Fancy burning off some calories after a day’s studying? Or perhaps you’d prefer to spend your evenings on the stage? Either way, the good news is that Leiden also has a lot to offer in the areas of sport and culture.

What performance criteria does a new technology have to fulfill in order to be added to the list of future energy options and what constraints exist in terms of broad market penetration?

A devastating tsunami engulfed large coastal areas in Asia and East Africa in 2004. With over 170,000 dead, the Indonesian province of Aceh was hardest hit. The survivors proved to be remarkably resilient as they returned to everyday life. Anthropologist Annemarie Samuels went to live in Aceh, and has…

Due to the increasing resistance to certain antibiotics, the life-threatening condition sepsis is becoming harder to treat. For her PhD project, Leiden pharmacologist Feiyan Liu used mathematical modeling to find out how antibiotics can be used more effectively to cure sepsis.

The transition to electric vehicles (EVs) reduces vehicle emissions to combat climate change. EVs raise concerns regarding the production of lithium-ion batteries and related emissions; while batteries can also provide energy storage services for the electricity system.

Natashe Lemos Dekker addresses the experiences of family members of people with dementia as they expressed their sense of gradually losing the person with dementia in the article 'Anticipatory Grief in Dementia: An Ethnographic Study of Loss and Connection' published in Culture, Medicine, and Psychi…

With the What's Next? series we hope to inspire current Media Technology MSc students, show the variety of paths taken after the studies, and bring together alumni. Editions of the series are generally organized around a particular theme by Media Technology MSc students themselves, and followed by social…

Movement behaviours, such as physical activity, sleep, and the amount of time we sit each day, impact our health. Recently, more researchers are looking at the influence of these behaviours combined, but this is a challenging task. For example, it is difficult to monitor in what way movement behaviours…

With the What's Next? series we hope to inspire current Media Technology MSc students, show the variety of paths taken after the studies, and bring together alumni. Editions of the series are generally organized around a particular theme by Media Technology MSc students themselves, and followed by social…

The D66 proposed bill on Ending Life with Dignity is inadequately substantiated and contains contradictions. This is the view expressed by Professor of Political Philosophy Paul Nieuwenburg in his inaugural lecture on 17 March.

Material circularity and energy efficiency are highly relevant and intertwined issues for the transition towards a carbon-neutral and circular built environment. In the Netherlands, the building sector has been rendered a priority towards a circular and low-carbon society.

If there is life outside our galaxy, how could we find it? In his Oort Lecture, James Kasting talks about his search for simple life on other planets. Kasting was in the Netherlands for two weeks, because he was invited as the Oort Professor 2018.

‘A challenging rollercoaster, but also a very bonding and insightful experience,’ that’s how the team of iGEM Leiden 2022 wraps up their participation in the iGEM contest. The contest for synthetic biology climaxed during the Grand Jamboree in Paris. The team ended up in the top 10 of over 360 teams…

How adolescents perceive parenting is related to their mood. Differences between the perspectives of parents and adolescents are also of importance for adolescents’ mood. That is what research by Loes Janssen and her Leiden University colleagues in Clinical Psychology shows. Open Access publication…

How to deal with the most challenging design question of your life: what do I want to be when I grow up? The ‘Designing Your Life’ method teaches students how to craft their own future. The project will start next academic year, thanks to a Comenius grant. ‘Everyone interested should be able to borrow…

What are the environmental trade-offs for SMEs considering moving from monoculture aquaculture practice towards IMTA? What are the environmental trade-offs comparing IMTA species with their conventional monoculture alternatives?

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,…

Most of us know that Venice, Genoa, and Florence were major Mediterranean powers during the Renaissance. But did you know that in terms of trade and sea power, Barcelona was probably more powerful than two of these three?

