Lecture, Symposium

Come to the Living Lab and discover what lives above, on and under water. Water is full of life. It's not just fish or ducks that swim in it. There is also a lot buzzing around it. How much life is there in our waters? And what influence do people have on it? The Living Lab was set up in 2016 with…

From deepfakes, streaming services and dating apps to facial recognition, self-driving cars and medical applications, we can no longer ignore artificial intelligence. It is changing our lives, just as steam engines once did at the time of the industrial revolution. The exhibition BrAInpower shows where…

Leonard Blussé, Professor Emeritus of History of European-Asian Relations, was awarded the 13th Fukuoka Prize in Japan on 10 September.

Historian Joost Welten has written a book entitled 'De vergeten prinsessen van Thorn' (The forgotten princesses of Thorn). For his book, he analysed thousands of handwritten letters from the eighteenth century, mainly written in German and French. His personal mission is to visualize the daily lives…

It was challenging to get civil servants from the first Trump administration to speak about their work experiences, but sociologist Jaime Lee Kucinskas succeeded. The picture that emerged from her findings, she says, is far from positive. 'The more I spoke with them, the more emotions I saw. They were…

Dear friends of the NVIC,

In the largest study of ancient DNA ever conducted, an international team of scientists has revealed the complex story behind one of the defining periods in European prehistory. The study is published this week in the journal Nature.

How designers are even more creative with a robot in their team, how Twitter could predict the stock market, and how to catch a single bacterium in the act of infecting a cell. Artificial intelligence has penetrated every corner of science in Zuid-Holland. Three researchers from Delft University of…

Overview of the CML reports

Prof. G.P.M. Luyten Summary Dit proefschrift heeft betrekking op de implantatie van de iris-gefixeerde Artisan lens voor correctie van een (hoge) brilsterkte bij volwassenen. Een lange follow-up van deze patiënten in de afgelopen decennia heeft ons waardevolle kennis opgeleverd rondom het proces vanaf…

The Convergence AI Mixers bring together the brightest minds from TU Delft, Erasmus University Rotterdam and Leiden University with thought leaders from industry and society to explore pressing AI challenges. In an informal setting these experts exchange views and interact with the audience to find…

During the lecture, an outline will be given of the major research questions in the atmospheric climate domain, and their importance for air quality and climate policy. Further, the satellite measurement technique will be explained, and what these measurements can bring for as well research as climate…

SAVE THE DATE OPENING EXHIBTION FINDING HAPPINESS IN THE SOFT SPOTS It is with great pleasure that we invite you to the Royal Academy of Art on Friday 20 May for the opening of the exhibition Finding Happiness in the Soft Spots. The exhibition shows works by the students of Practicum Artium, a joint…

Lecture

Asma Helali, director of the Kairouan Manuscript Project, will speak on the initiative to study and preserve the parchment documents and manuscripts preserved in Raqqada, Kairouan in Tunisia.

Conference

Uniting an international consortium of scholars, the Skandapurāṇa Project comprises a team of researchers working in fields across the Humanities. We are creating a critical edition of a foundational work of purāṇic literature and, in doing so, tracing the dynamics of a textual tradition to better understand…

What are the patterns and processes of human mobility in the pre-colonial circum-Caribbean as revealed by burial populations and what are the underlying motives and socio-cultural principles on both micro- and macro-scales?

What holds people together and what makes them willing to fit within larger political structures? Our project examines this question in the practices of dynastic rulership in Eurasia ca. 1300-1800.

The LUCDH foster the development of new digital research by awarding a number of Small Grants each year. As in previous years the LUCDH received a large number of excellent grant applications for Research and Personal Development funds. Congratulations to the recipients of this year's research award…

Conference

Chinese export paintings have a much greater cultural-historical and artistic value than was previously thought in the Netherlands, according to external PhD candidate Rosalien van der Poel. She advocates making these works accessible to the general public. PhD defence 30 November.

Nicoleta Paraschivescu highlights the pedagogical and artistic aspects of partimenti in her book 'Giovanni Paisiellos Partimenti: Paths to a practical understanding', released today.

The Institute for History has a new academic director. Professor of Early Modern History Jeroen Duindam will take on this role from 1 September. ‘You can only do this job properly if you make time for it.’

One and half years ago, Lewis Borck exchanged the arid and hot Southwest of the USA for the Netherlands. While an expert in Ancestral Pueblo and Hohokam archaeology, he switched to the Caribbean as a researcher in the NEXUS 1492 project. “Theories and methods brought me in first.”

