Over recent years Leiden University has taken some significant steps forward in innovation in teaching and learning and in diversity. But there is still a lot to be done. These were the comments by governors, lecturers and scholars during the farewell seminar for Vice-Rector Simone Buitendijk on 27…

On 24 April, Selma Ablak was awarded the distinction of Member of the Order of Oranje-Nassau by the mayor of Amsterdam during the digital honours presentations. Ablak works at the Governance and Global Affairs Faculty Office in The Hague. She was presented with the award partly because of her commitment…

In June the Final Festival took place, the closing event of the 'Social Science Lab'. New participants of Honours College Science and Society presented their solution for a current social problem.

On 1st July Austria will assume the rotating presidency of the Council of the European Union. An appropriate occasion to invite former president of Austria Heinz Fischer to deliver the eighth Europa Lecture on Friday 8th June. During the lecture Mr Fischer shared his views on the history of his country…

Healthy and active Leideners and a smoke-free generation. These are the main ambitions of the Leiden Health and Wellbeing Agreement that was signed online by 40 partners on 19 April. Leiden University will also be drawing on its broad expertise to help realise the ambitions.

Looking for a different approach in the ongoing discussions on the ethereal matter of Romanisation, Ana Zora Maspoli joined Miguel John Versluys’ research group as a postdoc guest researcher. While she has been active in our Faculty since February 2022, you may not have met her yet due to the Covid-19…

Throughout this past year many students and staff at Leiden Law Staff received a prize or grant, were shortlisted for a prize or appointed to an academic body, or were honoured in some other way. All good reason to include them in our Hall of Fame 2020 to show how very proud we are of them!

An exhibition at Oude UB takes visitors to the historical Silk Road. Old maps, clothes and jewellery reflect the rich heritage of the cities of Central Asia and their inhabitants.

Student of International Studies Susanne Reitsma has a remarkable passion: water. In April 2015, she was elected vice president of the World Youth Parliament for Water, in which capacity she works for worldwide access to clean drinking water and sanitation. What does Suzanne find so special about water?…

On July 28, 2022, our dear colleague Daniëlle Hamstra passed away after a short sickbed. Daniëlle had been associated with the Clinical Psychology Section since 2010, initially as a student in the research master's program and subsequently as a lecturer and PhD candidate.

Pharmacologist Walter Boiten developed a new method to determine the amount of lipids in a person's skin. With this method he tested the effects of a new cream he developed for eczema patients. The first results are promising. Boiten defends his dissertation on 15 January.

According to a number of British historians, the elderly had a particularly high status in the early Middle Ages. A new book by Leiden cultural historian Thijs Porck sheds a different light on the matter: elderly people had to earn that respect first, and old age was often described in negative terms…

Writer and columnist Nicolien Mizee will be Leiden University’s new writer in residence from autumn 2023.

Language is omnipresent: when you talk, app or meet in Teams. Understanding how we communicate with one another and what communication does to us is essential. In her inaugural lecture, Nivja de Jong will call to redress the balance between the sciences and the humanities.

Politicians from Forum voor Democratie (FVD) regularly retweet anti-Semitic accounts. They therefore promote players from a social media network in which anti-Semitism is commonplace. This ranges from conspiracy theories about George Soros to hate speech about Jewish people drinking children’s blood.…

Stichting Onderwijsgeschillen (Foundation for Educational Disputes) is pleased to announce that it has established an endowed chair ‘Conflictoplossing en rechtsbescherming in het onderwijs' (conflict resolution and legal protection in education) at Leiden University.

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.

Academics increasingly face threats, intimidation and abuse. The WetenschapVeilig platform has been launched to address this. Academics who are being threatened or intimidated can seek help from the platform 24 hours a day. It’s good that we now have this platform. But at the same time, it’s awful that…

Women in the Middle Ages often wore better quality clothes than men. This is one of the conclusions drawn by Leiden archaeologist Chrystel Brandenburgh, who studied textile remnants from the period from 400 to 1000 A.D. PhD defence 10 May.

30 Years of Pale Blue Dot - 14 February 2020, Kaiserzaal, Old Observatory - The Pale Blue Dot Symposium is an event to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the iconic picture showing the Earth as a tiny speck in the vastness of space and to discuss its impact on humankind. At the end of the symposium,…

Daniela Kraft and her research are a familiar fixture at the Leiden Institute of Physics (LION). Both have been awarded fellowships, grants and frequent media coverage. Effective July 1, Kraft has been appointed professor of Experimental physics, particularly in soft and biological matter.

Since 1 February 2016, Paul van Trigt is postdoctoral researcher in the project Rethinking Disability: the Impact of the International Year of Disabled Persons (1981) in Global Perspective at the Institute for History.

A team of Leiden researchers has won the Ammodo Science Award for innovative humanities research on perceptions of cultural heritage.

