British novelist Sarah Perry picked Anna Scott as one of her favorite musicians for the program Private Passions on BBC Radio 3.

In August it was announced that Jeff Fynn-Paul was named co-recipient of a 15,000 EUR grant given by the Spanish Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (MINECO).

Russian Cellist and ACPA researcher Maya Fridman is organizing many benefit events together with Russian and Ukrainian musicians to raise funds for Giro 555 for Ukraine.

In the 2015 QS World University rankings the area of Politics and International Studies at Leiden University, which includes Public Administration, has climbed to the 23rd place worldwide. Politics and International Studies at Leiden University holds the first position in The Netherlands and a top 10…

Currently, the bill ‘Wet versterking waarborgfunctie Awb’ (strengthening the guarantee function of the Dutch General Administrative Law Act) is in preparation. The bill is intended to strengthen the human dimension in the execution and administration of justice.

Lotte van Dillen has every confidence in the Executive Board of new-style Institute Psychology. ‘If we work on the basis of everyone’s good intentions, we’re going to do great.’ If you lack confidence, you’re not the kind of person to jump on your bike and go off to Sicily. Want to find out more about…

The Spanish Society of Soil Science has chosen as the best thesis of 2015 (call 2016) in Spain to the CML-researcher Daniel Arenas Lago, for his research at the University of Vigo that expands and deepens in new knowledge about adsorption and retention of heavy metals in soils, an issue increasingly…

For two decades, language experts were certain that babies were able to learn language rules from as young as the age of seven months. However, recent research carried out by a consortium of four Dutch baby labs led by researchers from Leiden cast doubts on this certainty. We spoke to researchers Andreea…

The ninth issue of the Journal of the LUCAS Graduate Conference has been published. This time the theme is ‘Reinventing Boundaries in Times of Crisis.’

Paco Barona Gomez is the newest associate professor at the Institute of Biology Leiden (IBL). The Mexican researcher is fascinated by the evolution of natural products: compounds made by microbes, but also plants and animals. ‘It’s like we investigate chemical dark matter.’

How do politics and play relate to each other? Six Leiden academics hope to find an answer to that question over the coming years. They have received an NWO grant of 750,000 euros. Professor Sybille Lammes and University Lecturer Bram tell us how they plan to spend the money.

You may know it by the umbrella term 'citizen science'. You may also use terms such as volunteer mapping, patient co-researcher, or even community engaged learning to describe participatory practices in your research or teaching. No matter what you call it, there’s plenty going on when it comes to this…

'You’ll know right away when you meet your true love’ or ‘Opposites attract’: Some persistent beliefs exist about love and attraction, but are they true? Researcher Iliana Samara investigates the dynamics of attraction and explains which love myths we can let go of.

The world is autocratising. In 2022, a record number of states across all continents, including Europe, was shifting towards autocracy. But against theoretical expectations and common sense, autocratising leaders – known for their nationalist agendas and human rights violations – do not always restrict…

Discovering while still studying whether work in science might be for you. That is what students get during the faculty Research Traineeship Programme. On Friday 1 September, they presented their results to each other and their supervisors.

‘Our health is the area that stands to gain most from artificial intelligence.’ The three universities in Zuid-Holland are helping make these gains. Three researchers talk about their collaborative research into AI for health, drug discovery and healthcare in the AI knowledge cluster in Zuid-Holland.…

Lecture, Roundtable discussion

22 November 2018.

Andrew Shield (35) is a University Lecturer at Leiden University and the cofounder of the Leiden Queer History Network. History, migration and sexuality are all subjects he is passionate about and teaches in. He wrote a book about immigrants during the sexual revolution, as well as one on contemporary…

White clouds of ice-cold gas flowing across the floor. Magical, but be careful not to freeze your fingers off. We are of course talking about liquid nitrogen and helium. You may have seen the spectacular Freezing Physics science show by the student organisation Rino. But did you know that this commodity…

Bringing young, enthusiastic and driven academics from different disciplines together, that’s the goal of the Young Academy Leiden (YAL). As a new member, Assistant professor Jan van Rijn is excited to look at AI from different perspective. ‘I want to bring my expertise together with different point…

Knowing whether or not a treatment is working just by wearing your watch? Data scientist Ahnjili ZhuParris has identified a lot of opportunities for the use of machine learning in clinical research to monitor test subjects at home.

The latest forum in the Hague Journal of Diplomacy highlights the rich potential for interdisciplinary research at the intersection of architecture, diplomacy, and international relations. These contributions, spanning from the early American republic to the contemporary era, reveal how diplomatic spaces…

On 7 February, the first co-creation event of the Expanding (Event) Horizons project took place at Leiden University. Nearly 30 educators, scientists and consultants from diverse backgrounds designed inclusive projects for engaging students from underrepresented minority groups with educational Science…

In the research for her upcoming book, Elizabeth Stuart: Queen of Hearts, author and academic Nadine Akkerman stumbled upon a little-known portrait of Elizabeth Stuart, Queen of Bohemia and grandmother of King George I, which she believes would have been considered treasonous at the time it was pain…

Archaeologists from Leiden University and the municipality of Apeldoorn have excavated two prehistoric ancestral mounds dating from 300 years BC at the 'Echoput' royal estate. The findings were presented to Her Majesty Queen Beatrix on Friday 2 November.

