The Leiden Institute of Advanced Computer Science (LIACS) is a proud member of the NExt ApplicationS of Quantum Computing (NEASQC) consortium, which recently received an ERC H2020 grant to stimulate the state-of-the-art in industrial quantum computing. LIACS contributes research and development of new…

The second quantum revolution is in full swing, bringing all kinds of new technologies to within reach, and offering many opportunities as well as challenges. Leiden and Delft decided to join forces.

Since February 1, 2015, Adriejan van Veen is working as a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute for History. Here, he is preparing a NWO grant proposal on local experiments with candidate selection in British and Dutch politics in the nineteenth century.

The widely used pesticide thiacloprid can cause a large-scale decline in freshwater insects. This was discovered by researchers from the Living Lab in Leiden. For three months they counted the flying insects in the 36 ditches of the lab. Their research appeared in PNAS.

Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC), Leiden University and Philips are jointly receiving over 2 million euros from NWO to set up an artificial intelligence (AI) lab. The aim of this lab is to accelerate and improve MRI scans with AI. This is great for patients, and it helps make MRI more accessi…

Scientists at Leiden University (Netherlands), Stuttgart University (Germany) and Ural Federal University (Russia) have successfully put forward a novel, computed, reaction mechanism that was experimentally tested and show that formaldehyde is formed at much earlier stages in the birthplaces of stars…

As of the 1st of January 2021, Lisa Cheng, Professor of General Linguistics, will be the next Scientific Director of the Leiden University Centre for Linguistics (LUCL). She tells us about LUCL and shares some of her thoughts about her upcoming role.

Matthias Flór receives the KHMW Graduation Prize in Theoretical Physics for his master's thesis. His research on exotic superconductors at Leiden University and TU Delft struck a chord with the jury. The jury unanimously chose to award Flór noting that ‘he demonstrated impressive technical abilities…

The Leiden Teachers Academy (LTA) was founded to help collaboration between excellent teachers. Osteoarchaeologist Dr Rachel Schats has been one of the latest additions to the Academy, nominated by the Faculty Board for the position as a Teaching Fellow. ‘In the LTA we talk about new innovations in…

Understanding the proces of electrochemical reactions is essential to improve the technology for the energy transition. Fuel cell cars, for example use hydrogen produced from the electrolysis of water. Mariana Monteiro did fundamental research on the process and won two prizes with her thesis.

This year, two Leiden physicists have earned a prestigious ERC Starting Grant. With a budget of 1.5 million euros, this is one of the largest individual grants for scientists.

On 21 June, our beloved colleague Joan van der Waals passed away after a long and rewarding life.

Recently, Wim Voermans, Professor of Constitutional and Administrative Law, and Jaroslaw Kantorowicz, Assistant Professor at the Institute of Security and Global Affairs and a research associate at the Department of Economics, were awarded a grant from the KNAW Statesman Thorbecke Fund. This grant will…

NWO Humanities and the Humanities Regieorgaan have awarded a PhD grant to Andy Sorensen under the joint funding program PhDs in the Humanities. Andy will start his research on how long humans already have the ability to make fire on July 1st. 2013.

Fishes rely heavily on sound to find their way during migration or dispersal. Many species are affected by noise pollution. Hans Slabbekoorn from the Institute of Biology Leiden received a HORIZON2020 grant of 500,000 euros to study the impact of sound conditions on movement decisions of fishes.

Gayathri Jaikamur has been awarded by the Dopper Foundation in the Change Make Challenge. She is a student of Masters Biology (Specialisation: Evolution, Conservation and Biodiversity) from India - working under the supervision of CML-researcher Dr. Thijs Bosker (and co-supervision of Dr. Nadja Brun).…

Put two single people in one place and what do you get? Science! Psychologists at Leiden University will be conducting research on human attraction at the Lowlands festival on the 19th of August.

Using musical cues to learn a physical task significantly develops an important part of the brain, according to a new study co-authored by Leiden psychologist Rebecca Schaefer. The results are published in the journal Brain & Cognition.

On Thursday 9 November, Leiden University organized its annual Physics Ladies Day for female high school students. To mark this festive day, we put the spotlight on two female researchers, who talk about their experiences in physics.

On May 18 Janneke Wesseling gave a lecture at the conference

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.

Around 15% of all Dutch people say they can't distinguish between left and right. People taking their driving test regularly take wrong turns and arguments flare up because that all-important turn is missed on the way to the camp site. Researchers in Leiden and Utrecht are trying to find out what's…

If male budgerigars can successfully open a puzzle box with food, they become more attractive to females. Biologist Carel ten Cate and Chinese colleagues publish experimental evidence for this in a paper in Science on 11 January .

Quantum technologies are in demand worldwide, but until now Leiden students could not specialise in them. The new master’s program QIST (Quantum Information Science and Technology) is going to change that. Researcher and professor Jordi Tura i Brugués: ‘We need to train the next generation of quantum…

Innovation through repetition. That is how university lecturer Jurriaan Witteman describes his research on the automatic processing of angry voices in the brain. The original research was conducted 20 years ago, but, with an NWO grant, Witteman is now going to see if those results are accurate.

