The Dutch Black Holes Consortium receives 4.9 million euros from NWO for unravelling the mysteries of black holes and other mysteries of the universe. The Astronomy and Society group at Leiden Observatory is affiliated to use the leading research to introduce people of all ages and background, and children…

A major grant for research into machine learning algorithms for quantum computers. With this ERC Consolidator grant, Vedran Dunjko and his colleagues hope to discover which real-world problems a quantum computer can solve faster than a normal one.

Dr. Willy de Heer defended her PhD Thesis

On June 22, the week of data literacy started. The week was organized by PublicNL in close collaboration with LCDS. The essence was: How do we deal with data in the future? What major changes did we see in the past five years and what expectations may we expect for the future? Are there any pointers…

The brains of adolescents react more responsively to receiving rewards. This can lead to risky behaviour, but, according to Leiden University research, it also has a positive function: it makes learning easier. Publication in Nature Communications.

On 22 January 2018, the Massive Open Online Course ’A Circular Economy of Metals: Towards a Sustainable Societal Metabolism’ kicks off. This course is developed and taught by associate professor Ester van der Voet.

Ships are still emitting too much nitrogen oxide. Till now it has been impossible to measure this at sea, but that is set to change. Solomiia Kurchaba combined satellite data and developed algorithms to identify which ships are emitting too much. Kurchaba received her PhD on 11 June.

Leiden University and VU Amsterdam are developing a joint research project for a digital platform on which you can compose and share storylines with the use of images. Such interactivity will make a boring high school history lesson much more exciting and personalized. Furthermore, it will stimulate…

Self-directed learning is more suitable for intermediate and advanced language learners than for beginners.

Which collaborative learning approaches already exist in conservatoire education, and how could such approaches be implemented? This is the subject of Tamara Rumiantsev’s (PhD candidate at ICLON) thesis. Defence on 14 April 2022.

Bart Barendregt, Ratna Saptari, and Annemarie Samuels co-organised a two-day workshop on

Engaged, active students who can see the links within their discipline. These are key aims of the University vision on teaching and learning, but how do you achieve them? An interdisciplinary research team led by ICLON has developed an inventive method that helps lecturers do just that.

Na Zhou (PhD at ICLON) researched how vocational teachers’ learning takes place in a work placement programme and how their learning supports their teaching in school. Defence on 1 March.

Leiden University has received a Lifelong Learning grant that will enable it to significantly expand its learning for professionals, for example for the government in The Hague and the Leiden Bio Science Park.

An online platform with instructive and social challenges to prepare students for the changing job market. This idea won the Piece of Skill team the Deans’ Challenge on 27 August. In this competition students invent solutions for global issues, selected by deans of Leiden University.

Mind of the Universe is a series of portaits of worldwide leading scientists broadcasted summer 2017 by the VPRO. This populair series gets a follow-up in an online learning programme: ‘Mind of the Universe Online Learning Experience‘, developed and executed by scientists and learning developers of…

Using musical cues to learn a physical task significantly develops an important part of the brain, according to a new study co-authored by Leiden psychologist Rebecca Schaefer. The results are published in the journal Brain & Cognition.

The 2017 Nobel Prize in Physics has been awarded to Rainer Weiss, Barry Barish and Kip Thorne for their work on the measurement of gravitational waves. Thorne was Lorentz Professor in 2009 in Leiden. Physicist Jan Willem van Holten explains why this is such an important discovery. ‘A new branch of astrophysics…

A large interdisciplinary NWO research project attempted to discover the cognitive origin of the human ability to learn linguistic rules. This is not so simple, according to linguist Andreea Geambaşu and her colleagues. PhD defence on 11 December.

Novel language learning activates different neural processes than was previously thought. A Leiden research team has discovered parallel but separate contributions from the hippocampus and Broca's area, the learning centre in the left hemisphere. The right hemisphere of the brain also seems to play…

The mission in Uruzgan Province in Afghanistan was a formative experience for Dutch soldiers in which many lessons were learned. But most of those lessons have already been forgotten.

From recurrent oil disasters to the outbreak of contagious diseases or major fires. Public organisations often learn too little from such crises, according to public administration specialist Wout Broekema. Staff frequently fail to communicate information adequately, which means that lessons are often…

Andrea Cuomo (Ghent University), Baukje van den Berg (Central European University), and Katharina Preindl (Ghent University) are pleased to invite you to the workshop "Teaching and Learning Greek in Byzantium 2: Learning and Using Vocabulary in Byzantium and Beyond" on Friday October 4 at Ghent University…

Novel entities may pose risks to humans and the environment. The small particle size and relatively large surface area of micro- and nanoparticles (MNPs) make them capable of adsorbing other novel entities, leading to the formation of aggregated contamination.

