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Lecture, CHiLL series

Education

The placebo effect was completely new to her when Lingling Weng began the PhD project in Leiden. She is now a postdoc in China. 'It would be great to investigate the underlying mechanisms of placebo and nocebo effects with my current knowledge of EEG and fMRI.' PhD defence on 17 October.

The Dutch Senate recently voted on a ban on imposing community service after physical violence towards public service providers. Courts are no longer allowed to issue these sentences in case of extreme violence and vice crimes. The punishment for these crimes will be an enforced prison sentence. But…

How can you increase the effectiveness of inspectors using responsible artificial intelligence (AI)? This is the question the Innovation Center for Artificial Intelligence (ICAI) Lab AI4Oversight is tackling. By developing algorithms and methods, they try to provide optimal support for, for example,…

The tuk-tuk of the European City Of Science Leiden 2022 sent science on its way to the neighbourhood. On the Vijf Meiplein in Leiden, Andrea Evers' placebo team pitched its tent to everyone who wanted to know more about the effect of words and expectations. Experience the day of the placebo effect in…

Recent studies have shown that Dutch secondary school pupils experience a great deal of stress from school work, and between 2001 and 2007 the number of adolescents experiencing school stress even doubled. The study carried out by Simone Vogelaar focuses on stress factors and the effectiveness of the…

A consortium led by Eefje Cuppen, Professor Governance of Sustainability at the Institute of Public Administration, has been granted NWO funding for a research project looking into the social, societal, and technical aspects of the energy transition.

Nausea, neurologic pain and hair loss: some of the severe side effects of chemotherapy. Not necessary, biochemist Liyan Zhang showed. Together with Leiden biologists and others, she achieved great results with a drug that is only active in combination with light. Zhang will defend her PhD on 4 July.

In the online panel discussion of ESOF 2022 ‘The effect of the online world on adolescents’, together with Amy Orben, Professor Eveline Crone, Sterre van Riel, Professor Anne-Laura van Harmelen and Professor Jan Sleutels, Professor Ton Liefaard shared his research on adolescents and the online world…

People who have negative expectations about a treatment actually experience more pain. Merve Karacaoglu discovered in her PhD research that anxious and pessimistic individuals are particularly susceptible to this nocebo effect. However, this sensitivity comes with a silver lining.

LACDR, the Leiden Institute for Drug Research, developed better tolerated excipients to prevent adverse effects related to the surface of nanosized drugs such as vaccines. LADCR professor of Biopharmacy Matthias Barz and Polypeptide Therapeutic Solutions (PTS) are collaborating to develop processes…

Since the beginning of September, it is a fact: our faculty has a new strategic plan. The plan outlines what we will collectively commit to in the coming years. Is that important? For sure, say our directors Suzanne van der Pluijm (Operations) and Bart de Smit (Education). ‘The purpose of a strategic…

Yeast, alpacas, and antibodies. They may seem unrelated, but within the project of the Leiden iGEM students, they come together perfectly. For the international synthetic biology competition iGEM, the team is working on an innovative method to produce nanobodies—a special form of antibodies—using brewer’s…

Education, ICT, Library

Research into our history of colonialism and slavery, heart-to-heart conversations at a Keti Koti table, exhibitions, lectures and podcasts that establish the link between present and past. Staff and students participated in the national Slavery Memorial Year in many different ways. What have we learned…

The bicycle parking area in front of the Lipsius building will definitely no longer be used for bicycle parking. Instead, this space will be transformed into an inviting meeting place in a green setting.

Few details, relatively few words. The coalition agreement presented is one of the shortest in the past 20 years, Arco Timmermans knows. Consequently, the outlines were not negotiated for very long, which has its advantages and disadvantages. 'Over the next few weeks, we are mainly going to see the…

The image of the European Union (EU) as a remote law-making machine is widespread. Quite often journalists and politicians deliberately depict ‘Brussels’ as bureaucratic, even undemocratic, bypassing its citizens. And many of us buy into that image. Nikoleta Yordanova, Anastasia Ershova and Aleksandra…

We all do it sometimes: watch your favourite Netflix series, YouTuber or comfort series while you are eating. But we don't always consider the possible consequences this could have. Floor van Meer talks about this and more during an interview with BBC.

ICT, Organisation

Research

Economic Anthropologist Erik Bähre talks on the Dutch News Radio Channel BNR about the effects of the Russia-Ukraine grain agreement for African countries.

How do digital technologies affect adolescent mental health and resilience? How do we foster a secure online environment? How should we deal with increasing rates of online crimes among adolescents? During the mini-symposium ‘The effect of the online world on adolescents’, presented by the interdisciplinary…

Archaeology is also digging with computers. This digital quest to find out how we humans lived in the past is what Karsten Lambers likes doing most. He is the first Professor of Digital and Computational Archaeology in the country. ‘A dream come true.’

Education, ICT

Come to the Night of Discoveries art and science festival on 16 September. Various researchers from the university are speaking at the festival.

Organisation, Social

The GDPR privacy legislation is no impediment to handing out sanctions to Russian oligarchs or reuniting children placed in care with their parents, says privacy experts Anna Berlee, Marlies van Eck, Simone van der Hof, Simone Huting, Friederike van der Jagt and Jeroen Terstegge.

Immunologist Leender Trouw specialises in the complement system, which is part of the immune system. In some diseases drugs help activate or inhibit this system. This is best done ‘in the right place at the right time’ − the title of his inaugural lecture.

Parents are not always heard before their children’s placement in care is extended. They can only have their say if they ask the judge for a hearing themselves. ‘It should be the other way round,’ says Mariëlle Bruning, Professor of Child Law in a ‘De Nieuws BV’ broadcast.

Francesco Ragazzi (Institute of Political Science), Julian Ross (Center for the Arts in Society) and Mark Westmoreland (Institute of Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology) set up the interdisciplinary research centre ReCNTR.

The glasses have been rinsed, the furniture is in place and the six-member board is ready. A very short time to go before De Fusie opens its doors in the Gorlaeus Building. The brand new bar promises to be a nice addition to the social life on campus. ‘We don't just want to run a cosy bar, but also…