A galaxy is already incredibly large, but it can get even bigger. Astronomer Reinout van Weeren investigates clusters of galaxies, one of the largest structures in the universe. For his research into the origins and evolution of these clusters, he obtained an ERC Starting Grant of 1.5 million euros.…

Workshops, tours, talks, music, an AI photobooth, interviews, a special poem and the launch of the LUF Children’s Fund. Alumni celebrated their alma mater’s 450th birthday in style on Saturday at the massively oversubscribed Dies Natalis Festival.

A common assumption in chemistry is that the coordination number of a catalyst's surface determines the reactivity of the reaction it catalyses. Strikingly, Leiden chemists have now proven that this is not true for nature’s most simple chemical reaction: the dissociation of hydrogen. The researchers…

What does it take to be a good historian? What are the capacities or dispositions needed to thrive as an historian? Put differently, what are the talents, skills, and virtues that historians qua historians have to cultivate? What are the “passions” or the “vices” they are expected to resist? And how…

Private collectors John Steegh and Harrie Teunissen from Dordrecht have donated their entire collection of maps, city plans and atlases to Leiden University Libraries (UBL). In almost 40 years they brought together circa 17,000 map sheets and 2,300 atlases and travel guides. Especially the thematic…

Dutch mosquitos are more resilient to saltwater than previously thought. Environmental scientist Sam Boerlijst discovered this during his PhD research at the Hortus botanicus. This knowledge is crucial for understanding how mosquito-borne disease transmission might change in the future.

Back in June, the annual Leiden Archaeology Field School took place in Oss. For a month, every week, a group of 25 first year students gets to learn the ins and outs of a professional excavation. This is what they have been prepared for in the past year. ‘It is very exciting to put all the theory into…

As a result of production pressure, judicial powers focus more on efficiency and less on making sure they get to the truth. Professor of Criminology Jan de Keijser believes that establishing the truth in court cases is under threat. Inaugural lecture 7 November.

Over a thousand researchers and students protested in Leiden on 2 September against the plans to transfer money to science and technology at the expense of other disciplines. Just metres away, Minister of Education, Culture and Science, Ingrid van Engelshoven, was giving a speech at the opening of the…

Leiden chemists have proposed a new model for enzymatic reactions, in which the flexibility of the substrate is much more important than previously thought. Their results are paradigm-shifting and could have major implications for drug research and enzyme engineering. Publication in Angewandte Chemi…

This year Leiden will be celebrating the 450th Relief of Leiden. Leiden master’s students are researching this history as part of the ‘Traces of 3 October’ project.

Smooth platinum electrodes roughen and wear when subjected to repeated cycles of oxidation and reduction, which causes nanometer-scale mounds to grow. Leiden chemists Leon Jacobse and Marc Koper, together with physicist Marcel Rost, discovered the exact details, using a unique tunneling microscope.

Migraine can’t be diagnosed with a blood test, scan or physical examination. Language therefore plays a crucial role in its diagnosis. Neurologist Joost Haan has researched the relationship between language and migraine, and looked at how migraine is described in fiction. His PhD defence is on 22 Oc…

Compare human social behaviour at a country level and you will find differences. Japan has the highest score whereas the Netherlands is just above average. This is what psychologist Niels van Doesem discovered in research with an international team of 64 colleagues in 31 industrialised countries. Their…

André Ramcharan has been a familiar face at the Faculty of Archaeology for decades. Joining our faculty without any knowledge on animal bones, he has become an expert on the matter, supervising the organisation and expansion of the faculty’s collection. ‘We expanded to include birds, fish, and shellfish.…

An atomic vandal has finally been caught! Scientists from Leiden University and the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Laboratory have uncovered the mysterious cause behind the rapid corrosion of platinum electrodes. This breakthrough paves the way for more affordable green hydrogen production and…

Online services are stored on servers in data centres. Remko Fermin researched methods to make the memory in data centres more energy efficient.

The Executive Board of Leiden University has appointed the new Board for the Faculty of Archaeology. Read more about their plans for the future of the Faculty.

Leiden chemists have developed a new technique with which they can determine the role of kinases – a group of proteins – in a living cell. This technique makes it easier to find new drug targets for diseases such as cancer and rheumatoid arthritis. The team published the findings in the journal Nature…

Despite the rapid progress in solar and wind energy, a completely clean energy supply remains a huge challenge. Heavy industry, aviation, shipping and road transport are not yet able to do without carbon-based fuels. To reach the climate goals, in these industries energy consumption should be CO2 neutral. In…

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…

Fifteen knowledge institutions and the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science have signed the covenant for Open Science NL. Leiden University has also joined the covenant, via the Universities of the Netherlands. This marks the start of the Dutch Research Council’s and brings the transition to open…

During World War II, the Nazi’s ordered a coastal defensive line to be built from the south of France to Norway. This Atlantik Wall aimed to defend their territories in continental Europe from an Allied naval invasion. The defensive line went right through the Dutch city of The Hague. The material remains…

The changes that humans are making to the landscape are beneficial for mosquitoes that spread diseases such as Zika, chikungunya and dengue. This is what biologist Maarten Schrama and his colleagues write in the journal Nature Scientific Reports. ‘If we know in which living environments mosquitoes thrive…

On 5 October, mediator Johan Remkes presented his report on the nitrogen crisis and what he thinks is the best way forward. Leiden University professor and nitrogen expert Jan Willem Erisman responds to Remkes’s recommendations. ‘It’s a step in the right direction.’

