December 2020 saw the crowning publication of the Landscapes of Survival project by Professor Peter Akkermans. Its main topic is human habitation in marginal environments like the deserts of the Arabian Peninsula. ‘The people living here built their own society, and they would not have viewed it as…

Positive emotions are important for our health and sense of well-being - they make our lives meaningful. Now, Henk van Steenbergen and his colleagues have published an authoritative new volume on the latest scientific research on positive emotions.

At a festive book presentation on the 21st of July Prof. em. Henk Versnel received a copy of the volume Coping with Versnel. This historiographical volume highlights the important position of Versnel’s work in the study of religion in the ancient world.

More and more medicines are becoming available that target a tumour’s specific traits. The use of chemotherapy is continually undergoing improvement.

The central theme of the NWO-project ‘The Promise of Organization’ is the evolution of political organization during the 19th century. We focus on the enthusiasm, arguments and concrete activities of the organizers as well as the criticism offered by opponents of modern political organization.

The fourth conference of Isis Studies was organised by Liège college and has now been published by Laurent Bricault and Miguel John Versluys.

Wondering who appeared at the start in 2019?

By effectively integrating word-class scientific research and excellent business education, you will become a professional astronomer with an internationally recognized MSc degree prepared for technological business challenges.

By effectively integrating word-class scientific research and excellent education, you will become a professional astronomer with an internationally recognized degree.

By effectively integrating word-class scientific research and excellent education, you will become a professional astronomer with an internationally recognized degree.

By integrating world-class scientific research and education, you will become a professional physicist with an internationally recognized degree.

Globalisation leads to more contradictions between national and international tax norms. It therefore seems necessary to revise the fiscal legislation. This is not only due to the problem posed by multinationals, but also to changing norms regarding tax burden distribution. Fundamental research on the…

By effectively integrating world-class scientific research and excellent education, you will become a professional astronomer with an internationally recognized degree.

History is being taught at Leiden University since the days of Justus Lipsius [1547-1606]. In 1860, following the appointment of Robert Fruin as Leiden professor of Dutch History, modern historical investigation started in the Netherlands.

By effectively integrating word-class scientific research and excellent education, you will become a professional astronomer with an internationally recognized degree.

Three projects with Leiden researchers are to receive a subsidy from NWO for the construction or renovation of large-scale research facilities. They will be working on electron microscopy, an X-omics initiative and an X-ray telescope. The projects are part of the National Roadmap for Large-Scale Scientific…

The colonial and slavery past is an important theme in education and research at Leiden University. Particular attention is also paid to structural abuses that arose from this history and that often still persist in the present day.

Is there extra-terrestrial life out there? It now looks as though we can sketch out an answer to this enduring question. Leiden Observatory is helping to build new instruments to find the most promising exoplanets.

Alumni event

Marten Soolmans (1613-1641) studied law in Leiden at the same time that Rembrandt lived in the city. Rembrandt painted Soolmans and his wife Oopjen in 1634, after all three had moved to Amsterdam. This remarkable portrait of the sumptuously dressed Soolmans can be seen at the Kamerlingh Onnes Building,…

Our object is to identify and characterize transcription factors involved in lignocellulosic biomass degradation in the filamentous fungus Aspergillus niger.

This publication of the School of Advanced Study of the University of London is one of the outcomes of the Landscapes of Early Roman Colonization project and the Colonial Rural Networks project (NWO, Dr. T.D. Stek). The volume, edited by Tesse Stek and prof. Gert-Jan Burgers of the Free University Amsterdam,…

Leiden University's Citizen Science Lab supports and organizes initiatives where anyone can get started with scientific data and research. This is how we enrich research with insights from the community, make science accessible to all, and tackle important local issues together.

The project GRADIENTS investigates what it meant to be European in colonial Africa where identification as European often did not depend on skin colour and was understood on a spectrum with many gradients.

Hieratic Papyrology

Legal proceedings are often time-consuming, costly and stressful. Accessible out-of-court dispute resolution can sometimes offer a good alternative, but having access to reliable and efficient judicial proceedings remains equally important.

