Arco Timmermans, Bijzonder Hoogleraar Public Affairs, sprak deze week in het BNR Lobbypanel over verschillende lobbys, de lobby voor de kortere zomervakantie met een langere kerstvakantie en de lobby voor de stop van het steunen van het openbare vervoer.

Digital journalism is transforming the way in which information and communication technologies are used by media workers. With this change journalist practices, norms and values are also being reshaped. This is the conclusion of Tomás Dodds PhD research.

It’s about much more than learning how to write a readable piece or give a presentation that doesn’t send the audience to sleep. The intensive Science Communication Summer School gives young scientists the chance to really make contact with the public.

'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…

Education

On Friday 20 May, from 1 p.m. to 6 p.m., approximately sixty lecturers met at the Faculty Club for the 2022 Education Showcase.

The film Blade Runner as part of the law curriculum? It’s not that weird to Maartje van der Woude, Professor of Law and Society, and Frans-Willem Korsten, Professor of Literature, Culture and Law. ‘The film raises a fundamental question: what’s a human and what’s not?’ From the next academic year onwards,…

Are you looking for some listening material for the upcoming long weekend? Staff members and alumni of the Faculty of Humanities have been creating various podcasts over the last few months. A selection is shown here:

Leiden University and Stadslab Leiden invite you to improve the Leiden and The Hague environment with 450 extra trees – a living reminder of 450 years since the Relief of Leiden and the foundation of Leiden University.

On Monday 28 June 2021, a text based on an interview with Christa Tobler appeared in the Hofvijver (Montesquieu Instituut) on the relationship between the European Union and Switzerland, in particular after the decision of the Swiss Federal Government to refrain from signing an agreement on institutional…

Adults are more likely to reoffend after a short prison sentence than comparable adults with a non-custodial sentence, Leiden University research shows. This is true for the likelihood and extent of repeat crime.

Regardless of whether you work at a desk or in a lab, all workplaces have their risks. As your employer, the University aims to create a healthy workplace and to limit possible health risks. Here you will find the main risks and measures that we take to reduce them.

One of our most engaged and expert scholars is bidding farewell. After forty years at Leiden Law School, first as a student and later as a professor, Niels Blokker reflects on his university career.

Leiden University's International Honours College, Leiden University College The Hague (LUC) experienced empty halls and empty classrooms this past year on the residential campus on the Anna van Buerenplein in The Hague due to the global pandemic. Dr Paul Hudson designed a Covid-proof course that enabled…

Is polder rice a feasible circular alternative for cows on peatland? A pilot experiment started this week. On May 22nd, researchers from Leiden University and Wageningen University & Research (WUR) planted roughly 3,000 rice plants on the Polderlab near Leiden. The researchers want to test rice as a…

The new open access book The Science of Citizen Science bundles insights into science that is conducted together with citizens, to promote this growing form of science.

Is polder rice a feasible circular alternative to cows on peat soil? In May, an experimental trial began, with researchers from Leiden University and Wageningen University & Research (WUR) planting around 3,000 rice plants at the Polderlab near Leiden. The researchers aimed to test rice as a middle…

The Netherlands has gained a third commentary on the Constitution – with Leiden as its home base. The first copy of Een nieuw commentaar op de Grondwet (A new commentary on the Constitution) (published by Boom Amsterdam) was presented to Prime Minister Mark Rutte in the Torentje last week.

An archaeologist as a modern-day shaman. An unexpected comparison Professor by Special Appointment of Public Archaeology Luc Amkreutz will make in his inaugural lecture.

The nominees for the IRO Thesis Prize 2024 and the Prof. Dr. J.Th.J. van den Berg-prijs 2024. Who authored the best thesis in Leiden University’s bachelor’s programme in Political Science?

Workshops, tours, talks, music, an AI photobooth, interviews, a special poem and the launch of the LUF Children’s Fund. Alumni celebrated their alma mater’s 450th birthday in style on Saturday at the massively oversubscribed Dies Natalis Festival.

National Meat Free Week (Nationale Week Zonder Vlees, 7–13 March) is an initiative to reduce meat consumption. Assistant professor Paul Behrens is studying what impact a change in our food consumption would have on the world. What, according to him, are the main reasons to switch to a (mainly) plant-based…

Building more in urban areas is, in most places in the Netherlands, the smartest way to tackle the housing crisis. This is evident from research conducted by Janneke van Oorschot, published in a partner journal of Nature. Remarkably, this does not have to come at the expense of green spaces in cities.…

With a self-converted red camper van, biologists and twin brothers Kevin and Marvin Groen go on a nature adventure in Eastern Europe. Together, they search for wild animals, beautiful nature and places to sport. From a long search for a bear in the Slovakian wilderness to the discovery that pelicans…

The construction of 285 student studios on land owned by Leiden University is a step closer. On Thursday, student housing organisation DUWO and the Real Estate department of the University signed the leasehold agreement for the parcel of land in the Oegstgeest part of the Leiden Bio Science Park.