While investigating 16 years of images of young stars from a retired astronomical camera, Leiden master's student Sam de Regt discovered that two of those stars were still enveloped in birth clouds. Never before has anyone captured these two stars in so much detail. He publishes his data-cleaning method…

As part of the celebrations around the 25th birthday of the Faculty of Archaeology, a panel discussion on the future of archaeology was organised on December 13th. For this discussion an international panel of scholars was invited to give their perspective and enter into conversation with our Faculty…

Bringing together chemists and physicists to thoroughly investigate how electrochemical processes work on the smallest scale. That is the goal of the new Advanced Nano-electrochemistry Institute of the Netherlands, or ANION for short. The consortium receives a Gravitation funding of 23.6 million euros…

The Faculty of Archaeology has a long research tradition in the municipality of Oss. Since 1974, researchers and students have been carrying out archaeological research here. In Januari 2019, an enormous replica of one of the top local finds was unveiled standing in the middle of a roundabout.

A series of upcoming activities by PhDArts co-director Janneke Wesseling, docARTES researchers Bobby Mitchell, Giuliano Bracci, and Dick de Graaf, and PhDArts researchers Brigitte Kovacs, Danne Ojeda, Jack Segbars, Mikala Hyldig Dal, Ato Malinda, and Thalia Hoffman

Building more in urban areas is, in most places in the Netherlands, the smartest way to tackle the housing crisis. This is evident from research conducted by Janneke van Oorschot, published in a partner journal of Nature. Remarkably, this does not have to come at the expense of green spaces in cities.…

The endogenous compound anandamide – often referred to as the body’s own marijuana – plays a role in erasing memories of a traumatic event. This was discovered by an international team led by Leiden chemist Mario van der Stelt. The results have been published in Nature Chemical Biology and may provide…

Koen Bastiaans and his colleagues discovered a new quantum liquid unlike anything ever seen. They did it by using a technique that can be compared to listening to the sound of raindrops falling on a roof. Publication in Science 29 October.

Organs and tissues grown in the lab may in the future be able to cure people with organ failures. Micha Drukker, professor of Stem Cells, Developmental Biology and Technology for Innovative Drug Research, is convinced that the use of stem cells will make this possible. He will deliver his inaugural…

‘Everyone’s talking about it, everyone thinks everyone else is doing it, but the reality is disappointing,’ says biochemist Gerard van Westen in his 3 October University lecture in the Van der Werfpark. In the full marquee, he gets a laugh with this suggestion that artificial intelligence is comparable…

Professor Anne Meuwese is calling on governments to show more vulnerability when it comes to providing information about how they function.

Plants can’t run away from enemies. Still, it would like to keep life-threatening herbivores at a distance. This can be done with odours. Klaas Vrieling of the Institute of Biology Leiden found out with his team how plants change odour production to keep the munchers at a distance.

'We must set out an agenda, in partnership, to manufacture our own means. This will stimulate science, small businesses, jobs and society in Africa and beyond.' With these words Naledi Pandor opened the symposium 'Science Diplomacy and International Development', which was held in her honour on 27 Februari…

One unravels the origin of the largest black holes in the universe, the other investigates the influence of stellar wind on the atmosphere of exoplanets. Both Elena Maria Rossi and Aline Vidotto receive a Vici grant for their research into the mysteries of the universe. ‘I have no idea yet how we can…

The European Elections are approaching and we get to take a trip to our local polling station. But the turnout in the Netherlands is likely to be low and who exactly do we get to vote for? Rik de Ruiter, Associate Professor at the Institute of Public Administration, explains the two political dilemmas…

Dr Bleda Düring deemed it was time for an archaeological approach on the imperialisation of Assyria. ‘While there are lot of archaeological studies of Assyrian sites, they are not really trying to address this broader picture of imperialism and how this imperialisation actually worked.’ These imperialisation…

A new study from Leiden researchers shows that the carbon emissions of building materials are set to grow if we do not act rapidly. Even with known interventions implemented in concert, these emissions are much larger than the remaining 1.5 degree budget for building materials at today’s share, the…

Joe Powderly was recently awarded a Leiden Global Interactions Advanced Seminar grant (GIAS) for a project that looks at heritage destruction, human rights and international law. The project approaches cultural heritage destruction from an interdisciplinary perspective and involves an exciting collaboration…

The annual New Year Lecture for Honours College Law took place on Friday 17 January. This year’s speaker was Barbara Zwirs, author and former assistant professor in criminology at Leiden Law School. Her lecture got 2025 off to an inspiring start.

The nominees for the IRO Thesis Prize 2024 and the Prof. Dr. J.Th.J. van den Berg-prijs 2024. Who authored the best thesis in Leiden University’s bachelor’s programme in Political Science?

Lecture

PhD defence

PhD defence

PhD defence