LUCL is pleased to announce that Professor Johan Rooryck has been awarded both an NWO Horizon Grant for his project entitled 'Knowledge and culture', and an NWO Vrije Competitie Grant for his project entitled 'Lend me your ears: the grammar of (un)transferable possession' for a total of €2.75m.

The Honours College Law (HC Law) is soon going to look very different. What does the HC Law currently do, and what’s going to change? Why should you apply for it? To answer these questions, we spoke to Maartje van der Woude, Designated Professor at the HC Law. She’s designing the new programme in collaboration…

Discovering effective new drugs is a long, expensive and uncertain process. Laura Heitman wants to improve this by finding out more about how drugs bind to proteins that play a role in disease. She calls it ‘drug discovery 3.0’. Inaugural lecture on 9 December.

With a large majority of votes, drug researcher Alireza Mashaghi Tabari was chosen Discoverer of the Year 2017 of the Faculty of Science. This was announced by Rector Carel Stolker during the faculty’s New Year's reception on 9 January. Computer scientist Kristian Rietveld became Teacher of the Year…

The perception of the Middle East is riddled with stereotypes that have had dire consequences on its people. What is myth and what is reality? How did these stereotypes come about? What consequences have they had? All of these questions and more are answered within this reading list.

Niels van Leeuwen is enrolled in the Master Public Administration: Economics & Governance. During the first stage of his master, he did an internship in the United States, at the economic affairs department of the Royal Netherlands Consulate General in Chicago. ‘There are more ways that lead to Rome…

Our vision of stress is starting to change fundamentally. We can suffer stress without even being aware of it, while sleeping as wall as during the day. Professor of Psychology Jos Brosschot will discuss this phenomenon in his inaugural lecture on 2 December.

To what extent do nanoparticles accumulate in plants and animals, and what properties of the particles play a part in this? Willie Peijnenburg, professor of Environmental toxicology and biodiversity was awarded a Marie Curie grant to conduct research on the environmental effects of nanoparticles.

How does the brain develop from birth up to adolescence? And why are young people given so little information about the development of their brain? Two new websites of the Leiden Institute for Brain and Cognition provide an answer.

The LUMC, Leiden University and The Hague University of Applied Sciences want to help health professionals support behaviour change in the population. Such change would help people live healthier lives and reduce their risk of disease. The Municipality of The Hague is supporting this educational project…

Andreas Häuselmann and Eduard Fosch-Villaronga from eLaw - Center for Law and Digital Technologies wrote an article on the legal and regulatory aspects of emotion data and presented it to the Affective Computing + Intelligent Interaction (ACII ‘23) Conference held at MIT. Andreas Häuselmann also hosted…

As of 1 January 2018 Irma Mosquera will be appointed as Associate Professor at the Institute of Tax Law and Economics of Leiden University.

‘Children’s rights are somewhat of a poor relation’, says Professor of Law and Health Mirjam Sombroek-van Doorm. In her inaugural lecture, she will emphasise how more attention needs to be paid to children’s rights in current thinking on law and health.

Fifteen passionate lecturers earned their Senior Teaching Qualification (SKO) on Monday 22 January. Rector Magnificus Hester Bijl congratulated them in the Academy Building. Four of these lecturers talk about what motivated them to take the SKO and how it has benefitted them.

Wars, climate change and the effects of covid have caused a global decline in children’s well-being. In her inaugural lecture Ann Skelton, Professor of Children’s Rights in a Sustainable World, points to the disastrous effects of multiple interacting crises.

Research on flora and fauna with attention for economic interests and partnership with the local population. This is all bundled in a cooperation programme of the Anton de Kom University of Suriname and Leiden University. Working together on the basis of equality is key. ‘A thorny challenge, but one…

Leiden University and four other Dutch universities will appoint 51 PhD candidates to conduct solution-oriented research for and with the African continent.

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…

Everything around us is in motion. Students, the University, technology, society, the labour market and the world. These developments provide an impetus to experiment with new forms of education. This article samples a small selection of the many dozens of innovative educational projects. What is striking…

On 12 January ten driven lecturers obtained their Senior Teaching Qualification (SKO). Rector Magnificus Hester Bijl congratulated them in the Academy Building. We asked three of them how the SKO programme had benefitted them, what they think ‘good teaching’ is and what makes them so passionate about…

Light, open and green: a description that fits the new, renovated location of the Faculty of Humanities. The official opening of the Herta Mohr Building took place on 8 October, and it has many remarkable features: for example, recycled ‘mushroom columns’, a pedestrian bridge to the University Library…

Former President Kgalema Motlanthe of South Africa gave a public lecture on Campus The Hague on 7 July. His story was about the economic transformation of Africa.

Who knows more about environmental governance: a professor of natural resource governance or a local shaman in the remote uplands of Myanmar?

How can parents avoid passing on stress and mental health problems to their children? Professor of Stress-Related Psychopathology Bernet Elzinga develops simple interventions to help both parents and young people. For her research, she has been awarded the Spinoza Prize, the highest academic honour…

In May 2017, the PIF will hold its three-year World Conference on Pharmaceutical Sciences in Stockholm, Sweden. We had an exclusive interview with the chair of the organizing committee: Professor dr. M. Danhof of Leiden University and LACDR.

Former masterstudent Bio-Pharmaceutical Sciences Maddalena Centanni will be awarded the 2020 Arenberg Coimbra Prize for Erasmus Students. Centanni spent her six month Erasmus exchange at Uppsala Universiy in Sweden where she looked for ways to improve anti-cancer drug dosing.

