Is there a place for machine translation engines like Google Translate within the Faculty of Humanities? Associate professor Lettie Dorst’s new educational website aims to help students and teachers find an answer to this question. ‘The use of AI tools, such as Bing and ChatGPT, shouldn’t be seen as…

It is more myth than reality that people with migration backgrounds commit more crime. Leiden has successfully tackled anti-social behaviour by Moroccan youths, says former mayor Henri Lenferink. Good education forms the basis of a healthy and safe society, says ‘crimmigration’ researcher' Maartje van…

Der Spiegel reports about the planned reform of the EU Code of Conduct aimed at tackling harmful tax practices of EU Member States. A reform is urgently needed to tackle remaining forms of tax competition, which cost EU countries billons of euros every year.

Around seven per cent of children have difficulty learning their mother tongue because they have some form of developmental language disorder (DLD). World DLD Day on 15 October called attention to this disorder. Development psychologist Neeltje van den Bedem explains why this is important.

Leiden psychologists Janine Westendorp and Liesbeth van Vliet have investigated types of communication that seriously ill patients may experience as harmful. The results of this research were published in the American journal Cancer. And the results have now also been published as a poster for education…

Edmund Flett, alumnus of the International Relations master's programme, has won the 2023 J.C. Baak Prize for his thesis ‘Settlements now, settlement later. Land swaps, settler relocation, and the viability of the two-state solution in Israel-Palestine’.

Words originally intended to indicate space, such as ‘out’, are also regularly used to indicate cause and effect. Why does this happen? And how does it work in other languages? PhD candidate Camil Staps decided to find out.

Neuroscientist Simeen Tabassi Mofrad has been awarded a Rubicon grant to conduct research on cortical and allelic determinants of age-related cognitive decline at University of Oxford. She holds the first rank among all Rubicon applicants in NWO Domain Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH).

Psychology alumna Inge Schilperoord works as a forensic psychologist in the Pieter Baan Centre, a psychiatric observation clinic. Her debut novel 'Muidhond' about a man struggling with his paedophilic tendencies, has received the Bronze Owl 2015 for best Dutch debut novel. Schilperoord: 'The detective…

Lecture, Com(parative) Syn(tax) Series

The war in Ukraine is entering a new phase with the announcement of a partial Russian military mobilisation and the intention to annex four Ukrainian regions. Why is Putin making these decisions just now and what consequences will they have for the course of the war? We talk to professor and Russia…

Are all murderers calculating psychopaths with an obscene predilection for bloody chainsaws? Yes, if Hollywood is to be believed, but in the real world they are generally everyday people with problematic backgrounds. Professor of Violence and Interventions Marieke Liem therefore calls for the demythologisation…

Professor André Baranski is a champion for improving organ procurement. He believes there should be standardised training and certification for procurement surgeons. This is what he said in his inaugural lecture on 16 April.

Fraud and plagiarism in assessment can unfortunately be seen everywhere, even among our students. In relation to this, as an examiner you have an important role in safeguarding academic integrity.

Museum De Lakenhal issued an open call for creative solutions to the problem of growth addiction. From over 500 submissions, they selected 15 artworks for the exhibition 'If things grow wrong'. These include the creations of Leiden researchers Peter van der Putten and Evert Jan van Leeuwen.

175 years ago, the Netherlands took great strides towards parliamentary democracy with a revamped Constitution. Where does the Constitution stand today?

Just as some people today dislike English influences on the Dutch language, in early modern times people also criticised the Frenchification of Dutch. But to what extent did French actually leave its mark in our language? PhD student Brenda Assendelft made a surprising discovery. PhD defence 24 May.

Postdoc and linguist Evelyn Bosma receives the Keetje Hodshon Prize for her dissertation. For her research on the multilingualism of Frisian children, Bosma previously won the Klokhuis Science Prize and the Campus Fryslân Science Prize.

How would you convert Egyptian hieroglyphs into Latin script? And what is actually the correct translation of dishes on a Vietnamese menu? On Saturday 28 January, high school students from all over the Netherlands will come to Leiden to ponder a series of language-related puzzles. Their goal? To win…

Pigeons, zebra finches and parakeets. Carel ten Cate studied bird sounds. But not just that. Together with linguists from Leiden, he investigated parallels between birdsong and language. On 9 June, his farewell symposium was held to mark the end of his broad career. Well, the end? Carel ten Cate has…

From films, video games and historical novels to Nordic folk bands, Old English from the early Middle Ages is experiencing a revival in the 21st century. Together with international colleagues, university lecturer Thijs Porck (LUCAS) made a book about the 'resurrection' of this dead language.