‘If it rains later, then I’ll take the car.’ In order to reason, we use sentences containing ‘if’ every single day. But how does that work exactly in the Dutch language? Alex Reuneker wrote his 628 page dissertation on the subject. Ceremony on 26 January.

How is it that some covid-19 patients are affected much worse than others? Can we predict beforehand which of them will develop critical symptoms Professor Thomas Hankemeier, together with a diverse consortium of universities, academic hospitals and industrial partners, is looking for the answers to…

The Leiden University psychologist Carolien Rieffe will investigate how to create an social climate at high schools, to make young people with autism feel more comfortable and able to engage with their social surroundings and thus develop essential social and emotional skills. Rieffe and collaborators…

Paul Behrens and his team have won the Frontiers Planet Prize of half a million euros for their research into the effects of switching to a plant-based diet.

The underwater world around present-day Indonesia has changed greatly in recent centuries as a result of human activity. University lecturer Johannes Müller has been awarded an NWO XS grant to map the history of the Indonesian ecosystems.

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.

Dr. Eduardo Arenas Catalán, lecturer and Academic Coordinator of the Advanced Master’s in European and International Human Rights Law at Leiden Law School, was awarded the Theo van Boven - Maastricht Research Prize 2018 for his doctoral thesis: “Solidarity and the right to health in the era of healthcare…

The C-SCAPE project has received funding of 1 million euros in the context of the NWO program ‘Living labs in the Dutch delta’. C-SCAPE, led by TU Delft, is a collaboration between the Institute of Environmental Sciences (CML), University Groningen, Deltares and HZ University of Applied Sciences. It…

Corinne Hofman, Leiden Professor of the Archaeology of the Caribbean Region has been awarded the 2013 KNAW Merian Prize for women in science. Her aim with her research is to broaden the history of the colonisation of the Americas to include the perspective of the indigenous Indian population.

The Royal Netherlands Academy of Sciences (KNAW) has awarded an Academy Professorship to Ewine van Dishoeck, Professor of Molecular Astrophysics at Leiden University.

Nadine Akkerman, associate professor of early modern English literature is receiving the Dr Hendrik Muller Prize 2021 for her work.

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.

Although Sander Wezenberg just started working in Leiden in March this year, he already managed to win a Vidi grant from NWO. Inspired by nature, Wezenberg wants to bring synthetic molecules to life and teach them to communicate. But who exactly is Wezenberg and what drives him?

The European Union has awarded a COFUND grant to a consortium of researchers from the universities of Groningen, Leiden and Eindhoven for a collective fellowship programme called ‘oLife’. The 6 M€ programme, which is co-financed by the participating universities, will recruit and train 18 post-doctoral…

Health psychologist Aleksandrina Skvortsova has made clever use of the Pavlov effect to link the ‘cuddle’ hormone oxytocin with the placebo effect. This effect can alter the level of oxytocin in the body, making it possible for people to reduce the amount of medicine they need while still feeling good.…

Leiden University has a new professor. On 1 June Nadine Akkerman became Professor of Early Modern Literature and Culture, a position she feels is designed to help her help others.

Research of the Leiden Institute of Chemistry into the development of a sustainable fuel cell has accidentally resulted in an exceptionally efficient catalyst for the production of hydrogen peroxide. The catalyst, discovered by Dennis Hetterscheid and PhD candidate Michiel Langerman, may lead to a more…

Archaeologist Victor Klinkenberg examined an old Assyrian settlement in Syria, near to the IS stronghold Raqqa. 'Social life was more important than military life.' PhD defence 27 October.

Anna Derksen is a PhD candidate at Leiden University Institute for History. Her thesis examines the International Year of Disabled Persons (1981) with a focus on the Nordic countries and their contributions to social and developmental policies and international rights agendas.

Tom Breukel analysed some 250 stone axes from the Caribbean and reconstructed their biographies. This increases our knowledge of production and trade in the period around the arrival of Columbus. PhD defence on 18 April.

Tessa Verhoef from the Leiden Institute of Advanced Computer Science and Eduard Fosch-Villaronga from eLaw- Center for Law and Digital Technologies have written an article on how affective computing should be inclusive, diverse, and work for everyone.

If a pill containing no active ingredients still helps, this positive expectation is called a placebo effect. A negative expectation is called a nocebo effect. Both can be produced by verbal suggestions and conditioning. According to Andrea Evers’ research group, combining these is the most promising…

Since 1 October 2022, Sarah Nelson is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Institute for History. Below she introduces herself.

The Fritz Zwicky Prize 2022 for Astrophysics & Cosmology has been awarded to Prof. Ewine F. van Dishoeck for her pioneering, decades-long work in astrochemistry and molecular spectroscopy, as well as for her leadership within the astronomical community. The award was announced today by the European…