The Hague Global Futures Hub was officially launched at the Wijnhaven building on Campus The Hague on 10 June. This collaboration between Leiden University and the University of Edinburgh represents a significant step forward in addressing global challenges.

Claartje Levelt is professor of First Language Acquisition. She researches how babies and toddlers learn their mother tongue. Besides her work, she enjoys being involved with music.

How unique is the human capacity for learning and adapting to an environment? In field research – in the rainforest and Artis Zoo – primatologist Karline Janmaat is studying how humans and other primates adapt to their environment in their search for food. She will give her inaugural lecture as Professor…

Different groups of hominins probably learned from one another much earlier than was previously thought, and that knowledge was also distributed much further. A study by archaeologists at Leiden University on the use of fire shows that 400,000 years ago knowledge and skills must already have been exchanged…

Teacher training should do more to prepare teachers for the pedagogical aspects of teaching, Professor of Educational Sciences Tim Mainhard will argue in his inaugural lecture. ‘Children who find learning difficult particularly benefit from a close relationship with their teacher.’

On 21 and 22 March 2019 the workshop 'Criptic Identities. Historicizing the identity formation of persons with disabilities across the globe' takes place at the Leiden Institute for History.

The Leiden Leadership Programme is going to innovate. After 12 years, the honours track for master’s students will get a new set-up. We asked two of those involved about the ins and outs of the new LLP. ‘You learn what leadership style suits you and how to make an impact.’

Anne Veens is on a mission. She wants secondary school students to get acquainted with anthropology, and think about the value it can have in the development and implementation of policy. To achieve this, she has developed a teaching package. Last July, she successfully ran the first pilot. 'Most pupils…

Leiden University is organising two international conferences on security from 7 to 10 November in The Hague. Power relations, negotiating with extremists, cyber espionage, and the experience of a real crisis situation are some of the issues on the agenda. The conferences will be opened by Mayor Jozias…

Writing a report for a teacher, getting a grade and then no one ever cares about your research again. Pity, isn't it? That is quite different in the course Personal and Professional Impact (PPI). During this third-year bachelor's course of Cultural Anthropology students apply their anthropological knowledge…

Leiden University has received a gift of over 2m euros from the Utopa Foundation for its Department of Social, Economic and Organisational Psychology. The gift will be used to set up a Psychology and Economic Psychology research and teaching fund. There will also be a new knowledge centre, which will…

International prosecutors, for instance at the International Criminal Court in The Hague, investigate particularly serious crimes such as genocide. They decide, among other things, whether or not to prosecute. PhD candidate Cale Davis investigated how prosecutors come to such decisions and will defend…

The Aernout van Lynden Global Citizenship Award award is a recognition given by the LUC community. Each year a student who has demonstrated the qualities of active engagement, responsive and responsible participation in civic and/or community building, within and/or beyond LUC is presented with the…

Leiden University has secured an impressive 12 European exchange grants. This is good news for students, lecturers and researchers from home and abroad.

The rise of extremism in Europe has increased polarisation. The EU-funded DRIVE project, led by Tahir Abbas, Professor of Radicalisation Studies from Leiden University’s Institute of Security and Global Affairs, explores how social, structural, and individual factors contribute to radicalisation, offering…

Video conferencing from your sitting room and algorithms on social media that know your interests: new technology is an increasingly integral part of our lives. At the same time there is a growing call to protect our privacy, and this is causing friction, at the University too. In part because of the…

Just like us, plants also produce growth hormones, and they also go through an ageing process. The study of the genes and mechanisms behind these processes is useful not only for crop breeding and agriculture, but also for medical research. That is the view held by Professor of Plant Developmental Genetics…

The environmental risks of new pesticides containing nanoparticles are inadequately researched, according to four Leiden scientists in the scientific journal Environmental Science & Technology. They call for an examination of the long-term and environmental effects of pesticides containing nanoparti…

Bart Barendregt receives a Vici grant of 1.5 million euros from the NWO for his research project 'One between the Zeros, an Anthropology of Artificial Intelligence in Islam'.

Until 15 May, Open Space will give room for artistic creation and experimentation in a partnership between artists and astronomers. The project is a collaboration among Nederlands Dans Theater (NDT), Korzo and the Leiden Observatory. Starting on 3 May, young dancers of NDT 2, three choreographers, three…

'Echoes of the Silent Roots' by Mark Lindenberg wins the Multimodal Incentive Grant for Alumni of the Metje Postma Awards. His film is a touching auto-ethnographic project about family estrangement and repair. Ieke van Dam won the Excellence in Visual & Multimodal Ethnography Thesis Prize for her film…

Assistant professor at LUC The Hague, Dr. David Ehrhardt has recently been awarded a Comenius Teaching Fellowship. Winning the Fellowship means that he has been awarded a bursary of fifty thousand euro in order to implement and develop an educational project within LUC.

A new 5.7 million euro research project will ensure that lettuce will be more resistant to pathogens and climate effects and will grow better in new cultivation systems. Together with other Dutch researchers, Leiden biologists will map the characteristics and genetic information of 500 wild and cultivated…

The cloud is of increasing importance in our daily lives. It is thus crucial that they work properly and are reliable. Alex Uta, assistant professor at LIACS, received a Veni grant to investigate the reproducibility of experiments in the cloud.