Joanita Vroom, Associate Professor Archaeology, regularly tries out old recipes, together with a group of Archaeology students. 'You really need to love garlic.'

SRON Netherlands Institute for Space Research is moving. In 2021, the Utrecht branch will settle in South Holland. Assistant professor at TU Delft, Akira Endo leads a project that builds a state-of-the-art instrument for astronomical research. ‘SRON is the key to go from proof-of-concept to a science-grade…

How were Spanish commanders fighting in the Low Countries between 1567 and 1577 portrayed in Spanish and Dutch narrative sources during the Eighty Years War?

Callum is from Ireland, Sharitah is from The Hague and Kirsten is from Manilla. The new students taking part in the HOP week from 19 to 23 August come from all corners of the world. The HOP week is the introduction week for students at Leiden University in The Hague. The diversity of the student population…

An international team led by Leiden astronomers has, after years of searching and defying the boundaries of a telescope, for the first time directly captured polarised light from an exoplanet. From this light they can deduct that a disk of dust and gas orbits the exoplanet. In this disk moons are possibly…

A bike tour is probably not the first thing that comes to mind when thinking about inequality. However, students of a Master Honours Challenge came up with this and other solutions to tackle local inequalities. Creativity and empathy turned out to be useful ingredients.

Every month a member of the Institute for History tells about a book that inspired him or her. Afterwards, the pen is passed on to another colleague. This month dr. Robert Stein tells about the book 'La Vérité sur l'affaire Harry Quebert' by Swiss writer Joel Dicker. It is not so much the whodunit that…

More than a thousand 17th- and 18th-century Dutch letters from seized ships are now available online. The letters are a gold mine for researchers wanting to study the everyday language used by men and women during this period.

Activities of Thalia Hoffman and Basma Hamdy

At the end of the year we always compile a list of our most interesting, most popular articles from that year. In the crazy year that was 2020 one topic was at the forefront of everyone’s minds: coronavirus. Fortunately, there was also room for other stories.

On 17 October 2022, Jan Aart Scholte contributed to a conference plenary roundtable on 'From Internet Governance to Digital Political Economy'. Click here to find out more about the event.

For all the artworks that Riccardo Giacconi creates, he begins by conducting extensive research. He discovered three stories about rebellious characters that were transmitted through unofficial channels: as characters in puppet shows or in folk tales. He translated the three stories into three cycles…

On 24 February school pupils came looking for their dream programme in a packed Pieterskerk. Did they find what they were looking for? And does an Open Day help?

Thursday 12 July the first Leiden Leadership Lunch took place. In the boardroom in Wijnhaven there was an informal lunch with researchers, students and managers from the field. Science and practice found each other around the theme leadership and added public value.

A fragment of a human skull discovered in sediments extracted from the bottom of the North Sea, 15 km off the coast off the Netherlands, has been identified as belonging to the extinct Neandertal group.

We are delighted to announce that the funding of the Leiden University Centre for the Study of Islam and Society (LUCIS) will be continued from 2018 until 2020!

Of the 17 Rubicon grants that NWO recently awarded, three have gone to researchers at Leiden University. They can spend a longer period of time doing research at an institute abroad.

Laura Migliori receives a research scholarship from the Royal Netherlands Institute in Rome (KNIR, Koninklijk Nederlands Instituut Rome).

Want to explore a different specialist field? Or maybe study a topic from your programme in more depth? This summer Leiden University is again offering a broad selection of Summer Schools.

From the new Hortus botanicus podcast to conference call bingo: all the students, lecturers and other members of staff from Leiden University had to switch at breakneck speed to working and studying from home this week. That meant decluttering offices, getting your head around remote teaching and installing…

Comparing gazes between Turin and other cities in the global north.

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.

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.

With the opening of Wijnhaven, Leiden University now has three locations in The Hague. Photographer Nicole Romijn recorded the construction process of the former ministry building from start to finish. The result can be viewed at the photo exhibition on the Wijnhaven Building in the Old University Library…

Knowledge of Islam and of Muslim societies is indispensable when trying to properly understand the globalising world, as well as changing Dutch society. Researchers from Leiden are therefore immersing themselves in the languages, culture and religion of Muslim societies. Their work and insights can…

Criticism from doctors in the Netherlands about the policy to combat coronavirus is becoming louder. A letter raising their concerns was signed by one thousand doctors. It calls for a new debate on the current measures to deal with the crisis which were recently tightened. Supporters of the letter believe…

Three weeks into intelligent lockdown and more to go. An extraordinary situation in which we are now working from home. How do our colleagues do that? Meet ups 'in the flesh' at the printer, having lunch and coffee in the FSW cafe or conferring live and lecturing in the Pieter de la Court Building are…

The European Project SUNRISE, ‘Solar energy for a circular economy’, has been selected as one of the six Coordination and Support Actions (CSA) within the Horizon 2020 programme of the European Commission. Funded with 1 million euros, it will set the base for a large scale European research project.…

Leiden art historian Juliette Roding spent her sabbatical in Denmark, researching a 17th century court artist. She not only learned more about the artist, she also got to know present-day Denmark.

