The launch meeting of the Leiden Islam Academy on 7 December in the Academy Building drew just the right audience: a diverse group of people who were all in some way engaged with Islam. This was just what the directors of the Academy, Maurits Berger and Fatiha Azzarhouni, were hoping for.

Tom Long (2022). A Small State’s Guide to Influence in World Politics. Oxford University Press. ISBN: 9780190926212, 240 pp. (hardback), £19.99.

Conference

Australian cell biologist Melissa Little and Dutch physicist Robbert Dijkgraaf will each be awarded an Honorary doctorate at the Dies Natalis of Leiden University in February 2019. They are receiving these awards for their services to science.

How to strengthen mutual trust between agencies in the criminal justice system and youth with a migration background or weaker socio-economic position. The Netherlands Science Agenda has awarded 1.5 million euros to a consortium to find out.

On Friday 8 June 2018, Hugo Weiland’s long-standing service was celebrated with a festive lunch organized by board members Ida van Veldhuizen en Hans van Eenennaam.

Lecture, Conversation

Lecture

German historian Katja Happe is the new Cleveringa Professor at Leiden University. She will give the Cleveringa Lecture on 26 November 2019. She conducts research into the persecution of the Jews in the Netherlands, and wrote the critically acclaimed book 'Veel valse hoop' (Much False Hope).

Lecture, Applied African Linguistics

LUC historian Jacqueline Hylkema unmasks forgeries from the early modern Dutch Republic in the research project

On Monday, 4 July 2022, the graduation of the two-year Advanced MSc International Relations and Diplomacy (MIRD) programme was commemorated in the iconic Academy Building in Leiden. Students and guests were welcomed by the Program Director, Professor Madeleine Hosli.

The Centre for Science and Technology Studies (Leiden University) has adopted a new governance structure. As of January 1, 2019, the centre will be led by Prof. Sarah de Rijcke, who has been appointed by the board of the Faculty of Social and Behavioral Sciences (FSW) as the new scientific director…

On 21 and 22 March 2019 the workshop 'Criptic Identities. Historicizing the identity formation of persons with disabilities across the globe' takes place at the Leiden Institute for History.

Research of the Leiden Institute of Chemistry into the development of a sustainable fuel cell has accidentally resulted in an exceptionally efficient catalyst for the production of hydrogen peroxide. The catalyst, discovered by Dennis Hetterscheid and PhD candidate Michiel Langerman, may lead to a more…

Bacteria whirl around in the mouths of most people, forming dental plaques and sometimes causing nasty gum infections. Treponema denticola might be a dangerous pathogen, but not much is known about this bacterium. It was up to Ariane Briegel and her research group to change that.

Dr. Bakhtiyar Babadjanov is the first Erasmus Fellow within the Erasmus Mobility Plus Project between Leiden University and the Tashkent State Institute of Oriental Studies, in particular the Al-Biruni Centre of Oriental Manuscripts. The two-year project (2016-2018) envisages exchange of teaching staff…

‘Heritage Under Threat’ and ‘The Rooseveltian Century’ are among the 21 best MOOCs for a general public according to New York Magazine.

Lecture, LIAS Lunch Talk Series

Lecture

Lecture

Scientists of the faculty of Governance and Global Affairs research completely different subject, among which terrorism, cybercrime and migration. In the upcoming weeks we will give the floor to several of our very best researchers. In this episode: Constant Hijzen researches secret services.

Away from the public eye, the court case in Turkey against the Dutch jihadist Reda N. came to a close this week. The verdict has far reaching implications for the case against Reda scheduled to appear in front of a Dutch court next week. Edwin Bakker, Professor Terrorism and Counterterrorism at the…

PhD candidate Dennis Wander searches for the best of both worlds. That is to say: a cancer drug that is effective and also has minimal side effects. To this end, he makes new molecules inspired by two existing medicines. And not without result: ‘We have created a new variant that is very promising.’…

Neanderthals used careful techniques to hunt their prey at close range. This is the conclusion of an international team of archaeologists, including researchers, in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution. Publication 25 June.

When we are around four years old we suddenly start to understand that other people think and that their view of the world is often different from our own. Researchers in Leiden and Leipzig have explored how that works. Publication in Nature Communications on 21 March.

A European consortium has provided a disruptive technological breakthrough to allow the discovery and characterization of novel enzymes for industrial biotechnology. The technology will open the way to more efficient industrial processes such as in the biofuel, animal feed and paper and pulp industr…

This year, LUCIS adapted the programme of its popular annual Middle Eastern Culture Market into an evening version, featuring a lecture, book discussion, and music.

Ben de Jong and Paul Abels, both working for ISGA, discuss the Russian claim that espionage equipment was found in Dutch newspaper Algemeen Dagblad (AD). According to the Russians the equipment was found in one of the cars used by their diplomats in The Hague.

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.

A new mathematical model may explain how body cells get their shapes and what makes them move within a tissue. The model provides fundamental knowledge for applications in tissue engineering, amongst other things. Publication in open-access journal iScience.

From 19 to 21 September 2018 the third annual conference of the Law and Development Research Network (LDRN) will take place at Leiden University. The theme of the conference will be 'Interfaces'.

How do you recount historic events if you are not allowed to talk about them? For his dissertation, Taufiq Hanafi tried to find out how a period of mass murder – despite heavy censorship – found a place in Indonesian literature. PhD defence 31 March.

What will happen if the lights in a large part of the city are switched off? How many stars can you see without all that light pollution? This is what researchers, artists and the residents of Leiden are going to investigate during Seeing Stars Leiden on 25 September. ‘Leiden is the ideal place for…

Today, March 15 2016, the FAIR Guiding Principles for scientific data management and stewardship were formally published in the Nature Publishing Group journal Scientific Data.

Lecture

Researchers from the Leiden Institute of Chemistry show proof of principle that live-cell structural changes and metabolic processes can be followed in real time with NMR spectroscopy. They performed their study on photosynthetic green algae that are metabolically flexible and can sustain energy generation…

Leiden University computer scientists Yu Liu, Yanming Guo and Michael Lew are a step closer to their ultimate goal: search engines with visual recognition. Their publication of a new algorithm for fusing multi-scale deep learning representations has been received with great enthusiasm. No other algorithm…

Daniela Kraft's group has succeeded in creating a network of microparticles that is both strong and completely flexible. This may sound simple, yet they are the first in the world to succeed in doing so. A real breakthrough in soft matter physics.

For the first time, researchers were able to grow organoids from snake venom glands. The lab-grown 3-D structures can produce snake venom molecules. This is a major step in finding treatments to tackle snakebite, which causes over 100,000 deaths each year. Publication in top journal Cell.

Conference, D&I Symposium

On 30 April, Prime Minister Mark Rutte was presented with the manifesto of the NWO Youth Challenge, which contains advice for policymakers, scientists and administrators on the empowerment of youth in the time of coronavirus. The manifesto is based on research questions submitted to the science community…

Bringing young, enthusiastic and driven academics from different disciplines together, that’s the goal of the Young Academy Leiden (YAL). As a new member, Assistant professor Jan van Rijn is excited to look at AI from different perspective. ‘I want to bring my expertise together with different point…

Conference