Individual molecules are extremely hard to see through feeble fluorescence. Tiny gold nanorods serve as new antennas to intensify their signal 500 times. Publication on 24 February in Angewandte Chemie.

Antibiotic resistance is one of the major threats to human health. This week the National Antibiotic Development Platform, NADP, was officially launched via a meeting in Utrecht, with many of the stakeholders in the field present.

At the LION/Sterrewacht new year’s reception, Scientific Director of Casimir Tjerk Oosterkamp handed out the 2017 Hendrik Casimir Prize to physics students Nashwan Sabti (Leiden) and Nikolas Kavadias (Delft). The Casimir Research School yearly awards the prize to the best MSc students in (Applied) Physics…

From 11-13 April 2019, a group of 11 students from LUC and the Advanced MSc. programme in International Relations and Diplomacy attended the event NATO@70 in Portugal – Countering hybrid threats with hybrid containment: NATO’s mission for the 21st century. Leiden University’s participation in the event…

At the LION/Sterrewacht new year’s reception, Prof. Tjerk Oosterkamp handed out the 2016 Hendrik Casimir Prize to physics students Andrea Peña (Leiden) and Jorrit Hortensius (Delft). The Casimir Research School yearly awards the Hendrik Casimir Prize to the best MSc students in (Applied) Physics of…

Advanced fluorescence microscopy techniques have revealed how steroid receptors move inside the nucleus. The results were published by a team from Leiden University and the Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam, led by IBL-researcher Marcel Schaaf.

With the final weeks of the year in full swing, many students are experiencing stress. This is where a chat with the student psychologist can bring some relief. Martine Efting Dijkstra explains what she and her colleagues can do.

Yesterday, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) issued a preliminary ruling in a case brought by Nicaragua against Germany. Nicaragua accuses Germany of genocide and violating international humanitarian law by supplying arms to Israel. Eric de Brabandere, Professor of International Dispute Settlement…

In 2020, many of our staff and students have again won prestigious prizes and been awarded important research subsidies.

Talking about suicide is important, but anything but comfortable. To make this difficult subject easier for students and staff to discuss, the university is organising a campaign week in line with the national campaign ‘1K Z1E J3’ (I see you) being run by Stichting 113 Zelfmoordpreventie (113 is the…

Lecture, NGL-lezing

There are many complex links in the chain that provides patients with new drugs: from fundamental science, to clinical tests, to production. The entire chain can be found in Leiden. Leiden University, the Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC) and the businesses at the Leiden Bio Science Park (LBSP)…

In 2022, many of our staff and students won fantastic prizes and were awarded important research grants.

Overview of the main research projects at the Leiden Papyrological Institute.

Leiden is the place for Law

At the initiative and expense of His Royal Highness King Willem-Alexander, Leiden University will be conducting a study of the role of the House of Orange-Nassau in Dutch colonial history. The project will run from 2023 to 2026.

The research group Intelligence and Security has been augmented with a team Policing Studies as part of the collaboration agreement with the Dutch National Police. This team is tasked with creating a more academic foundation for the current knowledge surrounding policing studies in the Netherlands,…

A safe haven for students, more bicultural staff and more powers for diversity officers. In a national expert meeting at Campus The Hague, administrators, diversity officers, students and staff discussed urgently needed measures.

Lecture, Descriptive Linguistics Seminars

Recontextualising the Papyri from Roman Soknopaiou Nesos / Dimê (Fayyum, Egypt)

A piece of corrugated rubber can function as a simple computer, displaying memory and displaying the ability to count to two. Leiden physicists describe the computing rubber in the journal PNAS. ‘Simple materials can process information, and we want to find the principles behind that.’

Camilo Erlichman recently joined the Institute for History as a lecturer in International Relations. He introduces himself.

Martin van Hecke and Lennard Kwakernaak (Leiden university and AMOLF) develop a mechanical metamterial that can count to ten in their research.

On 10 September 2020 the European Law Institute (ELI) launched the book Rescue of Business in Europe. The volume presents the results of a study led by Prof. Em. Bob Wessels (Leiden University, The Netherlands) and Prof. Stephan Madaus (Martin-Luther University, Germany), assisted by Gert-Jan Boon (Leiden…

An external visitation committee gave the Institute of Biology Leiden (IBL) an outstanding assessment. In terms of research quality and relevance to society, the IBL gets the highest score: excellent. The increase with five new female professors also receives praise from the committee.