Welcome to the 2024-2025 academic year! I hope this finds you feeling refreshed following an enjoyable and restful summer holiday season. As we start the autumn semester, I want to look back briefly by highlighting 10 significant milestones at LUCSoR from this past year (some of which I referenced in…

Two terrifying yellow eyes stared at eleven-year-old Francis Lesilau. In the evening light they changed colour: green, amber, back to yellow... The lion had just grabbed one of his camels and now turned to number two. For a moment Francis was nailed to the ground, then he ran towards the predator, screaming.…

These are turbulent times at Dutch universities. We have all seen what has been and is still happening at various campuses in the country. Protests, demonstrations, occupations. Situations and scenes that deeply affect us all.

During the annual LACDR Spring Symposium, the audience chose PhD student Rob van Wijk as best speaker. Furthermore, six PhD students won a poster prize. Matthias P. Mayer of Heidelberg University opened the symposium with a keynote lecture about chaperone proteins.

Dear friends of the institute,

The 'deepest and sharpest' image of the Universe to date: the first photos from the new James Webb space telescope yesterday mesmerised astronomers and the public alike. Leiden Professor of Molecular Astrophysics, Ewine van Dishoeck, spoke to various media outlets about the first images, which include…

From a billionaires’ space race to the launch of tens of thousands of minisatellites: space is becoming busier than ever. This means more than enough work for Tanja Masson-Swaan, an assistant professor at the Institute of Air and Space Law at Leiden University. Because who makes the rules and makes…

Even the Mohawk Indians were talking about Serv Wiemers’ thesis. This Law alumnus, who has been intrigued by the world of American Indians since he was a boy, recently wrote a book about that world.

Dear friends of the NVIC,

2018 was filled with interesting developments at Leiden University. We try to record as many of them as possible, including in short videos. Here are five films that we think you mustn't miss!

A flint tool covered with a tar-like substance has turned out to be a top scientific find. Research by a Dutch team of scientists showed the find to be a piece of birch tar that was extracted 50,000 years ago by Neanderthals using complex techniques. The tar was used as an adhesive to make it easier…

A safe haven for students, more bicultural staff and more powers for diversity officers. In a national expert meeting at Campus The Hague, administrators, diversity officers, students and staff discussed urgently needed measures.

Many pharmaceutical companies no longer have their own lab and are working more closely with universities and start-ups of scientists. Professor of Science-Based Business Simcha Jong is researching how scientific ideas result in new drugs, including at the Leiden Bio Science Park (LBSP).

From a queer art exhibition to a podcast about people with disabilities, the JEDI Fund this year again honored several projects that contribute to diversity and inclusion.

Exit life as a student, enter life as a lawyer. Fresh out of university in 2022, Rick Kuivenhoven started working at a law firm straight away. How is life as a recent graduate? And does it match his expectations?

Leiden chemists, together with colleagues at the University of York (UK) and Technion (Israel) have discovered a small, sugar-like molecule that maintains the integrity of tissue around a tumour during cancer. This molecule prevents tumour cells from spreading from the primary cancer site to colonise…

In 2018, astronomer Jorryt Matthee won the C.J. Kok Jury Prize for the best dissertation of the Faculty of Science. He succeeded in finding a number of rare galaxies from the early Universe. One of them received the same initials as football player Cristiano Ronaldo: CR7.

We continue to work from home as much as possible. How are the staff members of the Institute for History doing? Mike Schmidli shares his experience below.

Turning beer waste into a useful, sustainable product. That was the mission of students from Leiden at the international BISC-E event. The biology students challenged themselves and won third place in the Dutch finals of this competition. For this, they used the simple formula: Grain + fungus = coas…

Islamic banking, freedom of religion, LGBTQ+ acceptance and education are topics that European Muslims find important for their future. These are the results of a survey by Professor of Islam and the West, Maurits Berger. The survey is the starting point of a citizen project in which Berger wants to…

There are still things we can learn from the Ancient Greeks. How they managed to make sure that innovations were accepted, for example. A group of classics scholars, led by Leiden, will be carrying out research on this question funded by the largest ever NWO subsidy.