On a sunny Saturday afternoon in May, twenty-five bright international students gathered in the Old Observatory to celebrate their graduation of the International Leiden Leadership Programme. A tour of the Sterrewacht and the ‘borrel’ made for a nice completion of the Honours programme.

Robots, nervous looks and above all, lots of fun. On November 16, children up to 16 years old came together for the MakeX competition. With this robot contest, in which children program their own robots, children are made enthusiastic about technology and programming.

The starting point of human-induced landscape changes has been under permanent debate. It is widely accepted that the emergence of agriculture strongly increased human impact on their environments. However, foragers can and do actively transform land cover and ecosystems. Ethnographic observations,…

What is the state of democracy in developing and transition countries in 2024? Terrible, according to the BTI Transformation Index.

Linguist Wataru Uegaki received an NWO Grant of 58400 Euro for his research project 'In search of semantic universals in the modal domain'. With this money Wataru can compile a database and organise workshops. An interview with Wataru:

Native women are invisible in Mexican society. This is the conclusion Barbara Ortiz draws in her dissertation. PhD defence on 23 February.

What is public leadership? How does one promote research on public leadership? These and other questions will be addressed at the official presentation of the research and development agenda ‘Moving forward with public leadership’ on Wednesday 11 April. Mayor of The Hague Pauline Krikke and Rector Magnificus…

With a €1.5 million European grant, industrial ecologist Stefano Cucurachi will work on more sustainable production methods for the pharmaceutical industry. The Italian company Angelini Pharma intends to use the resulting knowledge to make its production process more sustainable.

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,…

Professor Nira Wickramasinghe will research forgotten lineages with an NWO Open Competition grant, in particular the afterlife of Dutch slavery in the Indian Ocean World.

How can KLM remain the most sustainable airline? Master’s students from the Leiden Leadership Programme immerse themselves in practice and advise companies on major issues.

The Fritz Zwicky Prize 2022 for Astrophysics & Cosmology has been awarded to Prof. Ewine F. van Dishoeck for her pioneering, decades-long work in astrochemistry and molecular spectroscopy, as well as for her leadership within the astronomical community. The award was announced today by the European…

More attention to the needs of PhD Candidates who are not employed at universities, but combine their research with a professional career outside the academic world. That was the main wish expressed at the workshop Supervision of dual PhD candidates, organized at the Wijnhaven building in The Hague…

Toxys, Leiden University and Leiden University Medical Center have agreed immediately to commercialise and also develop further the ToxProfiler technology invented at the two institutions. ToxProfiler allows for rapid toxicity hazard identification of novel and existing drugs, chemicals, and other substances.…

On Tuesday 4 September, Martina Vijver delivered the scientific lecture during the academic opening of the Faculty of Science. Martina is professor in Ecotoxicology at CML and would like to have collaborations with colleagues from the Leiden Centre of Data Science. We had a brief interview with her.

Psychology teacher of the year is Marc Molendijk. The Master Thesis Awards are for Kim Houwaart and Linda Bomm. Hans van Lennep wins the PhD Publication Prize; Nina Komrij wins the PhD Wild Card: Societal Impact. The Support & Management staff Prize is for the whole Psychology Institute Office and Remond…

The Social Resilience & Security interdisciplinary programme broadens its scope by embedding two research projects lead by Dr. Joanne Mouthaan. The projects adress suicide prevention skills and mental health of Ukraine refugees. Both projects will be integrated in the programme with the aim to improve…

Inviting members of the public to help monitor wildlife, photograph plants or conduct samplings. These are some of the many examples of Citizen Science. It is increasingly recognized as effective and impactful for collecting data, but also for engaging the public in scientific research. In Nature reviews…

The PhD students at the Academy for Creative and Performing Arts of Leiden University include a composer, an artist and a baroque flautist. Henk Borgdorff, who studied the phenomenon of PhDs in the Arts, says, ‘Artistic research in all disciplines of the Arts is a booming business worldwide.’

Biological chemist Nathaniel Martin is going to test an alternative antibiotic that can combat common resistant bacteria such as MRSA. For this purpose, he will receive 350,000 euros from the NWO's NACTAR programme. ‘We want to know how safe and effective our antibiotic is in a realistic situation.’

Science education project Space Awareness engaged 230,000 people in 68 countries with the excitement and challenges of space sciences and technologies. After three years, the project coordinated by Leiden Observatory came to an end in March and has now been evaluated.

In June 2016, Janine Geerling and Marjo de Graauw were awarded a LUF-grant of €10.000 to design a digital laboratory support tool for the 2nd year BFW practical course on biochemistry. Now the pilot has kicked of with all 240 BFW Bsc students!

Universe Awareness is one of fifteen projects chosen by WISE for providing compelling and innovative solutions to today’s most pressing challenges in education.

Are you interested in expanding your knowledge on the Dutch crisis management system? Leiden University is organising a unique lecture series on the subject in collaboration with the Netherlands Institute for Public Safety (NIPV). The lectures will take place on 22 April, 13 May, and 3 June.

eLaw in collaboration with the TU Delft Design for Values Institute finalized the research on “Artificial Intelligence and Ethics at the Dutch Police” by providing the whitepaper highlighting requirements for the responsible use of AI at the Police and the long-term research strategy.

