A moment of reminiscence and to see what lies ahead. After having been Dean of Leiden University College The Hague (LUC) for six years, Judi Mesman takes the time to reflect.

Commercial MRI systems cost millions of euros to purchase and require highly trained technicians to operate. Prof. Andrew Webb works on accessible MRI techniques that offer new opportunities in both developed and developing countries. Webb is a professor at the Radiology Department of the LUMC and,…

Echoing corridors, chaotic lessons and the obligatory chit-chat in the playground: for pupils with autism, an average day at school is exhausting. As a result, many of them feel lonely. Elijah, an expert from personal experience, says: ‘In the breaks, I’d sit on my own in a room.’

Michiel Veldhuis received the most public votes for the C.J. Kok Public Award and may therefore call himself Discoverer of the Year. Veldhuis researches how climate change affects savannah ecosystems in Africa and how we can protect them.

As of 1 September 2021 Andrea Evers has been appointed Scientific Director and will represent the institute at faculty and university level as chair of the Board of the Institute of Psychology. Eric van Dijk will take on the personnel and finance domains and Sander Nieuwenhuis will take on the research…

Symposium

The brief removal of Rein Dool’s ‘cigar-smoking white men’ painting generated a storm of reactions last November. Students, staff and alumni reflected on this at a symposium on Friday 26 May.

We are saddened by the news of the unexpected passing of prof.dr. Pieter Sjoerd van Koningsveld on 28 July 2021.

The Faculty of Archaeology's own home-grown journal Inter-Section has released a new volume. Inter-Section offers students and PhD candidates the unique chance to publish in a peer-reviewed journal. The new volume focuses on the materials that shape our world.

Rogier Creemers is a lecturer in Modern Chinese Studies. While he looks for challenges in his lectures, in his free time he much prefers to go back to basics and work with his hands.

What does it mean to be a migrant in a big city? According to assistant professor Kamila Krakowska Rodrigues, artists have the answer to that question. In a new ERC-funded project, she will explore the representation of contemporary urban diversity in films, performance art, written literature and spoken…

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.

The Mapping Slavery project will place markers that tell the story of Leiden’s slavery past. Why is this important and what does it mean for today’s society? Before the markers are placed, a panel came together on 24 March to discuss the slavery past of not only the city but the University too.

Individuals with a mild intellectual disability often experience loneliness more frequently than others. In a new NWA project, social history lecturer Paul van Trigt is collaborating with and for them to find a suitable approach.

A diverse (ad hoc) committee will advise Leiden University’s Executive Board on its exhibitions policy in a broad sense, with a special focus on the painting by Rein Dool in the Academy Building.

On January 7th Minister van Engelshoven of Education, Culture and Science of The Netherlands announced that the project Island(er)s at the Helm: Co-creating sustainable and inclusive solutions for social adaptation to climate challenges in the (Dutch) Caribbean is one of two projects awarded with funding…

It is still unclear how the Neanderthals died out. For long, one theory seemed most likely: the emergence of the highly intelligent Homo sapiens, or modern humans. This competition hypothesis is no longer the dominant theory among scientists, research among archaeologists and anthropologists has shown.…

What do climate change and traditional Japanese music have to do with each other? A great deal, university lecturer Andrea Giolai suspects. He has been awarded an NWO grant to study the relationship in more depth.

Hundreds of beautiful and timeless photos by Emmy Andriesse, one of the most important Dutch photographers of the twentieth century, are now freely accessible for everyone and can be used for research, education or other purposes. Large parts of Andriesse's oeuvre are already available online via Digital…

There is a lot of discussion about international students and Dutch universities. The Cultural Anthropology and Sociology of Development programme is an international bachelor's programme. Forty per cent of our students come from outside the Netherlands. We ask five students how they feel about studying…

Eleven days, 100 films, various unique locations transformed into temporary cinemas. From 26 October until 5 November it’s once again time for the Leiden International Film Festival (LIFF). So which of these films are an absolute must for students and staff of Leiden Law School? An overview of our four…

In the context of the 2021 Day of General Discussion of the UN Committee on Rights of the Child, this time dedicated to alternative care, Defence for Children in collaboration with Leiden University has contributed with a paper on the 2019 Dutch Inquiry Committee on Historical Child Abuse in Alternative…

The earlier you introduce children to a language, the sooner they can be captivated by it and see that there is more than just Dutch and English. That is the basis for the language lessons for primary education that Alisa van de Haar, university lecturer of French, collaborated on. ‘Deans from different…

A European project should help reinvigorate Latin teaching in secondary schools. 'By focusing on citizenship, we want to show that Latin is relevant to discussions about citizenship and migration.'