Leiden Professor of Translational Rheumatology Hans Ulrich Scherer has one foot in the clinic, where he helps patients, and the other in the lab, where he supervises researchers. He bridges these two worlds in his hunt for autoimmune rheumatic diseases.

The use of fire can tell us a lot about human evolution. Archaeologist Femke Reidsma has developed a more accurate technique to identify how our ancestors used fire. Existing archaeological studies will need to be revised. Reidsma’s study was published in Nature Scientific Reports on 2 November.

Research on art is often compared to other forms of scientific research. Professor Henk Borgdorff believes that's unfortunate. 'Research on art is absolutely one of the front lines of science.' Inaugural lecture 10 February.

Using mathematics to determine whether scientific results are significant or not. Peter Grünwald, full professor of Statistical Learning at the Mathematical Institute (MI) and senior researcher in the Machine Learning group of Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica (CWI), has been awarded an ERC Advanced Grant…

The Faculty of Archaeology proudly presents the research brochure Perspectives on the Past, featuring passionate, dedicated researchers introducing a dazzling scala of research topics: from present-day traditional knowledge in Africa to the power of glue in Palaeolithic Europe. In addition to these…

A new NMR microscope gives researchers an improved instrument to study fundamental physical processes. It also offers new possibilities for medical science, for example to better study proteins in Alzheimer patients’ brains. Publication in Physical Review Applied.

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.

Emma de Vries, PhD researcher at LUCAS, has been awarded with a Fulbright Grant and Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds Scholarship. From September 2015 onwards, Emma will spend a full academic year in the Unites states, to work at UCLA and Harvard on her PhD research on Neo-Epistolarity.

On the second floor of the Sylvius Laboratory, new labs are being built for researchers of the Faculties of Social and Behavioural Sciences and Humanities. After a successful tender construction has recently started.

Museum De Lakenhal is displaying the smallest work of art in the world: a 3D-printed statue of Rembrandt van Rijn, made by sculptor Jeroen Spijker and researchers from Leiden University.

Upcoming activities by docARTES candidates Tony Roe, Patrizia Bovi, Ned McGowan, Maximilian Haft and Nizar Rohana

With cancer, the immune system is a double-edged sword: it can attack tumour cells, but can also help them grow and spread. It is a question of harnessing it. This is what Professor Karin de Visser argued in her inaugural lecture on 15 November 2019.

In 2015 the Pascalchair of the Faculty of Science, Universiteit Leiden and in particular of Leiden Institute of Advanced Computer Science, is held by Prof. Dr. Natasa Jonoska, University of South Florida, Tampa, USA.

Master's student Thalia Luden receives an NWO grant for her research proposal about a gene that brings flowering plants back into a growth phase. Companies in floriculture and vegetable seed breeding also contribute to the research.

Researchers from Leiden and Delft have found a way to look inside early-modern bookbindings. An x-ray technique has allowed them to search for remains of medieval manuscripts hidden inside the bindings. After the Middle Ages many manuscripts were recycled, their pages pasted inside bookbindings to provide…

Mathematical biologists from Leiden have developed a model that helps to explain how the spine and vertebrae, among other things, form during embryonic development. The same process, the other way around, plays a key role in cancer metastasis. Publication in iScience.

Police investigations use wiretapped phone recordings as investigative material fairly regularly. But how do they know that the voice on the recording actually belongs to the suspect? PhD student Laura Smorenburg is trying to answer that question.

In her inaugural lecture on 11 September, Miranda van Eck, Professor of Cardiovascular and Metabolic Therapeutics, addressed her research related to developing medications to keep our blood vessels clean.

People with intermittent arterial claudication often experience severe pain when walking. Psychologist Anne Cuperus used virtual reality to trick 20 patients, and discovered that they could suddenly walk much further. PhD defence on 10 December.

The precolonial inhabitants of the Caribbean islands communicated, travelled, and exchanged objects and ideas along an expansive inter-island network. New methods of computer modeling shed light on these networks. Emma Slayton is set to discuss her work on this topic at her Defense on the 12th of Se…

After 2 years of planning, designing, testing and adjusting, the brand-new low-vibration physics lab at the new Gorlaeus Building of the Science Campus is working like a charm and ready to make its mark in the world of science. Also, the renewed facility for the production of liquid helium is all do…

Environmental scientist Nadia Soudzilovskaia has been awarded the prestigious, international Bessel-Forschungs prize issued by the Von Humboldt foundation. This German award is issued to outstanding foreign mid-career scientists that collaborate with German researchers. ‘The combination of different…

Tiny selenium particles could have a therapeutic effect on ischemic brain strokes by promoting the recovery of brain damage. Pharmacologists, including Alireza Mashaghi from the Leiden Academic Centre for Drug Research discovered that selenium nanoparticles inhibit molecular mechanisms that are responsible…

In a world where bacteria are increasingly resistant to antibiotics, Emma van Groesen set out to find a solution. This month she obtained her PhD, after four years of research into new variants of the antibiotic vancomycin. With success.

A series of workshops at Leiden University and the University of Hamburg will act as a forum in which international legal scholars whose research adopts a behavioural approach can present their works-in-progress and gain feedback from a broad range of peers, including scholars in economics and cognitive…