The brand-new Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) ‘Risk in Modern Society’ starts on Monday 29 January. This course was developed by the Centre for Safety and Security of the Leiden•Delft•Erasmus alliance.

What is the impact of research-based learning on critical thinking competence and academic achievement in undergraduate education? What are underlying factors of research-based learning in the learning environment?

Traditional school tests, like the Dutch CITO, largely reflect students' existing knowledge and abilities. However, dynamic testing sheds light on students' learning potential, discovered Mirjam de Vreeze in her PhD research. This approach is especially promising for children with learning challenges,…

With more than 20,000 Omani students registered in British programmes in 2017/2018, the number of transnational students is quite substantial in Oman. The transnational learning environment is new to practically all the teaching staff as well as the students. Antonia Lamers, PhD at ICLON, researched…

Prison and student life are worlds apart. But in the Learning Behind Bars project, Leiden criminology students get the chance to study inside prison walls with people incarcerated there.

Ivo Wolsing (Leiden), Jacqueline Burek (George Mason University) and Lottie Thompson (Durham) are organizing a panel on Classical Learning in Medieval Europe at Leeds International Medieval Congress 2025. You are invited to submit an abstract by September 15.

Developmental Psychologist Anna van Duijvenvoorde talks about her research on the development of brain and behaviour in adolescents. An important part of this research is social learning which is crucial in puberty. Several media sources devoted attention to her research. In 2020, she received the Heineken…

Graduates Bruno and Plym took part in the National Think Tank last year. Together with 20 other students and recent graduates, they spent four months pondering the future of our digital society. ‘You learn so much in the space of four months, not just practical skills but also about yourself.’

Als gevolg van de grote technologische vooruitgang in de gezondheidszorg worden in toenemende mate gegevens verzameld tijdens de uitvoering van klinische onderzoeken.

Last Friday the global Antibiotics Awareness Week begun: an entire week dedicated to antibiotic use. Antibiotics researchers from the LACDR therefore set out to tell primary school pupils about their research. Through role-playing, pupils were drawn into the world of antibiotics: 'Can the teacher not…

In this thesis we explore machine and deep learning approaches that address keychallenges in high dimensional problem areas and also in improving accuracy in wellknown problems. In high dimensional contexts, we have focused on computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations.

The Open Day of Leiden University, on Saturday, October 19, 2019 was busy, in a pleasant way. More than 12,500 prospective students and supervisors visited the information market in the Pieterskerk. There, and at other locations, they were informed about the studies they preferred during countless presentations…

Multidisciplinary research has established that VAT-results are in practice six times lower than what it should have been. The new estimates rely on machine learning techniques.

Currently, more and more universities are experimenting with various forms of digitization: MOOCs, SPOCs, but also the adoption of YouTube video’s, online quizzes and other online learning methods in university education. Many of these educational methods are not just digital, but also freely accessible…

Transport inspectorates are looking for novel methods to identify dangerous behavior, ultimately to reduce risks associated to the movements of people and goods. We explore a data-driven approach to arrive at smart inspections of vehicles.

Over several decades, a variety of computational methods for drug discovery have been proposed and applied in practice. With the accumulation of data and the development of machine learning methods, computational drug design methods have gradually shifted to a new paradigm, i.e. deep learning methods…

Links to various Digital Humanities organizations and resources, mainly in English.

At Leiden Observatory, researchers investigate the origin of stars and their planetary systems. They detect and characterize planets around other stars (exoplanets). They study how stars and planets form. And they follow molecules from interstellar clouds to nascent planet systems. This way they address…

The impact of global connections and the formation of the Roman Empire (ca. 200-30 BC)

Researchers at Leiden Observatory study the fundamental physics that creates structure in the Universe. These processes collect matter into galaxies and gas into stars. With the use of powerful telescopes and advanced calculations and computer simulations, Leiden astronomers seek to understand the origin,…

Researchers at Leiden Observatory study the fundamental physics that creates structure in the Universe. These processes collect matter into galaxies and gas into stars. With the use of powerful telescopes and advanced calculations and computer simulations, Leiden astronomers seek to understand the origin,…