Being a student member of the faculty board? Ebrar Kaya fulfilled this role last year as assessor of the Faculty of Humanities. In September, Anne Wellink took over from him. In this interview, we look back and ahead at the assessorship with them.

Environmental economist Rutger Hoekstra is a guest researcher at Leiden University. He is studying the question of how we can measure societal progress based on a broader range of factors than only Gross Domestic Product.

Wat betekent het om alumni te zijn aan de Faculteit der Rechtsgeleerdheid? Naast een maandelijks blad en een groot netwerk organiseert de faculteit ook jaarlijks het alumni-evenement ‘Leiden Revisited’. Wie zijn deze alumni en waarom blijven zij graag actief?

On 22 March, five days after his final attendance at the Lucia de B case, Professor of Statistics, Richard Gill, will be appointed Distinguished Lorentz Fellow 2010-2011. To mark the award, Gill is organising a breakfast symposium on the relations between the media, science and law.

A smart city is of no use if its residents don’t trust it. Tanaquil Arduin, Chief Data Officer at the Municipality of The Hague, and Bram Klievink, Professor of Digitalisation and Public Policy at Leiden University, explain how this can be avoided – to some extent. ‘Make sure civil servants and residents…

Hermelijn Smits is Professor of Host-commensal Interactions and Immune Modulation. In this role she is increasing our current understanding of the way in which microbes and parasites shape our immune system to protect us from respiratory infections and chronic inflammatory diseases. In her inaugural…

Court cases that get out of hand are enacted again and again, according to PhD candidate Tessa de Zeeuw. De Zeeuw: ‘Even if the court comes to the correct judgement, from a legal point of view, the issues that appear in a case such as that of Lucia de Berk continue to

Animal species that are dear to us in the Netherlands often spend a large part or all of their lifecycle in other parts of the world. But their habitats worldwide are under increasing pressure, are often inadequately protected and much poorer than the global average. ‘If we truly care about these animals,…

Rachel Schats has been a familiar face at the Faculty of Archaeology since she started her bachelor’s in Archaeology in 2005. Now she is an assistant professor, working on her Veni project on malaria in the Middle Ages. ‘I have included in this project so many skeletal collections that no one has ever…

‘It became very clear that Brazilian legislative policy was frail, obsolete and unreliable,’ says Felipe de Paula. He will defend his dissertation on the limits and possibilities of legislative policy in Brazil on Tuesday 27 March 2018.

The number of international organisations has increased over the last decades. As has the number of cities interested in housing these organisations. International organisations bring wealth to cities and help improve their reputation. They often act as a magnet for other international corporations.…

At the Faculty's opening of the 2019-2020 academic year, the focus lay not just on the vision for the future of the social sciences, and the opening of the refurbished library, but above all on the government's plans for university financing. The speeches included an interview between Annemarie Samuels…

Psychologist Aukje Nauta studies what makes people feel better in an organisation. For many, this ‘organisation’ is now the family; for those who live alone, this organisation has disappeared completely. What are the implications and how can a single person deal with possible problems?

Queen Juliana was not, as is often claimed, a monarch with an unstable character who was completely under the influence of spiritual healer Greet Hofmans. Furthermore, her religious circle of friends was not a sect with a political agenda. That is what Han van Bree concludes on the basis of a new archival…

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.

Ratna Saptari is since 2007 Assistant Professor at the Institute of Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology. She has always been involved with issues of human rights and Indonesian workers' rights. This August she retired. But she won't sit still. She continues her voluntary work and wants to…

Being rejected always hurts, but so does having to reject someone. Social psychologists have discovered that at interviews to select suitable housemates students dehumanise candidates to make it easier to reject them. That may sound harsh but, according to the researchers, it is also logical.

The sustainable production of hydrogen could potentially be made more efficient by adding a cleverly chosen salt to the process. Researchers at the Leiden Institute of Chemistry (LIC), in collaboration with physicists at the University of Twente, have discovered that the type of salt present in the…

Princess Beatrix was a guest at the opening of the conference on ‘Chinese Buddhism and the Scholarship of Erik Zürcher’ in Leiden on 12 February. Buddhism researchers from all parts of the world came together to reflect on the work of Leiden sinologist Erik Zürcher.

Who will win this year’s Teaching Prize in the Faculty of Humanities? Who will the students honour with this coveted token of their appreciation? Read on to get to know four passionate teachers – about minds working at top speed, experimental teaching styles and that satisfying moment when the penny…

Decision makers are faced with dilemmas as result of the corona crisis. Dr. Jeroen Wolbers, Assistant Professor Crisis Governance at the Crisis Research Center explains the existing dilemmas and what makes the corona crisis unique when compared to other crises.

The Tour of Asia, an afternoon filled with science and culture about Asia, attracted many visitors. In spite of the heavy rain, the visitors chose from among dozens of lectures and debates. This knowledge festival marked the opening of the Asian Library earlier in the day.

From the late Middle Ages onwards, maritime conflict has developed hand in hand with international trade. Over time, specific institutions were established to address disputes arising from violence or mishap at sea and in coastal areas. Conflict resolution at sea has mostly been studied through the…

Former PhD student Cameron Mackie will been awarded not one, but two dissertation prizes for his thesis on the aromatic universe. His work could provide us with a virtual sniff of space. ‘These molecules in space likely smell like a big charcoal grill!’

Managers in the public and semi-public sector work in an increasingly complex and unpredictable environment, which demands new knowledge and competences but also offers tremendous opportunities. This will be the view presented by Zeger van der Wal, professor by special appointment in Public Administration,…

News articles have only a limited influence on the course of legislative processes. This is the finding of political science expert Lotte Melenhorst in her PhD dissertation. Defence 21 March.

