What sets Leiden University apart from other universities? And what research themes would you like us to showcase to the outside world? Share your ideas in our online consultation over the next two weeks.

Jaïr van Rhenen studied Medicine in Leiden and is now a GP in the largely religious Veenendaal. Before this, he worked as a tropical medicine doctor in Lesotho. ‘If you have the prospect of an afterlife, you often respond differently to illness.’

It’s not healthy but we often do it anyway: sit hunched at our computer for hours on end. But exercising and relaxing at work doesn’t have to be complicated. These staff members have come up with fun and easy ways to help their colleagues stay fit and healthy. ‘You don’t need sportswear and won’t end…

What happens in the brains of people with psychiatric illnesses? With a €23.23 million gravity grant, scientists from different fields will search for biological causes over the next decade. ‘By joining forces, we hope to improve diagnosis and treatment for patients with these diseases.’

Communication, Personal development

As part of her VENI project Remembering Dissent and Disillusion in the Arab World Judith Naeff looks at the ways in which video art and documentaries transmit memories of leftist movements and ideologies as part of intimate family histories. Marwan Hamdan's Separation Anxiety, which was screened…

Lecture, China Seminar

Lecture, LIAS Lunch Talk Series

Conference

PhD defence

How can you teach students what they want to do after graduating by using Design Thinking? Bram Hoonhouts Comenius Project aims to tackle a pressing issue among students: they have little clue what they want to do when they graduate, but are sure that a perfect CV is required. By using the…

Piercing through the skull with an ice pick, administering electric shocks without an anaesthetic, or applying leeches to the uterus: these may seem like medieval methods of torture, but they are in fact therapies used in medicine. Willem van der Does writes about all of them in his new book. ‘Physicians…

In the Pioneers of Leiden University series, we talk to past and present students who were the first in their family to go to university. In this second instalment: historian and university lecturer Nadia Bouras (1981). ‘Although I only found out later that was my mother’s dream, it was as though I…

During the New Year's Reception at FSW, new Dean Sarah de Rijcke gave her maiden speech. The first official moment at which she's able to share what she stands for and what to expect of her. In case you weren't there, or you want to read the speech at your own pace, below you can find the integral copy…

For fifteen years, Recep Uysal carried out research on positive psychology in Turkey; it is even the subject of his PhD. That was until he had to flee Turkey and start again from scratch in the Netherlands. Re-entering the academic world was a challenge, but he rediscovered his love for the field in…

What causes depression in a child and how can they get over it? Leiden Professor of Psychology Bernet Elzinga and behavioural scientist Carine Kielstra recently hosted a webinar on the subject of depression in teenagers. The level of interest was overwhelming.

After a turbulent Covid year, the well-being of our students and staff has the highest priority. How can we prevent physical and mental health problems? This was the key question at the Opening of the Academic Year in Pieterskerk in Leiden on 6 September.

Panel discussion

Over the last few years nationalism seems to have experienced a new revival, being flagged and voiced as a response to growing cultural and economic anxieties produced by globalization, immigration and, more recently, the COVID-19 pandemic. Yet, nationalism studies scholars are well aware that there…

Color can be unstable—how did early modern artists and natural philosophers make sense of it? In particular, encounters with mother-of-pearl forced observers to notice the shell's iridescence. Albertus Seba’s Thesaurus of animal specimens included a print of shell roundels, delicately washed in…

Conference, Mini symposium

Festival

Workshop

Workshop

Education, Organisation, Research