Without scientific knowledge, we won’t be able to tackle the grand challenges of the 21st century: climate change, energy transition, social inequality and coronavirus, for example. Professor by Special Appointment of the Social Value of Science Laurens Hessels is therefore calling for more transdisciplinary…

The new open access book The Science of Citizen Science bundles insights into science that is conducted together with citizens, to promote this growing form of science.

The Institute for History announces vacancies for three PhD positions on Rethinking Disability: the Global Impact of the International Year of Disabled Persons (1981) in Historical Perspective and one PhD position to conduct research on the United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC).

Mapping out the problem of plastic pollution requires a lot of data over a large area. That's why scientists are increasingly turning to volunteers for help, also known as citizen science. But what are the challenges for a researcher when he or she involves the public in research in this way? Four Leiden…

The third seminar of the serie 'Research Methodology for the Study of Governance', organized by the Graduate School of Faculty Campus The Hague, with Professor Markus Haverland (Department of Public Administration, Erasmus University Rotterdam)

What does it mean for a citizen to be ‘literate’ in astronomy? Astronomers who participate in outreach to the general public experience various degrees of astronomical knowledge among people. But so far, there had not been a systematic evaluation and definition of what astronomical literacy actually…

The nominees for the Prof. Dr. J.Th.J. van den Berg-prijs 2022 and the IRO Thesis Prize 2022. Who wrote the best bachelor thesis in Political Science?

Universe in a Box has been recognised for its educational value by Scientix — the European Network of Science Education. Universe in a Box is the low-cost, inquiry-based astronomy education resource of Universe Awareness (UNAWE). On Friday 22nd May this resource was awarded the Scientix Resources Award…

Leiden University is an internationally oriented Dutch university, where we communicate with one another in both Dutch and English. To ensure that we handle this bilingual convention with due care, the Executive Board has established a set of guidelines on language policy. These guidelines set out the…

The material and intellectual presence of Egypt is at the heart of Western culture, religion, and art from Antiquity to the present. In his book ‘Beyond Egyptomania. Objects, style and agency’, archaeologist Miguel John Versluys not only presents the Nachleben of Egypt as a major constituent of (European)…

Four of Leiden's young, talented ethnic minority graduates are to receive an award as part of the Mosiac programme of the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO). The award will allow these budding researchers to fund a four-year research period leading to a doctorate.

On 1 January Irma Mosquera Valderrama succeeded Jean-Pierre van der Rest as PhD Dean, completing the changes to the team of PhD deans at Leiden Law School.

On Monday 22 November 2021, the Municipality of Leiden, Leiden Law School and the Legal Advice Centre in Leiden signed a collaboration agreement. The parties agreed that at the request of the Municipality, the Law School will help train students to better equip them in their work on the Rental Team…

After a promising start, also the second pilot of the digital Brightspace skills platform is a success. Third-year bachelor students had thirty new skill modules at their disposal to support them with their research assignment. Despite the additional challenges posed by COVID-19, students that used…

Recently, the booklet 'Blended Learning, het versterken van het onderwijs op de Universiteit Leiden' has been launched. Sonja Wagenaar, educational adviser at ICLON, was project manager of the three-year Blended Learning Program in which blended learning training was implemented in the studies Psychology,…

It is with great sadness that we learned that our colleague Leo Waaijers, guest employee at our institute, passed away on August 1 after a short illness.

Can suffering be positive? Currently dominant discourses, primarily voiced through human rights activism and humanitarianism, maintain the opposite: suffering, mentally and physically, has to be avoided and where it exists, it has to be reduced.

The Young Academy Leiden strives to connect young academics with each other and strengthen their position within the University. It goes without saying that mental health is a topic that cannot be ignored here. That is why that was the theme of an again successful Young Faculty Lunch, this time at the…

From filtering UV light in sun cream to preventing perspiration odour in socks and sterilising fridges and washing machines. The use of nanoparticles in products is increasing. But what is the impact of these miniscule particles on the environment?

Individuals suffering from social anxiety disorder (SAD) consistently avoid eye contact. However, in a non-clinical population, gaze avoidance in socially anxious individuals depends on social situations, Jiemiao Chen saw in a series of experiments, for which she used wearable eye-trackers. On 25 April…

Jens Iverson, Assistant Professor of International Law and a Researcher in the Jus Post Bellum Project, defended his Ph.D. dissertation on 21 September 2017.

Two new Assistant Professors are joining Science Based Business (SBB) this Autumn. ‘Xishu Li and Jian Wang are the first two Assistant Professors we recruited. This is an exciting, crucial next step for SBB,’ said Professor Simcha Jong who joined Leiden University as the Director and first Professor…

Cryogenic memories, antibiotic treatment for urinary tract infections and recycling plastic sustainably. These are the subjects of the three NWO-XS grants awarded to Leiden Science researchers.

Jingxian Wang, PhD at ICLON, examined technology integration in primary and secondary education. Defence on 6 July.

We are delighted to announce two new exciting research projects at the Grotius Centre for International Legal Studies! Dr Misha Plagis and Dr Hilde Woker have each received a starter grant for their collaborative research projects. Dr Hilde Woker and Dr Jason Rudall have received funding for their project…