NASA’s telescope SOFIA has provided a new glimpse of the chemistry in the inner region surrounding massive young stars where future planets could begin to form. Leiden PhD candidate Andrew Barr writes about it in the Astrophysical Journal. The scientists found massive quantities of water and organic…

Science is under pressure and ‘alternative facts’ are increasingly being taken as truth. On 22 April, scientists will let their voices be heard on Museumplein in Amsterdam, for anyone with a passion for science. Zsuzsika Sjoerds is co-organiser of this March for Science and explains why knowledge is…

A The Hague-based project is aiming to tackle teacher shortage and socioeconomic inequality reflected in primary education – and the objective is to do so while helping schools face the challenges imposed by the Covid-19 pandemic in the Netherlands. Higher education students are joining hands with primary…

The Leiden Leadership Centre (Leiden University), the Centre for Leadership Ethics and Organisation (Queen's University Belfast) and the Journal of Change Management will be organising a symposium and a special issue on multi-level leadership for the collective good. The complexity and dynamics of societal…

Chinese export paintings have a much greater cultural-historical and artistic value than was previously thought in the Netherlands, according to external PhD candidate Rosalien van der Poel. She advocates making these works accessible to the general public. PhD defence 30 November.

Patients with skin diseases such as eczema and psoriasis, sometimes spend a lifetime searching for the right medication. To help these patients faster and better, scientists across the country are joining forces. The Next Generation ImmunoDermatology (NGID) project, with LACDR professor Robert Rissmann…

Covid-19 has had a huge impact on teaching at universities over the past two years. Through force of circumstances, lecturers have adapted much faster to a digital future. On 7 June Leiden Teachers Academy’s annual Education Festival (working language is English) will present insights on this ‘new n…

De minister van BZK heeft op 17 oktober het onderzoeksrapport ”Openbaarmaking van overheidsinformatie. Een rechtsvergelijkend onderzoek naar wetgeving in Zweden, het Verenigd Koninkrijk, Duitsland, Frankrijk, Slovenië en Estland” aangeboden aan de Tweede en Eerste Kamer. Het rapport is geschreven door…

When children wean off from heavy medication, they often experience withdrawal symptoms. The severity of these symptoms is often difficult to predict. Pharmacologist Bas Goulooze developed a computer model to determine the best weaning strategy for each child. His research has now been published in…

Han Meyer, Carola Hein, Paul van de Laar and Sabine Luning, argue that in the current moment of major crises these ship channels necessitate radical reconsideration.

What effect did the lockdown have on young people? Leiden researchers started a study of this in the first year of the covid pandemic. They discovered an impact on the development of the brain areas involved in social behaviour. The researchers published their discovery in Scientific Reports at Nat…

At the VIth Monte Albán Round Table conference (July 2011) in Oaxaca, Mexico, Maarten Jansen (Leiden University) together with Mexican archaeologists Dante García and Iván Rivera (both from the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia) discussed the topography and toponyms of the archaeological…

With a grant from the Digital Infrastructure Insights Fund D//F, John Boy and members of the d12n research cluster will explore new ways critical technologists try to align their work with digital technology with the political goal of defending the public interest.

'Make sure you separate yourself from your work.' And, 'Your dissertation doesn't have to be a magnum opus.' It was raining tips for PhD students at the humanities PhD event on well-being on Tuesday, 5 September.

On Friday 12 November Professor of Palliative Medicine Yvette van der Linden will give her inaugural lecture entitled: ‘Timeless’. How do we spend our time if illness cuts it short? According to Van der Linden much stands to be gained in the area of care during this last phase of life. Among other things,…

Three lecturers from Leiden University have been awarded a €100,000 Comenius Teaching grant within the Senior Fellows programme. A further two lecturers have been awarded a €50,000 grant within the Teaching Fellows programme. The grants will enable the lecturers and their project teams to realise an…

Ton Schumacher, professor by special appointment in Immunotechnology at the LUMC and group leader of Molecular Oncology and Immunology at the Netherlands Cancer Institute, has been awarded the NWO Stevin Prize. The Stevin Prize and the Spinoza Prize are the top scientific prizes in the Netherlands and…

Professor of Cardiothoracic Surgery, in particular pulmonary surgery, Jerry Braun will give his inaugural lecture on Friday 23 September entitled ‘Out of countless millions’. Braun has been a professor and acting head of the LUMC’s Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery since January 2020. Covid meant…

The occupation of the Afghan capital Kabul by the radical Taliban movement on 15 August 2021 received enormous international attention, not least because of the crisis that soon enveloped Kabul airport as desperate Afghans sought to flee the country on evacuation flights mounted by the United States…

How can we use Population Health Management to help the citizens of The Hague get and stay healthier? This was the key question during the 5th Working Conference of LUMC-Campus The Hague on 15 January in The Hague. The issue was debated by more than 150 doctors, researchers, lecturers, healthcare professionals,…

Theoretical physicist Carlo Beenakker has been awarded a €2m Advanced Grant by the European Research Council (ERC). He will use this to try to create the ideal building blocks for a quantum computer: ‘braided’ Majorana fermions. An ambitious project that may just lead to a major breakthrough.

Earning some quick money by drug trafficking, committing an act of violence or almost collapsing under performance pressure. In the four-part NeurolabNL Young vodcast young people talk openly with neuroscientists about high-risk behaviour and performance pressure. How did they find their way back?

Edith Schippers, Minister of Health, will be investing six million euros over the coming four years to boost research on new antibiotics. The programme will be set up by several different parties, including the Leiden Centre for Antimicrobial Research.

Are disturbances to the brain, such as Alzheimer's or autism, linked to specific defects in the underlying communication networks in the brain? If this is the case, subtle changes in the networks can act as a marker for brain disturbances. Neuroscientist Serge Rombouts will be investigating this, together…