With the search for new antibiotics becoming increasingly urgent, artificial intelligence offers valuable help. Smart software developed by Leiden PhD candidate Alexander Kloosterman searched genomes of bacteria and found clusters of DNA that code for proteins that have an antibiotic effect. ‘This new…

On September 5, at the festive opening of the Faculty Year, a range of new murals will be officially presented in the Van Steenis’ Reuvens Hall. The wall paintings reflect a variety of Dutch soil stratigraphies, from Oss to burial mounds. Aside from being a striking new addition to our Faculty building,…

A thousand-year-old tooth has provided genetic evidence that the so-called

Human activity at sea makes a terrible racket. To what extent does this disturb marine animals? PhD candidate Annebelle Kok studied the effect on harbour porpoises, long-finned pilot whales and their prey, and discovered the sheer complexity of the problem. PhD defence on 12 November.

The Rijksmuseum van Oudheden (RMO) was due to open its doors to the small photography exhibit Frank Scholten: Archaeology and Tourism in the ‘Holy Land’ in April. Since the organisers, Leiden University and the RMO, have had to temporarily close, researchers Karène Sanchez and Sary Zananiri would like…

Documenting and preserving rock art in the Pakistani Himalayas; this was the aim of the ‘Karakorum Rescue Project’ to which students at the Honours College Archaeology contributed. A Leiden exhibition visualises the project: ‘There is something magical about it.’

The ILS Lunch Seminar of April will take in a slightly different format, as we have the honour of receiving Dr Leandro Mancano from the University of Edinburgh. He will present his most recent monograph on the European Union and the deprivation of liberty.

An article by Bert Fraussen, Adria Albareda, Caelesta Braun, Moritz Muller & Erin Sullivan, published as a three-part blog series.

International bachelor’s and master’s students started the OWL on Monday morning. During this introduction week they get to know their new university, city and each other.

On Wednesday, 21 February, a diverse group of students, staff, and representatives from 21 embassies gathered in The Hague for International Mother Language Day. Under the banner of 'a bit of fun and many serious topics,' language took centre stage.

According to Russian propaganda Ukrainians are Nazis and people from the West are Satanists. Egbert Fortuin thinks we should take this propaganda seriously.

From research on stellar winds to sign language: an impressive seven researchers from Leiden University will receive a prestigious Vici grant from the Dutch Research Council (NWO).

Within just a few years, the Chinese government's policy towards the Uyghurs deteriorated sharply. From control and marginalisation, it shifted to violation of human rights. PhD candidate Elke Spiessens was right in the middle of it with her research. 'The fabric of the community is being completely…

For decades, the trade in pocketbooks prescribing how to be a good Muslim flourished in East Africa, but in recent years the number of books in circulation has been declining. University lecturer Annachiara Raia is the recipient of an Impact Explorer grant to revive this tradition, in cooperation with…

What do you do when you never got the chance to sign your name in the Sweat Room after graduation? Alumni Brantly Hancock and Kent Moore from the U.S. emailed the alumni officer with a request and came back to Leiden two years after graduation, to finally sign: “It’s a good feeling!”

In the eighteenth century, the Dutch East India Company (VOC) housed its enslaved people on ‘Slave Island’ in Colombo, the capital of Sri Lanka. Today ‘Slave Island’ is under serious threat from property developers. Senior lecturer Alicia Schrikker, together with her Sri Lankan colleagues Iromi Perera…

GIFs, memes and videos: anyone who opens a social media platform can be in no doubt that today we live in a visual culture. But the role of images in social communications isn’t new, says Associate Professor Marika Keblusek. She has been awarded a Dutch Research Council (NWO) Open Competition (Large)…

In honour of 10 years of cooperation between Kenya Wildlife Service and Leiden University, a Leiden delegation visited Nairobi National Park. To cement the cooperation, a lion in the park was collared and named Karel, which in Dutch literally means ‘free man.’ It will be monitored through satellite…

Jan Melissen is a Senior Fellow at the Institute of Security and Global Affairs of Leiden University, and Professor of Diplomacy at the University of Antwerp (Belgium). As of 1 March he transferred from the Clingendael Institute to Leiden University. We asked some questions about himself, his job and…

Ruurd Halbertsma combines his work as a curator and professor by special appointment with writing thrillers. 'I'd rather respond to the discussion on looted art this way than by joining talk shows.'