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…

Jasper Knoester is de decaan van de Faculteit Wiskunde & Natuurwetenschappen. Hoe gaat het met hem, wat doet hij precies en hoe ziet zijn dag eruit? In elke nieuwsbrief geeft Jasper een inkijkje in zijn leven.

Jasper Knoester is the dean of the Faculty of Science. How is he doing? What kinds of things is he doing and what does his day look like? In each newsletter Jasper gives a peek into his life as dean.

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?…

Have you ever experienced the feeling of awkwardness when attending a party where you didn’t know anybody? Ever felt shy at a party within the first few minutes? While this feeling is labelled loosely as feeling socially anxious, social anxiety disorder goes to a much further extent.

Women confined to the kitchen? Not in Scheveningen around 1900. There, some women ran entire shipping companies. This is according to new research by history student Sjors Stuurman. He compiled the results in a book he wrote for Muzee Scheveningen.

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…

After having been cancelled in 2020, this year the Summer School in Languages and Linguistics is going online. From 12 – 23 July, language and linguistics enthusiasts from all over the world can once again learn about a variety of rare languages and linguistics topics. Director Sasha Lubotsky tells…

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

Many students on the Master’s programme in International Relations and Diplomacy had their internship cancelled last year because of the pandemic. As an alternative, together with Professor of International Relations Madeleine Hosli, they wrote a book: The Future of Multilateralism.

It may seem as though adolescents do as they please, but they are more sensitive to their parents’ opinions than they would appear. The adolescent brain reacts strongly to parental criticism or praise. These are the results of a study by an interdisciplinary research group of psychologists and neuroscientists…

Nurturing Student Creativity: Innovative Approaches to Sharing Scientific Results. Bridging Generations and Empowering Ethical Exploration in Anthropology Education

On 22 April, all students and staff of the Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences received an invitation to join the conversation about the faculty vision and strategy plan. They could do that by attending one of the feedback sessions on 10, 11 and 12 May. Those sessions were a success: the Faculty…

It is one of the most famous moments in Dutch TV history: the twenty-three hour long marathon broadcast of Open het Dorp. But what happened to the commune for people with disabilities after that? Monika Baár and Paul van Trigt received a NWO grant of 750,000 euros to map the development of Het Dorp.

The Voices of Africa platform is ten years old and has just recently won the annual popularisation prize of the Netherlands Graduate School of Linguistics (LOT). High time for a chat with Jenneke van der Wal, Maarten Mous and Nina van der Vlugt about the importance of the platform and plans for the…

A new challenge for Felix Ameka. The senior lecturer at the Centre for Linguistics has been appointed professor by special appointment of Ethnolinguistic Vitality and Diversity in the World. ‘I am looking forward to promoting ethnolinguistic diversity and vitality.’

Lots of employees celebrated special successes in 2023. Here’s a list of all those scholarships, awards and honours.

In recent decades, women in Japan and South Korea have been catching up in terms of educational achievements and economic activity. Yet the number of women in leadership positions is still lagging behind. PhD candidate Yorum Beekman investigated why this is.

What makes a good leader, and is there such a thing as a born leader? These are questions that the master's students of the Leiden Leadership Programme (LLP) will explore this year. During the opening seminar, the new participants learn about the programme and share their expectations. 'I want to bring…

When alumnus Jonathan Katzman started his master's programme in Russian and Eurasian Studies, he didn't foresee how useful those skills would be in the near future. Now, he manages a refugee centre for Ukrainians who have fled their war-torn country.

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…

What can you learn about Bangladesh that cannot be found on Google? On 24 September, bachelor students of International Studies and Southeast Asian Studies were given an answer to that question. In a well-filled lecture room, the ambassador of Bangladesh, Riaz Hamidullah, gave a lecture about his co…

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 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.

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.

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…

Cancer treatments often have an impact on people’s sexual health, but doctors and nurses do not discuss topics such as sexuality and intimacy with patients as a matter of course. This is what Esmée Krouwel, a physician-researcher at Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC), has discovered. With her research…

The European Research Council (ERC) has awarded an Advanced Grant to six Leiden researchers. It awards these significant grants to established principal investigators for ground-breaking, high-risk research.

Social

Economic law, environmental law and human rights are important fields of law for sustainable development. But they do not interact sufficiently, which makes it difficult to implement sustainable development.

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.

'Psychologists think I’m a linguist but linguists think I’m a psychologist,' says cognitive neuroscientist Xiaochen Zheng. With the Veni grant she will be able to bring these two fields of research closer together. Read her answers to five questions.

Zoé is een tweedejaars bachelorstudent bij LUC, waar ze de richting culture, history & society volgt. Afgelopen zomer heeft ze stage gelopen bij de krant Le Parisien in Parijs.

How can Europe lead the way in vaccine development that is fast and for all? To answer this pressing question, Professor of Vaccinology Meta Roestenberg is holding a panel session on 14 July at the EuroScience Open Forum in Leiden.

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.

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 impact of war extends beyond destroyed buildings and torn families. In bilingual Ukraine, the ongoing war with Russia is a major driver for increasingly discarding the Russian language. What does this mean for the position of Russian in Ukraine?

Jasper Knoester is the dean of the Faculty of Science. How is he doing, what exactly does he do and what does his day look like? In each newsletter, Jasper gives an insight into his life.

The earlier you introduce children to a language, the sooner they can be captivated by it and see that there is more than just Dutch and English. That is the basis for the language lessons for primary education that Alisa van de Haar, university lecturer of French, collaborated on. ‘Deans from different…

Jasper Knoester is the dean of the Faculty of Science. How is he doing, what exactly does he do and what does his day look like? In each newsletter, Jasper gives an insight into his life.

For hundreds of years, children in Ancient Egypt learned to read using The Satire of the Trades, a text in which a father gives advice to his son through descriptions of different professions. PhD candidate Judith Jurjens investigated how this worked in practice.

Three Leiden students are in the running for the annual ECHO Award. This prize is for students from non-Western backgrounds who are actively engaged in society and promote diversity and inclusion. The three Leiden nominees are Gnimdou Yaovi Assih, Husna Jalal and Sohana Jethnani.

Lecture

No procession of professors, just a handful of people in the church and snowdrifts outside Leiden’s Pieterskerk: 8 February 2021 was no ordinary Dies Natalis. Carel Stolker transferred the rectorate to Hester Bijl, and Annetje Ottow became the new President of the Executive Board. With an honorary doctorate…

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 fourth instalment: alumnus and philosopher of law Ali Kösedag (1992): ‘Philosophising about equality before the law in the Netherlands at an early-morning…

Conference

Workshop

‘Culture change takes time,’ said Vice-Rector Hester Bijl at the closing panel of the University’s Diversity Symposium on 26 January. She talked about the road to a diverse and inclusive university. The symposium provided plenty of concrete examples of small steps that can already be taken.

For the first time, a group of international and interdisciplinary researchers led by Karline Janmaat and her former MSc Student Chirag Chittar, have tested the several hypotheses on music simultaneously in a modern foraging society during their daily search for tubers – their staple food.