Throughout the 17th and 18th centuries, the city of Batavia was supplied with produce by its hinterland, known as the Ommelanden. Bondan Kanumoyoso studied the history of the various ethnic groups that populated this area and in doing so has shed light on the structure of modern-day Indonesian society.…

Bonobos – just like humans – pay more attention to pictures that show other members of their species displaying emotional behaviour than to neutral scenes. Leiden researcher Dr Mariska Kret made this discovery while conducting research at Apenheul Primate Park.

The Social Resilience & Security interdisciplinary programme broadens its scope by embedding two research projects lead by Dr. Joanne Mouthaan. The projects adress suicide prevention skills and mental health of Ukraine refugees. Both projects will be integrated in the programme with the aim to improve…

Jeanine de Roy van Zuijdewijn, researcher and lecturer at ISGA, was interviewed by Deutsche Welle (DW) on the topic of career foreign fighters. This is also the topic of study in her latest publication.

Thursday 1 October, Humanities Lab hosted the second edition of the Humanities Lab Cafe; this edition’s theme was migration. Professors Leo Lucassen and Piet Emmer were invited to offer the audience their points of view, after which there would be time for a discussion with all those present. At half…

Tjerk Oosterkamp's group is conducting what is perhaps the coldest research in the world. The researchers have cooled a sensor to below 2 millikelvin - almost as cold as absolute zero. This allows them to make extremely sensitive measurements. PhD candidate Jaimy Plugge helped build the setup: ‘We are…

It is difficult to imagine a society other than a hierarchical nation-state. This is in part because we neglect alternative forms from the past, argues archaeologist Lewis Borck in the Journal of Contemporary Archaeology.

How does digitalisation affect the humanities? The introductory course for the Honours College Humanities Lab challenges students to reflect on this through the production of their very own short film.

A European team of astronomers has discovered the largest stellar black hole in the Milky Way. It is more than thirty times as massive as our sun and is located in the constellation of Aquila, about two thousand light-years from Earth. The astronomers stumbled upon the black hole by chance while preparing…

Scientists and non-scientists co-creating breakthrough citizen science projects for measuring, understanding, and mitigating air pollution. That’s what happened during the first international workshop of the newly established Citizen Science Lab from 22 until 26 January at the Lorentz Center at Leiden…

Macrophages – the front line of our immune system – protect us from infections. But in the case of the tuberculosis bacteria, this often goes wrong. The group of Annemarie Meijer from the Leiden Institute of Biology has now discovered that macrophages in zebrafish are better able to eliminate tuberculosis…

At the Capstone Conference, Honours College students of the Humanities Lab presented their final projects. In small groups, they conducted research on relevant societal issues – gathering insights from a multitude of disciplines. ‘The aim is to learn as much as possible from each other.’

PhD candidate Marc Baggelaar of the Leiden Institute of Chemistry (LIC) graduated cum laude on Thursday 6 April. His thesis on the endocannabinoid system in the brain is very comprehensive and of high quality, according to the jury. ‘A very talented young scientist, that definitely belongs to the top…

Teachers of English as a foreign language in China and the Netherlands have different notions of themselves as teachers in relation to cultures associated with the English language. This is stated in the doctoral thesis of Dadi Chen, who graduates from the Leiden University Graduate School of Teaching…

On 29 June 2017, Doris Dull-Zessner defended her PhD dissertation “Value Congruence in a Multinational Corporation”. The defence was at 12.30 hrs, in the Academy Building of Leiden University, Rapenburg 73. The supervisors are Professor J.A.A. Adriaanse and Professor J.I. van der Rest.

An international team of astronomers from Leiden Observatory and others, has for the first time mapped a piece of the dark, cosmic web. The research strengthens the hypothesis that the young universe consisted of huge numbers of small groups of newly formed stars. The astronomers publish their findings…

The transition from single cells to multicellular organisms was a key step in evolution. Researchers from Leiden and Amsterdam developed a mathematical model that explains how this transition may have come about. They suspect cooperating cells may correct each other’s mistakes. Publication in eLife…

At the end of December, the concluding lecture of the Bachelor Honours Class 'Policy and Politics: struggling to combat social inequalities' took place. Students, under the guidance of former minister Jet Bussemaker, tackled the question of what inequality actually is.

Chad-born youngsters in Paris come into contact with youngsters actually in Chad via Facebook: it would be difficult to find a better way to demonstrate the possibilities social media offer for people scattered across the world by war. Mirjam de Bruijn has been awarded a Vici grant for a study of the…

Last week, the 'Leiden Anthropology of Asia Network' was created, based on the network event 'Leiden Anthropology of and in Asia' on 8 December 2021. During this event, it became clear that next to events oriented towards peer-level academic interaction, there is an urgent need for a better institutional…

Every year, Humanities students can nominate their favourite lecturer for the Humanities Education Award. Traditionally, the winner of the award will be announced at the start of the academic year. Who are 2017’s nominees and what inspires them to teach?

