A smart city is of no use if its residents don’t trust it. Tanaquil Arduin, Chief Data Officer at the Municipality of The Hague, and Bram Klievink, Professor of Digitalisation and Public Policy at Leiden University, explain how this can be avoided – to some extent. ‘Make sure civil servants and residents…

Whereas the Netherlands Court of Audit used to conduct an investigation once a year, the average civil service organisation now has a few per year to contend with. Is so much going wrong nowadays? Not at all, says Professor by Special Appointment Sjoerd Keulen. ‘It’s one of the methods that makes democracy…

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.

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…

Following 40 years of research into the legal equality principle, Emeritus Professor Titia Loenen gave her valedictory lecture in which she took stock of the progress that has been achieved. She focused on equal rights for women and is cautiously optimistic, despite the current rise in conservatism…

The JUL board consists of 4 volunteers. In addition, the board is represented within the various university units by an ambassador.

Lecture, Research Seminar

Visitors, guest staff and contractors can park at the university’s parking locations. Different rules and rates often apply.

Lecture, Leiden Yemeni Studies Lecture Series

Conference

Lecture, LIAS Lunch Talk Series

Book presentation

Professor by special appointment Jojanneke van der Toorn organised a symposium in cooperation with Workplace Pride, hosted by the university in the academy building on 18 May. Jojanneke van der Toorn occupies the chair of LGBT workplace inclusion, a special appointment that Van der Toorn and Leiden…

Every year, an outstanding lecturer receives the Faculty Teaching Prize. Lecturers are nominated by students and a jury decides who will receive the prize. The prize is awarded during the official opening of the academic year on 8 September. This year, students nominated four candidates. We spoke to…

On 16 April 2021 the webinar ‘Children and young adults in contact with the law: Systemic vulnerabilities and institutional responses’ took place. In total 17 speakers and discussants engaged with the topic of vulnerability.

Psychology teacher of the year is Roy de Kleijn. The Master Thesis Awards are for Roosmarijn Goldbach en Matija Čuljak. Jeffrey Durieux receives the PhD Publication Prize; Maedeh Nasri the PhD Wild card: Team Science Award. Wilma van Velzen earns the OBP Prize and Jos Brosschot wins the Leiden Psychology…

An international team of astronomers, including Leiden PhD student Elia Pizzati, has observed several ancient quasars that, surprisingly, appear to be floating alone in the early universe (less than a billion years after the Big Bang). Until now, astronomers, based on models, assumed that quasars are…

Three lecturers from Leiden University have been awarded a 100,000-euro Comenius Teaching Fellowship within the scope of the Senior Fellows programme. The grant will enable them and their project teams to carry out their own teaching innovation project.

Many students dread writing a thesis. Master’s student Laura Robustella's practice-based thesis shows that it is well worth the effort. She developed an art exhibition based on her master’s thesis.

From malaria parasites as a vaccine to how top-level bureaucrats reach their decisions: seven researchers from Leiden University have received a Vidi grant from the Dutch Research Council (NWO). This 800,000-euro grant will enable them to develop their own innovative line of research over the next five…

‘Very interesting’ is what two bachelor students have to say about the stories by Liesbeth van Vliet and Niki Antypa during the Psychology Science Day. The icing on the cake were the poster presentations about the bachelor's theses, admired and commented on by scientists and fellow students. Teachers…

The celebration of our up-and-coming science talent, that is the Psychology Science Day. Students stand proudly by their research posters and enrich the insights of fellow students, PhD candidates, postdocs and faculty with their explanations.

‘Teaching is not merely a profession; it’s a calling.’ These were the words of Ayo Adedokun on winning the LUS Teaching Prize at the opening of the academic year on 6 September. The prize is for the best lecturer of the year.