With 8.9 million euros from the Danish National Research Foundation, Aarhus University and Leiden Observatory will establish the Center for Interstellar Catalysis. The centre is led by Aarhus professor Liv Hornekær and aims to find out how and when the building blocks of life formed in the Universe.…

Getting motivation, courage and tools to find a job that will help you tackle the climate crisis: it is at the heart of the course ‘Designing Your Career as a Climate Changemaker’. With their final presentations, the students conclude this climate-specific skills module within the Designing Your Life…

Most students do not have to deal with death on a daily basis. A Bachelor Honours Class about this specific topic seems to be a special experience: the discussions about end-of-life care are tough, and students are broken out of their comfort zone. They nevertheless agree upon one thing: these are all…

Shortly before Remembrance Day, a new film was launched about the life and legacy of Ben Telders. Telders was professor of Dutch Law at Leiden University at the start of the Second World War; he was imprisoned in a concentration camp on account of of his protest against the Nazis.

NWO-funded audiovisual research into the experiences of migrants during major life events has culminated in new insights that can further our understanding of complex migration dynamics. The completion of this five-year project was marked with a roundtable event including international guests.

On 11 and 12 September 2025, a conference will take place at the KU Leuven, titled: "Canonical Life in Western Europe in the Long Tenth Century: Reforms, Identities and Intellectual Networks (Late Ninth Century - c. 1050)." The organisers invite paper proposals of max. 400 words in English or French,…

Together with physiotherapist and lifestyle therapist Jaap Wonders of SMC Rijnland, Helen Pluut conducted research during the first COVID-19 wave on the experiences of working people. The reason for the research was the compulsory situation of working from home many people found themselves in. One of…

The Faculty of Science has multiple study associations, which organise both study-related and social activities for students.

Freshwater biodiversity has been threatened by eutrophication due to excessive nutrients in the environment. Releasing the freshwater species from such pressures requires efforts from industry and manufacturers to avoid emissions to vulnerable and high-risk regions.

James Webb life’s building blocks

Leiden Professor of Astronomy Mike Garrett is searching for signs of extraterrestrial intelligence. In his Kaiser lecture on 23 April he will discuss how far science has progressed in this quest.

Marieke Liem wrote a contribution for DJIzien, a magazine published by the Dutch Custodial Institutions Agency (Ministry of Justice and Security), about her meetings with long-term prisoners. ‘For my research on long-term prisoners I made numerous visits to Dutch prisons. During these visits, I came…

An international team led by Leiden astronomers has discovered diverse ices in the darkest, coldest regions of a molecular cloud. To do so, they used the James Webb Space Telescope. This discovery allows astronomers to examine the simple icy molecules that will be incorporated into future exoplanets,…

Geriatrics needs to radically change. This is what Simon Mooijaart will say in his inaugural lecture.

Coen van Hasselt’s pharmacology group collaborated on a study recently published in the renowned Lancet Infectious Diseases. The international team mapped the antibiotic treatment of the life-threatening inflammatory reaction sepsis in newborn babies. They did this for low- and middle-income countries,…

How did people experience Islam on a day-to-day basis in the early centuries of Islam? That's where the papyri come in, says professor of Arabic Petra Sijpesteijn in the fourth video of the Leiden | Islam interview series.

This book project explores the changing dynamics of marriage and family life in postwar Japan based on an examination of the life histories of single mothers.

An investigation by Dutch news site RTL Nieuws reveals that an error at the Regional Institute for Juvenile Outpatient Mental Healthcare (Jeugdriagg), has led to the files of children, many with serious psychological problems, being leaked.

Schrijf je een paper, scriptie of proefschrift over een boekhistorisch onderwerp? Of ken je studenten die boekhistorisch onderzoek doen? De Nederlandse Boekhistorische Vereniging (NBV) nodigt studenten en promovendi van harte uit om een poster over hun onderzoek te presenteren op het jubileumcongres…

Leiden’s beadle, Willem van Beelen, is retiring on 29 February. How does he look back on his career and what do those in the know have to say about him?

What are the life-cycle environmental impacts and risks to human health and ecosystems of a III-V/Si PV system? How can these be expected to change when the system is deployed at industrial scale? What are the most favourable recycling scenarios?

How can prospective LCA be streamlined in a way that its practical application in research and technology development increases?

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…

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,…

In the master’s programme in Archaeology, you can follow courses on the archaeology of Europe, deepening your understanding of the continent’s long history.