The Palestine Laboratory: How Israel exports the technology of occupation around the world, Antony Lowenstein, Verso Books, 2023

For 2022, The Iranian-German project 'The Iranian Highlands: Resilience and Integration of Premodern Societies' announces the second round of fellowship grants. The fellowship is open for both iranian and non-iranian researchers, especially in archaeology but also in other interdisciplinary fields focussing…

Last January, the education assessors of the different study associations chose Fouzia Lghoul-Oulad Saïd of the Leiden Academic Centre for Drug Research (LACDR) as teacher of the year. Her passion for teaching extends beyond her classes, according to the students who nominated her: ‘ She is always ready…

As of 1 August 2017, Damian Pargas is the new Leiden University Chair of the History and Culture of North America.

In the new Annual Report 2020 we report on not only the research and teaching, but also the knowledge transfer, operational management and general policy at Leiden University in 2020. The report is divided into a general section and a section with the figures, i.e. the university’s financial stateme…

On Tuesday 4 September, in a full lecture hall C1, Dean Geert de Snoo opened the Academic Year for the Faculty of Science. A year in which the ethics and responsibility of scientists will be invoked.

Modern Japanese culture can best be described in one word: cute. Hello Kitty, the most important symbol of cuteness, can be found in all layers of society. Leiden Japanologists Ivo Smits and Kasia Cwiertka put together a volume of articles on this curious phenomenon.

On Thursday 14 February, the first ILS Lunch Seminar of this year took place. Beryl ter Haar and Yannick van den Brink gave two very insightful presentations on their current and accomplished research.

In mid-March 2020, the global coronavirus outbreak changed everything in the Netherlands. Staying at home as much as possible and the 1.5 metre rule became the standard. One year on, we reflect on the past year with four Leiden Law School ‘insiders’. What kind of year did they have? And what are their…

Coming four years after part II, and totalling more than one thousand pages, the long awaited first part of the Correspondence of Elizabeth Stuart (1596–1662), daughter of James I, King of England and Scotland has been published.

Rie Schild-de Groen watched over ‘her’ Gentlemen, the residents of the ‘t Heerenhoeckje (Gentlemen’s Corner) Minerva house at Rapenburg 110, like a mother hen for 70 years. She was moved by the stories of residents who had lost loved ones to cancer. Jaap Koster and a few other former housemates helped…

Clinical psychologist Bernet Elzinga has been appointed as Professor of a personal chair at the Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences. This professorship will contribute both nationally and internationally to the broader promotion of Leiden University in the field of stress and psychopathology.

From bedtime stories about mathematics to podcasts about microplastics and games on weeds: master students from the Science Communication & Society track presented the real-life products they developed during their final presentations on 20 December. Many of the products are already implemented by c…

The Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC), the Danstem Institute from the University of Copenhagen and the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute in Melbourne have received 300m euros from the Novo Nordisk foundation. The aim of this new international consortium is to bring stem-cell based therapies…

Childcare, no access to labs and extra time for online teaching. These are the main reasons why young researchers at Leiden University have seen a significant drop in their productive working hours since the beginning of lockdown. These are the results of a Young Academy Leiden survey of over 200 early-career…

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

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…

The Netherlands has also announced special measures to fight SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus. These measures have at times caused questionable behaviour, such as stockpiling or charging exorbitant sums for masks. But the intentions behind this seemingly antisocial behaviour are not necessarily bad, says Professor…

Studying surfaces of solid materials: it may not seem relevant to energy consumption, but it is. Marcel Rost studies how platinum electrodes wear out. Those electrodes are a crucial component in the fuel cells of hydrogen-powered cars. ‘We need to make the switch from fossil fuel energy to hydrogen.…

The objectives of the 2011 campaign Tell Balata Archaeological Park are to carry out excavations, promotion and awareness, community involvement, gathering oral histories and educating children. The objectives are described in a handout produced for the opening ceremony on June 21st 2011.

The Clinical Epidemiology department at the LUMC has set up a series of lectures for asylum seekers. The series has become a huge success.

69% of young Dutch people are struggling financially. They’re more likely to take risks by gambling, investing in cryptocurrencies or paying on credit. Like most Dutch people, the young are turning to family and friends for help and advice, rather than experts.

On Monday 9 May Mercury will pass between the Earth and the Sun. This rare event can be followed in the Leiden Observatory. The Observatory's new solar telescope produces a very clear image and offers a unique opportunity to observe Mercury at the highest magnification possible in the Netherlands.

On August 18, 2022, Henk Bodewitz, distinguished Indologist and emeritus professor of Sanskrit at Leiden University, passed away in his hometown of Utrecht.

Beads are among the oldest types of human artistic expression. Even so, the small ornaments have a bad status record regarding archaeological investigation. PhD candidate Mette Langbroek, usually at home studying early medieval beads, had the opportunity to work on a publication and exhibition on 5000…

On behalf of its students and staff, the Executive Board of Leiden University would like to express our condolences to all those affected by last Friday’s earthquake in Morocco. We would also like to offer support to all students and staff who have family or friends in the area. In the meantime, several…

Six projects from the Faculty of Humanities recently received grants of up to 750,000 euros from the NWO Open Competition. Researchers involved tell how they will spend this money.