A mere day after setting foot ashore in the Bahamas on October 13th 1492, Christopher Columbus notes the broad foreheads of the inhabitants of the Americas. These permanently altered cranial shapes are deliberately created through the application of pressure to the head of the infant in the first years…

How did slaves in the eighteenth century manage to empower themselves and their kin, and why did this become all the more difficult in the nineteenth century?

Research in the History and International Studies 1900-present specialisation addresses the interconnectedness and interdependence of contemporary global political, economic and cultural developments from a multidisciplinary perspective which is rooted in the humanities.

The Colonial and Global History Research Programme of the Leiden University Institute for History combines a deep curiosity of transcultural processes such as imperialism, (de)colonization, and globalization with critical historical research on regional societies in Africa, Asia, and the Americas.

Lecture, Unfolding Finitudes

Five Leiden astronomers tell about science in the podcast Astronomy et al. This podcast was set up by Ricardo Garcia Soto in September 2016 and is focused on anyone who is interested in science.

The map application includes information from old and new buildings archaeological projects. This makes it possible to investigate whether water facilities (wells, cisterns) and waste facilities (cesspits, sewers) were the privilege of Leiden’s wealthy elite in the late 16th and 17th centuries or whether…

Alumni event

AstroEDU is one of the world's most inspiring education innovations, according to the experts at HundrED. It is a recognition for a place where educators can discover, review, change, and share astronomy- and space-related activities for primary and secondary education, and where they can have their…

On the evening of Tuesday January 31st, the physics institute organizes its triannual meeting for over seventy high school teachers. The program consists of lectures on developments in modern physics and the latest initiatives in the world of education.

After a year of hard work, the second class of students of the Master of Laws: Advanced Studies in International Children’s Rights received their well-deserved master diplomas on Monday 28 August.

ESA’s Euclid mission is to reveal the dark side of the Universe. But how? Professor of Observational cosmology Henk Hoekstra explains it in his interview with Space Team Europe and Horizon Magazine. He uses enlightening examples such as… a swimming pool! Listen to Henk Hoekstra to understand how Euclid…

'Dialogues Between Artistic Research and Science and Technology Studies', edited by Henk Borgdorff, Peter Peters and Trevor Pinch, will be published by Routledge on November 18

PhD defence

If three or more objects move around each other, history cannot be reversed. That is the conclusion of an international team of researchers based on computer simulations of three black holes orbiting each other. The researchers, led by the Dutch astronomer Tjarda Boekholt, publish their findings in…

After 25 years, December will finally see the launch of the long-awaited James Webb space telescope. Leiden astronomers are watching with great excitement: not only were they involved in the construction of important instruments on board, the telescope will also reveal many new secrets of the universe,…

Leiden physicist Julia Cramer receives 50 thousand euros in funding for 'Let's talk about quantum', a research project on communication about quantum computing. A project for high school students by education expert Henk Buisman is also included in the NEWA ELSA funding.

On November 30, 2023, the research group Institutions for Conflict Resolution (COI) organized a stakeholder meeting on governmental problem-solving and its implications for legitimacy. COI is a joint collaboration between the Universities of Leiden, Utrecht, and Nijmegen as part of the Dutch Sector…

Astronomers want to understand the Universe, from the Big Bang to the present day, and what the future will hold. In Leiden they focus on two key questions: ‘How did stars and planets originate’ and ‘How were galaxies and black holes formed in the young Universe?’ A new generation of telescopes – just…

Anthropologist Rodrigo Ochigame studies how AI is changing the practice of scientific research. From astrophysics to mathematics to climate science, they find that the adoption of new AI models is raising questions about what counts as reliable scientific evidence.

The excuses for the slavery past? It would have been better if the cabinet had taken some more time on that, thinks university lecturer and Atlantic slavery expert Karwan Fatah-Black. 'Too bad they didn’t wait for the results of the study.'

On November 21, theoretical physicist Juan Maldacena gives the Ehrenfest Colloquium. Maldacena is known worldwide as the inventor of AdS/CFT correspondence, which might be key to a theory of quantum gravity. Maldacena is winner of the prestigious Dirac Prize and the Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental…