A European cooperation project on disinformation and fact-checking training empowering current and future media and media education professionals, to identify, prevent, and combat fake news spread over digital networks.

Alumnus Peter Burger – along with his colleague Alexander Pleijter – is the face of fact-checking in the Netherlands. ‘My degree led straight to this.’

Conducting research on reliability of journalism and the trust in media.

Fake news is becoming more and more prominent now that social media allow for an endless stream of unfiltered content to reach us. But what happens if we can no longer distinguish the truth from the lie?

The Faculty of Humanities consist of various academic fields. What is the common ground of all these different academics and students? They tell their story and why it matters in today’s world in 'We are Humanities'.

This collection, edited by Sophie Vériter, Monica Kaminska, Dennis Broeders and Joachim Koops, includes six papers exploring and investigating European responses to COVID-related disinformation, specifically the responses of France, Sweden, Germany, the United Kingdom, Serbia, and Hungary.

Nieuwscheckers, a team of journalist fact-checkers from Leiden University, received the Mr. K.J. Cath Prize at the opening of the academic year on 5 September. This biennial prize is awarded to students or staff who have enhanced the University’s good name.

With the elections on the horizon, politicians frequently make bold statements to gain the support of voters. Leiden students of journalism check the truth of these statements.

People can be easily mislead with graphs. But they don’t necessarily stay misled, the research shows.

How small steps can lead to big change: that was the theme of the Leiden Education Festival. Students and lecturers came to Scheltema on 9 May to share their experiences of educational innovation.

On 24 January an interdisciplinary workshop organised by Anna Smulders, PhD candidate at the Grotius Centre for International Legal Studies, and Tarlach McGonagle, Professor of Media Law and Information Society, took place on the interaction between disinformation, emerging technologies and human rights.…

Leiden University regularly confers honorary doctorates, and presents awards and prizes.

In 2021 many of our students and staff won fantastic prizes and were awarded important research grants. This is our traditional review of these successes as the end of one year marks the beginning of another.

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

Today is the general election in the Netherlands – although the polling stations have actually been open for two days already because of the coronavirus restrictions. Leiden researchers and students are involved in all manner of ways, and are analysing the campaigns and possible results.

Comparing terrorist attacks with falling off a step ladder is absurd, writes Jeanine de Roy van Zuijdewijn in NRC Handelsblad on 27 September 2017.

In this blog post, Linda Slapakova discusses the various roles that AI plays in counter-disinformation efforts, the prevailing shortfalls of AI-based counter-disinformation tools and the technical, governance and regulatory barriers to their uptake, and how these could be addressed to foster the uptake…

An overview of awards and prizes granted to our staff and students in 2020, as well as special appointments at Leiden University and other institutions.

For medical research, researchers often recreate tissue in the lab. Organ-on-a-chip technology emulates organs, right down to the blood that flows through them, thus creating a realistic test model for drugs or research into disease processes. Researchers from the LUMC are coordinating an NWO Gravitation…

The brand-new American President Donald Trump delivered his inaugural speech on 20 January. There was little sign of conciliation and he was liberal with the truth, in the opinion of a number of Leiden academics. One professor is more positive: 'He wants to take on radical Islam.'

The university may seem a bit subdued in the run-up to the Dutch elections on 29 October. The media has barely mentioned education as an election issue, but behind the scenes the university is lobbying hard, says acting President of the Executive Board, Timo Kos. ‘We’re fighting for the future of our…

NATO not only safeguards our security and stability, but also defends Enlightenment principles, promoting prosperity, health and freedom. This is what eminent psychologist and thinker Steven Pinker argued to a packed Great Auditorium.

‘I already gave a talk about planets when I was five.’ With the theme of the 3 October celebrations being ‘Jong geleerd is oud gedaan’ (meaning something like, ‘You’re never too young to learn’), this year’s 3 October University was especially for children. Many parents came with their offspring to…

Street theatre, drama, poetry and a lot of science: Leiden's Rapenburg was the backdrop for the fifth Night of Art and Knowledge on Saturday 16 September. Many University buildings - from the Observatory to the Hortus - opened their doors to artists, scientists and a public curious to know more.

Many of our staff and students have won an award, received a grant, obtained an academic fellowship for their quality or have been socially engaged due to their specific expertise. See below for an overview per year.