The online summer programme Space in Your Living Room by Leiden Observatory has won the first prize ‘Most Innovative Event’ of the Astronomy@Home Awards from the International Astronomical Union. In July and August 2020, participants could for example talk to real astronauts and imagine life forms in…

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.

On 26 January 2023, a conference was held at Leiden Law School on children’s rights and migration. The conference, organised by Stichting Migratierecht Nederland (SMN) and the Europa Institute of Leiden University, was attended by academics, lawyers, judges, policymakers, and other legal professionals…

Metamaterials have properties that depend on their shape and architecture. Researchers at AMOLF, Leiden University and Tel Aviv University have found a new way of designing these metamaterials and their properties by deliberately incorporating small errors. They publish their results today in Nature…

On 28 and 29 April 2022, the fourth annual PhD Workshop on European and International Insolvency Law took place, organised by the Foundation Bob Wessels Insolvency Law Collection (BWILC). A shared first prize was awarded to Gert-Jan Boon (Leiden University) and Theodora Kostoula (European University…

In June and July 2012 a Leiden Fieldschool was conducted at the late pre-Columbian site of Anse Trabaud in southeastern Martinique. High levels of preservation and waterlogged contexts revealed spectacular finds.

Young transgender people are able to decide together with their parents on a reversible intervention with puberty blockers. These are the results of a study by LUMC Curium and Amsterdam UMC of 74 young people undergoing treatment. Ninety percent of the young people studied proved able to make an informed…

George Floyd's death still leads to fierce protests against police violence and racism on a daily basis in the United States and abroad. We asked Paul Wouters how he experiences these developments and what this will mean for our faculty.

Staff and students from the Faculty of Archaeology are just back from a newly started Field School in the inland of Portugal.

Three PhD candidates from the Faculty of Humanities have successfully applied for funding from NWO for new PhD candidates. The three upcoming researchers will receive funding from the PhDs in Humanities programme. With the funding, NWO wants to boost the recruitment and advancement of young talent in…

On 5 September, spaceEU was launched at the Ars Electronica Festival in Linz, one of the world’s largest science, technology and media art festivals. This 1 million euro European-funded project is coordinated by Leiden Observatory. SpaceEU fosters a young, creative and inclusive European space community…

Quantum technologies are in demand worldwide, but until now Leiden students could not specialise in them. The new master’s program QIST (Quantum Information Science and Technology) is going to change that. Researcher and professor Jordi Tura i Brugués: ‘We need to train the next generation of quantum…

On 9 and 10 November, the Institute of International and European Law of the University of Göttingen and the Minerva Center for Human Rights of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, organized a conference called ‘Unpacking Economic and Social Rights: International and Comparative Dimensions’.

Detecting molecules with temperature instead of chemical reactions: that’s what scientists from the Leiden Institute of Physics want to do. They are developing a sensor that utilizes special nanoparticles to keep track of certain molecules. In this way, they can for example see how well new drugs do…

On Tuesday, the 16th of May, the Faculty of Archaeology put a festive end to the 25th year celebrations. The programme included a dedication of our largest meeting room, the sealing and burying of a time capsule, and a BBQ.

Two researchers from the Faculty of Archaeology have received a grant from the Museums, Collections and Society (MSC) interdisciplinary programme. This grant is for collection-based research. Jason Laffoon is using his grant for research into the origins of Central American turquoise, while Dr Marike…

Martin van Hecke en Anne Meeussen publiceren in het tijdschrift Nature over mechanische metamaterialen. Ze hebben een nieuwe klasse multistabiele materialen ontdekt. Dit is gebaseerd op ribbeltjes plastic.

Even embryos can become embroiled in an evolutionary arms race with another species. Leiden biologists demonstrate this with larvae of the rosy bitterling that parasitize the gills of freshwater mussels. They published their research on February 19 in PNAS.

On Monday, Minister of Education, Culture and Science Robbert Dijkgraaf attended the start of Orientation Week Leiden (OWL), the introduction week for international students at Leiden University. He welcomed the students and spoke with them about their ambitions and the problems they face.

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.

The death of George Floyd at the hands of the police may have sparked the Black Lives Matter protests in the United States and here in the Netherlands, but they are about more than that alone. We asked Karwan Fatah-Black, a historian who specialises in the Dutch colonial history, for his analysis. ‘We…

When university lecturer Martine Bruil was on exchange in Ecuador as a teenager, she fell in love with the area's ancient languages. Now, more than 20 years later, she is starting a research project on the kinship of the language Awapit with the Quechua language that was spread by the Incas.