Edmund Flett, alumnus of the International Relations master's programme, has won the 2023 J.C. Baak Prize for his thesis ‘Settlements now, settlement later. Land swaps, settler relocation, and the viability of the two-state solution in Israel-Palestine’.

Neanderthals were able to outwit straight-tusked elephants, the largest land mammals of the past few million years. Leiden professor Wil Roebroeks has published an article about this together with his German colleague Sabine Gaudzinski-Windheuser in the Science Advances journal. The breakthrough takes…

On Monday 23 January 2023 J.T.P. (Hans) de Bruijn passed away at the age of 91. Until 1995 he held the Chair of New Persian Language and Culture at Leiden University.

As part of the celebrations around the 25th birthday of the Faculty of Archaeology, a panel discussion on the future of archaeology was organised on December 13th. For this discussion an international panel of scholars was invited to give their perspective and enter into conversation with our Faculty…

Fifteen knowledge institutions and the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science have signed the covenant for Open Science NL. Leiden University has also joined the covenant, via the Universities of the Netherlands. This marks the start of the Dutch Research Council’s and brings the transition to open…

The universities of Delft, Leiden and Rotterdam are working together to show their students what artificial intelligence (AI) means for their own field. Three AI minors will start in the 2022 – 2023 academic year and will answer questions such as: ‘How best can you use AI in your research discipline?’…

‘The climate crisis is the greatest threat we face,’ says Leiden University environmental scientist Paul Behrens. ‘And yet, there is hope. In the near future, I think we will wonder why we didn’t make these changes earlier.’

Tirza Cramwinckel, Assistant Professor in tax law, has won one of the 2023 Research Prizes awarded by the Praemium Erasmianum Foundation.

Costanza Franceschini discusses the Sea-ing Africa project, offering unique anthropological research opportunities in Ghana and Morocco for Masters students.

In the fight for a liveable planet, we desperately need a fairer distribution of wealth and equal rights for all, argues anthropology professor Marja Spierenburg. ‘That will also generate broad-based support for sustainable development.’

With the retirement of Wil Roebroeks, Gerrit Dusseldorp will take his place as the archaeological representative in the Liveable Planet Interdisciplinary Programme as an Associate Professor. An expert on the behaviour of early human hunter-gatherers, he will look at the interaction between humans and…

How do you compare the living environment of Dutch dairy cows with that of Masai cattle in East Africa? And how can we reverse biodiversity loss? These questions are central to CurveBend, an international research consortium in which ecologist Michiel Veldhuis plays a key role.

Professor Jan Willem Erisman is happy with the freedom at our University. But frameworks are needed, he believes. That is why he makes a proposal for such a framework from the perspective of his own profession. In fact, he makes a proposal for a wonderful ambition for Leiden University.

On August 30, the online platform Historical Maps of Southeast Asia was launched. The platform provides access to over 1,400 digitised maps of Southeast Asia from the collections of the National Library Board Singapore (307 maps), Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library - Yale University (150 maps),…

Paul Behrens and his team have won the Frontiers Planet Prize of half a million euros for their research into the effects of switching to a plant-based diet.

Scientists regularly appear in the media. They participate in science cafés, write a popular-science book or visit school classes. In that way, they want to convey their knowledge and enthusiasm to society. But do they succeed? To answer that question, a new website is launched, with a toolbox full…

Leiden University’s Living Lab is moving to the middle of the Leiden Bio Science Park. In the lab’s new home between the University of Applied Sciences, Mentor and Naturalis Biodiversity Center, the first ditches have now been dug. This new location is more accessible to both researchers and the public.…

It is late June, and on a windy meadow north of Leiden known as the Vrouw Vennepolder a group of archaeology students just hit the last ice age. Considering this involves manually pushing a ground core to a depth of 10 meters, this is no small feat. Even so, the taking of ground samples in this, at…

Directing soil life and thereby influencing what grows above ground: that is the expertise of Leiden biologist Martijn Bezemer and his colleague Wim van der Putten (NIOO-KNAW). Their research on soil transplants has been nominated for the Huibregtsen Prize 2023. This prize goes to innovative research…

Education

Soon you will have graduated, and then what? Maybe you've been dreaming of becoming a psychologist for years, but don't want to know where to start. In this episode, clinical psychologist and lecturer Sepideh Saadat tells you how to go about it.

Education