The Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW) selects prominent researchers as members based on their scientific achievements. On September 17th, the KNAW will install 21 new members, including Leiden physicist Michel Orrit.

Lecture

The first comprehensive and authoritative history of work and labour in Africa; a key text for all working on African Studies and Labour History worldwide.

Mathematics student in Leiden Michel Zoeteman received an Encouragement Prize of no less than 500 euro from the “Koninklijke Hollandse Maatschappij der Wetenschappen (KHMW)” Royal Holland Society of Sciences and Humanities on Monday 30 November 2015.

On Thursday 28 September at 19:45, tv channel NPO Cultura will broadcast an interview with Michel Orrit about his Spinoza Prize winning research, as part of the series ‘Dankzij Spinoza’.

Michel Orrit was awarded the Physica prize 2016 for his groundbreaking work on single molecule spectroscopy.

Health workers have always sought ways to fight disease in vulnerable groups in the population. It is now clear that such research also benefits more prosperous countries. African worm infections and innovative thermometers have shown Leiden researchers how to fight diseases of affluence and keep health…

The European Physical Society has awarded the prestigieus Edison Volta Prize to Leiden physicist Michel Orrit. The prize is handed out every two years to an individual or a group of at most three scientists as an acknowledgment of an outstanding achievement in physics research.

Taught from primary school to the university level – where new courses on the globalization of the Arabic writing system have cropped up (Abdallah 2014) – the Arabic script, with all its orthographic peculiarities and multiple facets, continues to shape languages other than Arabic, their communities…

Early Childhood Community Practitioners’ analyses of new mother’s challenges in Alexandra Township South Africa: a collaboration between academics and practitioners

- Case study of the Hungarian Archaeological Mission in Abdallah Nirqi in 1964 –

Presenting case studies by both senior and emerging scholars, it makes mandatory reading for anyone interested in the challenges of governance, citizenship and development faced by the people of India’s North East.

Combining approaches from intellectual history, philology and the study of Arabic manuscripts, this study places the Bornu scholar Muḥammad al-Wālī within his intellectual environment on the one hand, and it portrays him as someone who responded to the concerns of ordinary Muslims around him on the…

Political Islam is not new to the Middle East, but the appearance of ISIS has stretched the phenomenon to the extreme.

Promotor: G.R. de Snoo, Co-promotor: H.H. de Iongh, C.J.M. Musters

The project re-examines the role of the Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox missionaries in the cultural and social developments of the Middle East and their interactions with the indigenous communities, from the nineteenth century until today. It seeks to discover and retrace such ‘entangled histories’…

This anthology contributes to a historically grounded understanding of the complex relationship between Christian missions and the roots of humanitarianism and its contemporary uses in a Middle Eastern context.

Grace Leksana defended her thesis on 26 May 2020.

The Laiseang archiving project ensures the preservation of unique records of languages in the region which have been gathered by more than two dozen linguists at, and in collaboration with Dutch universities over the last 40 years.

Visualization of biomolecules in living cells by tagging with gold nanoparticles.

Monday 25 May saw the visit to Leiden of President Michelle Bachelet of Chile, accompanied by Queen Beatrix and Princess Máxima. Following a talk in the Academy Building on strengthening democracy in Latin America, the President signed a number of Memoranda of Understanding (MoUs).

On 21 April 2021, Armin Cuyvers lectured students and staff of the University of Nairobi on EU law and comparative regional integration.

This project involves research into the oeuvre of the Sundanese sculptor Iko, who has worked for the Catholic mission in Java and has carved sculptures for a chapel and church in Ganjuran. The images were designed by the Catholic layman Jos Schmutzer and are characterized by a fusion in style and symbolism…

The project Multimedia Research and Documentation of African Oral Genres: Connecting Diasporas and Local Audiences (Director: D.Merolla) focuses on multimedia as technology that allows scholars to share documentation and scientific knowledge with the cultural owners of the collected oral genres.

Promotores: G.R. de Snoo, B. Sinsin, Co-Promotor: H.H. de Iongh

Neurologist Professor Michel Ferrari has been awarded the Spinoza prize. 'In biomedical research you can only make breakthroughs at the borders between sciences,' according to Spinoza, doctor and scientist. 'This prize is proof that co-operation works.' Together with clinical and fundamental researchers…

On the 17th of June Rea Matsangou successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated.

A Biography of Sayyid ʿUthman (1822–1914)

Reworking Culture: Relatedness, Rites, and Resources in Garo Hills, North-East India provides intimate insights into the lives of hill farmers and the challenges they face in day-to-day life. Focusing on the ongoing reinterpretation of traditions, or customs, the book critiques the all too often taken-for-granted…

As of 1 September, Michel Mandjes has been appointed full professor of Probability and Operations Research at the Mathematical Institute. He succeeds Frank den Hollander, who will retire on 1 October. ‘The combination of deep thinking on your own combined with working towards solutions together with…

How does economic downturn affect pre-existing democratic values and intergroup attitudes? Does economic downturn lead people to lose support for democracy and does it raise perceptions of intergroup threat? Is the potential effect of economic downturn on these political attitudes conditional upon earlier…

How did interests outside the scope of the Dutch chartered trading companies influence the career-paths of Dutch colonial governors?

What is vegetation structure and composition in SFM primary forest, secondary logged over forest (logging FSC certified and logging non certified) in comparison to primary forest? What is avian guild diversity in SFM primary forest, secondary logged over forest (logging FSC certified and logging non…

Political scientist Kevin Köhler (Leiden University) has been awarded a Consolidator Grant by the European Research Council (ERC). This prestigious grant enables him to set up a research group in the coming five years. Köhler and his team will examine how elite conflict affects processes of regime change…

Promotor: Prof.dr. E.F. Smets, Co-promotor: T.R. van Andel

On September 12, Michel Orrit received his Spinoza prize in the Royal Theatre in The Hague from OCW Secretary of State Sander Dekker. With the award comes a budget of 2.5 million euro, to be spent freely on scientific research, and the coveted Spinoza statue. Orrit shared the honor with Eveline Crone…

This project aims to revisit the ways in which religious minorities in the Middle East participated in, contributed to, and opposed the Arab nationalism of the post-war years, when the British and French ruled the region via the Mandates. Research question: How did religious minorities in the Middle…

In the media, we hear a lot of worrying news from Africa: refugees, attacks, Ebola, starvation, corruption... But Africa is much more than that: it is a continent in transition, with developments occurring at breakneck speed. African Studies scholars from different academic disciplines in Leiden conduct…

A History of Modern Political Thought in East Central Europe is a two-volume project, authored by an international team of researchers, and offering the first-ever synthetic overview of the history of modern political thought in East Central Europe.

In the contemporary myriad of definitions and approaches of landscape, the starting points and limits of the concept of landscape biography are being explored, but also tested in this thesis. What exactly is a landscape biography? What does it constitute of? Is landscape biography just a narration of…

How did free agents oppose the monopolies held by the VOC and WIC in court?

Of this year’s four NWO Spinoza Prizes, two have been awarded to Leiden researchers. On 12 September, Eveline Crone and Michel Orrit received their prizes, the highest scientific award in the Netherlands. The Spinoza Prize carries an award of 2.5 million euros.

An important award like the Spinoza Prize, the 'Dutch Nobel Prize', generates lots of media attention. An overview.

The project investigates epistemicity: how the knowledge of the speaker and hearer can be expressed in the grammar. This shows us how speakers organise their knowledge, and whether this is influenced by the language they speak.