Mum works in healthcare, dad in engineering and everyone is straight: many textbooks still show men and women in stereotypical roles, PhD candidate Tessa van de Rozenberg has discovered. She also found that children’s views on these topics often closely resemble those of their parents.

ICT

The Lucia de Berk case or the suicide of Slobodan Praljak at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia: certain trials keep popping up in media. In her dissertation, Tessa de Zeeuw examines the cultural appeal of such cases and analyses artistic responses. ‘Artworks sometimes have…

The Voices of Africa platform is ten years old and has just recently won the annual popularisation prize of the Netherlands Graduate School of Linguistics (LOT). High time for a chat with Jenneke van der Wal, Maarten Mous and Nina van der Vlugt about the importance of the platform and plans for the…

‘AI can’t do half as much as people think,’ says computer scientist and psychologist Roy de Kleijn. He tries to teach robots seemingly easy things, and keeps on discovering how smart human intelligence really is. Three things that computers are no way near doing.

In the booklet ‘Research with Windows Wide Open’, eight professors in the social sciences and humanities advise colleagues who want to make an impact with their research. They include Leiden professors Andrea Evers and Leo Lucassen. The booklet, published by the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and…

Debate, Film Screening and Discussion

Lecture, Histories Connected: Special Guest Lecture

Lecture, Histories Connected: Masterclass

PhD defence

PhD defence

He has had to accept early retirement due to his military profession, or ‘FLO’ (Functioneel Leeftijdsontslag) as it is more commonly referred to within the Dutch Ministry of Defence, but the words ‘retirement’ or ‘winding down’ do not appear to be part of Frans Osinga's vocabulary. His appointment at…

Attention to the colonial past may be increasing, but many aspects of it are still underexposed. Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant, in collaboration with, among others, Leiden researchers Anne-Marieke van der Wal-Rémy and Alicia Schrikker, therefore created a 'canon of the Dutch underexposed past', which…

The Ministry of Justice and Security and Leiden Law School are planning to collaborate on a more structural basis. This is the outcome of a meeting that took place at the Academy Building in Leiden on 19 October. Those present at the meeting included the Minister for Legal Protection, Franc Weerwind,…

It is crucial that Leiden University reflects on its colonial history. These were the words of Cleveringa Professor Gert Oostindie in his inaugural lecture on 24 November. ‘As a university community, we must dare to hold up a mirror to ourselves and, where possible and necessary, also take concrete…

Protests have been raging in Iran for two months since the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini. The role of social media in the protests against the Iranian regime should not be underestimated, says Senior Assistant Professor and Iranian Babak RezaeeDaryakenari.

Daniël Vredenberg did his master’s internship at the communications department of the Rijksvastgoedbedrijf. In this interview, he talks about his internship and the difference between actually working at an organisation, as he is currently doing, and doing an internship.

The exhibition Leiden celebrates – 450 years of parades at Museum De Lakenhal shows how parades and society have changed through the centuries. Alumnus and historian Danielle van Goethem worked on the exhibition. She gives a preview.

After discussing the climate, our psychologists once again broach a big topic: war and peace. Or, perhaps: cooperation and conflict. For no matter how benevolent our intentions towards each other, friction never seems far away. Researchers Angelo Romano and Tom Roth offer explanations and practical…

She stands out for the moderate tone she takes in discussions on Dutch talk shows. Without judgement you can have an open conversation, criminal lawyer Natacha Harlequin learned in her student days in Leiden. ‘What I personally think of the alleged act doesn’t matter so much.’

Lecture, CHiLL series

Lecture

Lecture

Leiden Law Cast is a podcast made by Leiden Law School, Leiden University, for everyone who wants to learn more about current legal issues.

What do people like Martin Luther King Jr. and Barack Obama have in common? They have mastered the art of public speaking. There are plenty of books on learning this skill, but one aspect of rhetoric remains underexposed in science: how do you make sure the audience remembers your message? Martijn Wackers…

What exactly does it mean when your doctor says you have a ‘good chance’ of survival? Leiden researchers discovered that there is a big difference in how people interpret such probability phrases. And that can be a problem, warns lead researcher Sanne Willems in her blog post.