In the spring of 2024 the Faculty of Archaeology welcomed a new postdoc. Dr Adam Benfer, originally from the United States, occupies a double position as a researcher in the project of Alex Geurds and as the Faculty’s Data Steward. ‘It is pretty much what the title says: I steward data. Essentially,…

Research

On June 10, Michelle Achterberg received the prize for best dissertation from the Dutch Neurofederation, the network of Dutch neuroscientists, for her thesis 'Like me, ore else...'. Achterberg obtained her doctorate cum laude from the Gravitation Program 'Samen Uniek' of the Leiden Consortium on Individual…

Social

Research

On Friday 2 June 2023, the Europa Institute launched the Liber Amicorum – “The EU and the WTO: Ever the Twain Shall Meet” – in honour of Marco Bronckers. To mark the special occasion, a panel discussion on five major challenges facing the EU and the WTO in the next fifty years was held.

Research

Research

On 25 September, Leiden University Campus The Hague organised a partner day ahead of the European Association for International Education (EAIE) 2023 Conference in Rotterdam. The EAIE partner day took place both in Leiden and The Hague, to make international partners of Leiden University understand…

As a student, university lecturer Berthe Jansen fell under the spell of the Van Manen collection: a collection full of Tibetan writings and objects. A €1.5 million grant now makes it possible to take a really close look at it. 'There is still so much to do and discover.'

It was more than two years in the making, but despite the delays, giving up was not an option. In May, eighteen staff members of LUCAS and the Faculty of Archaeology visited NIMAR.

The Dutch asylum application centre in Ter Apel is overburdened, an issue that is currently a prominent feature in the Dutch media. In podcast De Verbranders, PhD students Neske Baerwaldt and Wiebe Ruijtenberg engage in dialogue, and use different angles to examine themes related to migration, borders…

What did plays look like in the seventeenth, eighteenth or nineteenth centuries? With the new OverActing theatre festival, university lecturer Jed Wentz is trying to get closer to an answer to that question.

On 1 January Minna Valjakka was appointed Professor of Contemporary Art History and Theory from a Global Perspective. Valjakka sees her appointment as 'extremely topical' because of the discussions about the decolonisation of the arts: 'Art teaches us not just about art, but also about contemporary…

The Pieter de la Court Medal is awarded annually by the Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences for an initiative by a student or group of students that, over the last academic year, has made a particular contribution to at least one of the Pieter de la Court themes. This year, this medal has been…

University lecturer in Chinese and Comparative Philosophy Jingjing Li has been awarded a Veni grant for her research on feminist theories within the Buddhist philosophy of consciousness-only. Jingjing Li explains her plans and the importance of her research.

We talk too little about silence, thinks university lecturer Gerlov van Engelenhoven. He has been awarded a Veni grant to investigate the role of silence in protest movements. Does silence sometimes really say more than a thousand words?

A new challenge for Felix Ameka. The senior lecturer at the Centre for Linguistics has been appointed professor by special appointment of Ethnolinguistic Vitality and Diversity in the World. ‘I am looking forward to promoting ethnolinguistic diversity and vitality.’

Henrike Vellinga recently joined the Institute for History as a PhD candidate, as part of Carolien Stolte's VIDI project 'Peace Palms. International Coalitions for Peace in the Era of Decolonization, 1918-1970'. The project runs alongside Carolien Stolte's ERC project 'Reconciling Peace: International…

Lecture, VVIK Lecture

Professor Nira Wickramasinghe will research forgotten lineages with an NWO Open Competition grant, in particular the afterlife of Dutch slavery in the Indian Ocean World.

On August 18, 2022, Henk Bodewitz, distinguished Indologist and emeritus professor of Sanskrit at Leiden University, passed away in his hometown of Utrecht.

Understanding what our buildings and cities are made of is an important step in making them more sustainable. Industrial ecologist Tomer Fishman (CML) has received an ERC Starting Grant to map the construction materials used in buildings in the Global South. 'Without the data, you can't formulate po…

Leiden University can build an alternative Humanities Campus on its own available land at the current location in the city. This is the conclusion of a feasibility study and is what the mayor and aldermen of Leiden write in a letter to the city council.

On 24 May 2023, Professor Wannes VandenBussche of Ghent University delivered his inaugural lecture to accept the TPR rotating professorship in the Leiden Academy Building. The title of his inaugural lecture was: ‘De EU-dimensie van het burgerlijk bewijsrecht: een mozaïek van opportuniteiten en valkuilen’…

Arts and culture