The fourth ENPAIR conference will take place in The Hague, The Netherlands, at the Leiden University campus. We will meet there and find us in the middle of The Hague, international city of peace and justice, within walking distance from restaurants, bars, cafés, museums, and cultural institutions.

Sonorous phenomena are always on the verge of becoming something else. As it unfolds, sound constitutes spaces, mediates presence, articulates time. Furthermore, it may prompt emotions, generate awareness, organise patterns of behaviour or trigger a sense of belonging. As sound becomes audible, it is…

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The yearly Oortlezing, in the memory of the famous Dutch astronomer, is organized by the Stichting Het Jan Hendrik Oort Fonds and Leiden Observatory. This public lecture is always about a current astronomical topic and is meant for a broad audience that is interested in astronomy. The public lecture…

A national walkout will be staged on Monday 13 May. Leiden Scholars for Palestine has called on students and staff from Leiden University to meet at 11.00 at the Lipsius building in Leiden and the Wijnhaven building in The Hague.

The Europa Institute organized, in collaboration with the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, on the 3rd of May 2021, a Holocaust Survivor Talk.

This newsletter provides an update on the various activities of the Turnaround, Rescue and Insolvency Leiden research team (staff members). It takes place, against many developments in Brussels. The European Commission is working on its legislative proposal on business insolvency, including early restructuring…

On may 27, the Zenobia Foundation organises a public conference in the Public Library of Amsterdam, with the title: "De Zijderoutes: Netwerk van Ontmoetingen". During this conference six experts will discuss several areas of the so-called Silk Roads.

April and May were busy months for our professor Anke Haarmann. We've highlighted a few of her activities.

Do we break the silences in our research participants’ stories? When is it ethical to write and not write about what remains unspoken in the social worlds we study? And when we encounter silences, how do we document them? These were just some of the many questions discussed during the vivid and inspiring…

Research by bioarchaeologists from Leiden and Canada has shown that 19th-century Dutch farmers regularly had bone defects. These may have been caused by wearing clogs. Publication in the International Journal of Paleopathology.

True to tradition, during the opening of the academic year the LUS Teaching Prize will be awarded to the University's best lecturer. Get to know the nominees. This week: Marion Boers.

One of them turned out to be two thousand years old. And older giant barrel sponges appear to have a faster rate of cell division, unlike us. They produce antibiotics and much, much more. Lina Bayona Maldonado studied how the differences in such factors as age or oceanic depth affect the production…

On 6 and 7 May 2021, KBR, in partnership with the Campus Condorcet of Paris, the National Library of Luxembourg, the KB national library of the Netherlands, the universities of Ghent, Leuven, Liège, Mons and Namur, and the Vlaamse Erfgoedbibliotheken, will be holding an international conference on medieval…

The School of Celtic Studies (DIAS) is organizing a conference on medieval multilingual manuscripts. The aim of this conference is to bring together scholars working on medieval bilingual or multilingual sources from a variety of linguistic backgrounds, geographical areas, and literary genres. It will…

one or three sessions per week

The next Conference on Multilingualism 2019 (COM2019) will be hosted by LUCL from September 1st until September 3rd 2019.

Chemist Gerjan de Bruin has designed a method of slowing down the degradation process of proteins in cells. This may contribute to new cancer medicines with fewer side-effects. PhD defence on 1 June.

Professional scribes in the Middle Ages produced advertisement sheets with which they presented themselves to potential clients. In this lecture Erik Kwakkel will show known and new examples of such advertisement sheets and interpret their importance for our understanding of the culture of writing in…

A symposium on space diplomacy for experts and the general public will take place in The Hague on Monday 12 June. Everyone has an interest in learning more about this topic, says Professor Jan Melissen. ‘The scope of international relations has expanded beyond our planet.’

Receiving positive support and seeing yourself as being a quitter may help smokers quit, say Eline Meijer and colleagues. The health psychologists published their study in Social Science & Medicine.

Birds around airports are more aggressive and sing as if they have hearing loss. Collaboration between researchers of Manchester Metropolitan University and the Institute of Biology Leiden has led to surprising new findings about the impact of anthropogenic noise on birds around airports. Publication…

On 29 May Ambassador Lamberto Zannier, OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities, gives a lecture about his mandate and work methods. After the lecture students can ask their questions during the Q&A.