On 20 April 2023, during the first lustrum congress of the Conference on European Restructuring and Insolvency Law (CERIL), professor emeritus Bob Wessels was appointed as Officer in the Order of Orange-Nassau. Mayor Kolff of Dordrecht presented the decorations to Wessels for his longstanding contribution…

On Tuesday 12 January 2021, the annual Meijers prizes and thesis prizes were awarded at the online New Year’s event broadcast from the Old Observatory.

In the past decade many academic journals have started to require that researchers provide evidence of ethical review when submitting papers, for example when working with human participants or human remains.. In order to support researchers to ensure their projects are able to meet these expectations,…

Ramsey Albers wins Political Science Master’s Thesis Prize 2022

Are you thinking of applying for a Kiem grant but still tinkering with your idea for an interdisciplinary project? Let your Leiden colleagues inspire you! Dario Fazzi successfully applied for a Kiem grant with his workshop ‘Understanding the threat of the Anthropocene’.

Ominous witches, gruesome monsters, and hideous freaks: from Saturday 15 June, Kunsthal Rotterdam will be putting the spotlight on the shady depths of human imagination in the exhibition Hello darkness, my old friend. Seventy works on paper from the collection of the Leiden University Libraries confront…

Dr. Joana Cook and Dr. Graig Klein, assistant professors at the Institute of Security and Global Affairs of Leiden University, have been awarded a Google Trust & Safety Research Award for their project Countering Violent Extremist Content Online: A Multidisciplinary Approach.

Excursions to Leiden museums, a flown-in American professor and a collaboration with PhD students from Cambridge: Leiden PhD candidates in early modern art were in luck this summer. An award from the Camino Laurent van Vugt Fund allowed the LUCAS research institute to organise a special summer school…

The history of the LGTBI+ collective, deeply marked by episodes of violence, repression, and discrimination, is also the history of the struggle for social change and the conquest of civil rights, advances without which contemporary Western democracies could not be explained. More recently, the implementation…

Jan Melissen, associate professor at ISGA and editor-in-chief of The Hague Journal of Diplomacy, and his team have been awarded 10,000 euros from the 'Valued' fund. This pilot fund, implemented by the KNAW (Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences) aims to increase the interaction between science…

In six months' time, Leiden City of Science 2022 will begin. Rob Zwijnenberg, chairman of the Faculty Steering Committee, talks about the plans.

Education

Jan Aart Scholte is the first professor on the new Leiden interdisciplinary programme, Global Transformations and Governance Challenges. He researches how to tackle global challenges such as climate change and inequality. Inaugural lecture on 4 February.

How is our perception of sound informed by the way we participate in the world? That is the question PhD candidate Gabriel Paiuk has been pondering in recent years. 'The way we experience sound is informed by material, technical and collective conditions that influence our interaction with the envir…

PhD-student Maia has received multiple awards regarding her research on the impact of tobacco on the respiratory health of past Dutch populations.

Recently, Engin Yüksel gave a lecture on Russian military concepts from 1853 to the present day and his observations on the Russo-Ukrainian war at the Faculty of Humanities, premised on his recently completed doctoral research.

It is with great sadness that we share the news that on Friday, May 3rd 2024, Carla Risseeuw, Professor emerita of CADS, passed away. Carla Irene Risseeuw retired as Professor of Intercultural Gender Studies from CADS in 2009 after a long and productive career.

Lecture, LAC Asia Academy

Pichayapat Naisupap recently joined the Institute for History as PhD candidate. Below, he introduces himself.

The European Research Council (ERC) has awarded an Advanced Grant to six Leiden researchers. It awards these significant grants to established principal investigators for ground-breaking, high-risk research.

Each year, CML gives out three Stans Awards. The Institute's staff could nominate students and colleagues for the prices of best student thesis, best PhD paper and best outreach from the past year. Jury members Jan Willem Erisman and Nicole de Voogd made the final decision.

The Netherlands returned 478 artefacts to Indonesia and Sri Lanka this week, on the advice of a Dutch committee. Rightly so, says Leiden professor Pieter ter Keurs from the Museums, Collections and Society interdisciplinary research programme. ‘But do make it clear why you are returning something.’

Shiru Lim has been working at the Institute of History as an assistant professor since August 1, 2023. Below she introduces herself.