stop to this. But for the time being a treaty that will address the problem at its root is not in sight, in the opinion of legal expert Dirk Broekhuijsen.…

More than half of the Indonesian population lives in cities. What does this mean for public health? How sustainable are these megacities? This is the subject of the ‘Urban Transitions’ Summer Academy on West Java. This summer course is also the kick-off for a renewed interdisciplinary partnership…

Following the success of The Middle Period Chinese Studies Conference held in 2014 at Harvard University, we welcome paper proposals for the second conference of this kind to be held at Leiden University, September 14-17, 2017.

How do you maintain diplomatic relations in a world of rising tensions? This was the theme of a guest lecture by Minister Sigrid Kaag at Campus The Hague. ‘Policy proposals won’t go through if they don’t foster women’s development.’

In 2021, the eleventh Conference of the International Society for Industrial Ecology will take place in Leiden. The Institute of Environmental Sciences Leiden (CML) has been elected to host the next biennial meeting at the latest conference of the Society in Beijing, China. ‘Industrial ecology can play…

Robots, nervous looks and above all, lots of fun. On November 16, children up to 16 years old came together for the MakeX competition. With this robot contest, in which children program their own robots, children are made enthusiastic about technology and programming.

In 1800, French explorer Nicolas Baudin led an important scientific expedition to Tenerife, Mauritius, Australia, Timor and South Africa. He returned with hundreds of exotic bird species. PhD candidate Justin Jansen reconstructed this ‘catch’ in a weighty book and talked to us about the wonderful fi…

Recently Professor Joanita Vroom’s book Feeding the Byzantine City was published by the prominent academic publishing house Brepols. This volume is the fifth in a series called Medieval and Post-Medieval Mediterranean Archaeology, of which she is the editor. ‘This series aims to offer new perspectives…

Various projects at Leiden University have been awarded an Erasmus+ grant, an EU funding tool. This is a substantial boost to the internationalisation of our research and teaching.

Media all around the world reported about it: the most detailed images yet seen of galaxies, shot by radio telescope LOFAR. The international team behind these amazing results were led by Leah Morabito at Durham University and included three talented Leiden astronomers.

Using a clever experiment, PhD candidate Shengxiang Yang discovered how gold electrodes convert water into oxygen. He is the first to unravel the mechanism of this reaction. Yang published his results in the journal ACS Catalysis.

On the occasion of the retirement of Robert Ross, Professor in African History at Leiden University, his successor and former student Jan-Bart Gewald wrote a valedictory note.

A record number of 417 PhD candidates defended their theses in 2016. How many of these were cum laude? What were their propositions? The advantage of dirty nappies, for example. Read about the facts and figures on PhD defences in 2016.

In 2023, it will be fifty years since Vietnam and the Netherlands established diplomatic relations. This will be commemorated in both countries. At the beginning of November, outgoing Prime Minister Mark Rutte visited Hanoi, the capital of Vietnam. On that occasion Leiden University Libraries will launch…

Kim Jong Il, leader of North Korea, is dead. His youngest son Kim Jong Eun is expected to be his successor. Remco Breuker, Leiden Professor of Korea Studies, gives a profile of the new leader.

A plant-based diet could improve the resilience of our food system. Moving to such a diet in the European Union (EU) and United Kingdom (UK) alone could replace almost all the production losses from Russia and Ukraine. That’s what an international team of researchers conclude in Nature Food. Leiden…

Frederica Mogherini, Rector of the College of Europe, visited Campus The Hague on 23 November for the official launch of the Europe Hub. This new interdisciplinary platform for research and teaching at Leiden University focuses on the social and governance challenges facing Europe.

Universe Awareness is one of fifteen projects chosen by WISE for providing compelling and innovative solutions to today’s most pressing challenges in education.

A delegation from Leiden University will be visiting several Japanese universities and research institutions from 18 to 26 November to discuss research and teaching collaborations.

Three new PhD candidates at the Faculty of Humanities will receive funding from the Programme Office Sustainable Humanities and NWO. The aim of the grant is to boost young talent within the humanities.

‘The Netherlands’ response to coronavirus is inconsistent.’ These are the words of Leiden political scientist Arjen Boin, an expert in crisis management. Vulnerable groups such as the elderly need more personalised advice. ‘It would be better to cancel bridge tournaments than football games.’