Amino acids are the building blocks for life on earth. They may originate in space and reach the Earth via comets and meteorites. Daniël Paardekooper examined part of this hypothesis. PhD defence on 5 July.

Plants that are pollinated by fewer species of animal may be less vulnerable to change than was thought. This is what Saskia Klumpers discovered in the Rocky Mountains in Colorado. She will be awarded a PhD on 15 December.

Do you live in Egypt and have you always wondered about all the pharaonic heritage surrounding you? This spring NVIC organizes a beginner’s level, introductory course in Egyptology. In 6 richly illustrated lessons, the history of ancient Egypt will be brought to life, both chronologically as well as…

When an employee returns from an area considered to be a corona risk, can their employer require them to have a corona test? This is a complicated issue if you consider labour law and legislation in relation to privacy of employees. However in some cases Barend Barentsen, Professor of Labour Law, believes…

The prestigious journal Science Translational Medicine has published a study by researchers from the Institute of Biology Leiden (IBL) on a potent new antibiotic that can overcome resistance. ‘The idea was to tweak the original antibiotic and create a next-generation drug’, says Nathaniel Martin, professor…

Abstract submission is now open for the international conference of the ELS Academy, in Amsterdam on September 1 and 2.

Nearly all university buildings at the Leiden Bio Science Park will be open and operating again as of Wednesday 24 May. Last night a team worked hard to restore the power to the buildings in phases and this was successful. Students and staff can work and study there again.

"To see, to hear, to touch, to kiss, and so on: Dealing with charters in the early Middle Ages." Guest lecture by Prof. Dr. Philippe Depreux (University of Hamburg): Tuesday 9 May 2023, 15.00-16.30

Students for Palestine – a group of students from Leiden and The Hague – are holding a panel discussion in the Leiden University in The Hague Wijnhaven building on Tuesday 24 May entitled ‘Silencing Palestine’.

The "Cognitive Turn" and the Middle Ages - There is an increasing interest in the cognitive sciences and how knowledge from this area influences literary studies, history, art history, and studies in material culture. This meeting seeks to discuss the possibilities, but also the limitations of incorporating…

On May 23 and 24, a masterclass is organized at Utrecht University on the theme of 'Reform'. Participating students will be rewarded 1 ECTS for preparation and presentation at the workshop, with the possibility of gaining another 2 ECTS to research and write a paper afterwards – for a total of 3 ECTS…

It may well be that only male zebra finches can sing, but the females are faster at learning to discriminate sounds. Leiden researchers publish their findings in the scientific journal Animal Behaviour.

Leiden University, Utrecht University and Maastricht University are organizing a two day conference on extradition and surrender, offering a venue for practitioners and young scholars to exchange experiences and ideas on these subject matters.

Observations made with the ALMA telescope in Chile and ESA’s Rosetta mission, have detected the faint molecular fingerprint of methyl chloride in gas, a chemical commonly produced by industrial biological processes on Earth, around both an infant star and a comet. Methyl chloride, also known as Freon-40,…

The International Institute of Air and Space Law was delighted to host the 14th edition of the Leiden-Sarin International Air Law Moot Court Competition – for the first time – in Leiden! After three years of online mooting owing to the pandemic, this year’s competition was held again in person.

After almost 40 years, the biannual congress of the International Federation of European Law (FIDE) returns to the Netherlands!

During the ‘Hour of Remembrance’ on 4 May, the University community remembers its students and staff who were killed in the Second World War. It also looks at freedom and oppression today. Three questions for Sara Polak, chair of the Hour of Remembrance committee.

Ron Sela, Associate Professor of Central Asian History in the Department of Central Eurasian Studies at Indiana University – Bloomington, will be the Central Asia Visiting Professor from 19 until 25 May 2017. Ron Sela will deliver a guest lecture and a master class within the Central Asia Initiative…

An international team of astronomers led by scientists from Leiden Observatory has for the first time characterised a dust disk surrounding a young super-Jupiter, which is either a giant planet or brown dwarf. They detected infrared emission from the disk which might indicate that moons may have formed.…

Always taking the same route to work, going for that one dish in restaurants and going on the same holiday each summer: this may ring a bell for those who don’t like uncertainty. Researchers are now discovering that this aversion affects how we understand the world.