A flu virus could cause a pandemic. And then we would be poorly armed because flu viruses are starting to become resistant to flu medications like Tamiflu. Chemist Merijn Vriends successfully worked on an improved version of such medications. He will be awarded his doctorate on September 12th.

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.

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…

Until now, systematic discussions of gender, race and law have received little attention from Dutch law faculties, especially at the undergraduate teaching level. At the same time, public calls for discussion of these issues increases rapidly.

The Hague Project Peace & Justice, in cooperation with Dr. Alanna O’Malley of the Leiden University Institute for History, organized a one-day conference on October 23rd, to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the United Nations. Students of the ‘A History of the United Nations’ elective course of the…

Scientists of the faculty of Governance and Global Affairs research completely different subject, among which terrorism, cybercrime and migration. We give the floor to several of our very best researchers. In this episode: Caroline Archambault researches the Masai in Kenia.

Political scientist Corinna Jentzsch received an NWO Veni grant for her research on the conditions of collaboration between militias and state forces and its consequences for safety and political order.

During the week of 27 June - 2 July, the Institute of History was host to the first SHAFR Graduate Summer Institute held outside of the United States. The theme of the Institute was Culture, Propaganda and Intelligence in Cold War History.

An inclusive holiday calendar for the municipality Leiden or a new website for the Fenestra Disability Centre. It is a small selection of the solutions that honours students developed to make our current society more equal. For months they worked on these ideas and proudly presented their findings last…

Watching and analysing hundreds of TEDx talks, that too can be research. That becomes clear from the work of PhD student Aletta Meinsma, who is studying potential problems in popular communication about quantum technologies. She explains how she approaches this and why it is so important.

On 1 September 2017, Aurelie van ’t Slot passed the assessor’s baton to Olivier Fajgenblat. As the new Humanities assessor, this third-year student of Film and Literary Studies will promote students’ interests in the Faculty Board. Let’s introduce this ambitious Belgian student.

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…

The Palaeolithic period extends from the earliest stone tools (and in Europe, earliest occupation) to the beginning of the current warm period.

Jingxian Wang, PhD at ICLON, examined technology integration in primary and secondary education. Defence on 6 July.

How do you integrate minorities into a society, and what kind of influence does this have on the collective identity? These questions may seem modern, but they have been relevant for a long time. The new Eurasian Empires research group studies how integration and formation of identity took place in…

Astronomers at ASTRON and Leiden University have used the LOFAR radio telescope to discover a 'brown dwarf' – a faint object more massive than Jupiter, but significantly less massive than the Sun. The discovery of the object dubbed Elegast, opens up a new path that uses radio telescopes to discover…

On Sunday 29 October the annual open day of the Old Observatory will take place. During this day, people can visit the Old Observatory for free and enjoy the historic building.

Vedran Dunjko appointed to full professor of quantum computing at Leiden University, the Netherlands.

For my Policy in Practice research project, Elise van Dansik engaged with a problem that Leiden ‘Social Domain’ policy officers saw themselves confronted with, which was why migrant organizations of Slaaghwijk (a socio-economically disadvantaged neighborhood in Leiden’s north) do not cooperate with…

Cláudio de Sá predicted the preferences of people using rankings. He adjusted ‘classical’ machine learning approaches, making them suitable for predicting preferences. His work can be applied in the prediction of election results. PhD defence on 16 December.

A really worthwhile cross-fertilisation. This is how two enthusiastic students from the TU Delft describe the Leiden Leadership Programme. ‘I'm already applying in Delft things I am learning here.'

At the end of January, students of the Master Honours Class ‘Future Foresight’ had their final session. Students gained new perspectives, resilience and creative problem-solving skills to navigate societal shifts. Throughout the course, they learned how to think about the future and the challenges it…

Sense Jan van der Molen is vanaf 1 maart de nieuwe wetenschappelijk directeur van het Leiden Instituut voor Onderzoek in de Natuurkunde.

Finds uncovered in the east of Germany show that Neanderthals stored and preserved vast amounts of meat and/or temporarily aggregated in larger groups to exploit the spoils

Public Administration student Iris did an internship at the Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations. During her internship, she dealt with election accessibility.

How tolerant is the Netherlands on the work floor? Jojanneke van der Toorn, Professor of the Workplace Pride Chair, the first in the world dealing exclusively with LGBT inclusion in the workplace, answers questions on the International Day against Racism and Discrimination.

The idea that socially anxious people avoid eye contact because they are not interested in other people needs to be changed. They take their information from other physical sources, such as people's hands. This is the finding of Leiden psychologist Mariska Kret whose research has been published in…

Physicist Martin van Hecke receives a 2.5 million euro ERC research grant for research into information processing materials. Starting out with a piece of rubber that can count to ten.

Jojanneke van der Toorn, professor by special appointment in Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Workplace Inclusion at Leiden University, states that it is difficult to create an inclusive work environment. This is partly due to the fact that lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people have themselves…