In her book Between Smiles and Grimaces, Mariska Kret shows us what differences there are between humans and animals, and more importantly, what similarities.

Can SMILE, our multi-component intervention, which combines cognitive-behavioural therapy for insomnia, mindfulness, stress, and lifestyle components, improve sleep quality? Can it also improve mood and quality of life and prevent depression and anxiety in the long term?

Spontaneously helping one another, why do we bother? It is believed that lending a hand to others promotes social bonding, helping us to connect with each other and even build friendships. In our experiment, in which the adult researcher ‘accidentally’ dropped matches on the floor, most adolescents…

Developing new medicines is one of modern science's most significant hurdles, a process marked by high costs, long timelines, and frequent failures of promising candidates.

We are proud to announce that the 1st Volume of INTER-SECTION is now available.

Research at the Leiden University Centre for Linguistics (LUCL) focuses on linguistic variation and diversity. In order to create more awareness and scientific understanding of this topic, research activities are clustered around six (overlapping) umbrella programmes. Many of our researchers are active…

A virtual hand that feels as if it is your own. Feeling happier because a virtual face is smiling with you. Cognitive Psychologist Ke Ma discovered using virtual reality that the way we experience our body is more flexible than we thought. Ma: ‘We can think up some fantastic applications.' PhD defence…

Information about the situation in Ukraine

Browse the latest articles and issues of Inter-Section.

Young babies laugh like adult apes do: producing sounds while inhaling and exhaling. Adult humans produce sounds on the exhale only. Cognitive psychologist Mariska Kret and colleagues have published an article about the development of human laughter in the journal Biology Letters.

Silver jewellery, sculptures made of cork and intriguing photos of psychiatrists' treatment rooms. Staff at Leiden University exhibit their artworks in the Old Library. The summer exhibition can be viewed until 12 August.

Life Sciences Artificial Intelligence Data Science

The goal of hit discovery is to identify suitable chemical starting points to modulate a drug target. A hit can be, a.o., a small molecule, a protein or mRNA. Hit identification is performed via rational design, genome mining, (targeted) library screening, or in silico approaches.

Siemens recently took over the Leiden software company Culgi, founded by professor and inventor J.G.E.M. (Hans) Fraaije. We spoke to him about the algorithm that made him successful, the role of a university in our society and his ambitions at Siemens. ‘I was looking for Siemens, and they were looking…

A virtual hand that feels as if it is your own. Feeling happier because a virtual face is smiling with you. Cognitive Psychologist Ke Ma discovered using virtual reality that the way we experience our body is more flexible than we thought. Ma: ‘We can think up some fantastic applications.' PhD defence…

On 18 July 2018 former President of South Africa Nelson Mandela would have been 100 years old. In 1999 the anti-apartheid activist received an honorary doctorate from Leiden University. His response was modest: 'This is not a personal achievement. It is a tribute to all those who were involved in the…

Leiden University's Pre-University College is celebrating its 20th anniversary. The programme introduced hundreds of secondary school pupils to science and the university. We asked those involved how PRE became so popular: ‘The students are the reason it still exists today.’

On Wednesday 19 October 2022, the graduation ceremony for the International Relations MA programme took place. In the Teylerszaal of the Academy Building, the cohort of Master's students received their diploma.

Vera Meester has won the annual Physics Image Award 2016, with her photo of 'smiling' colloids. The Volkskrant published the picture as Image of the Week.

A standing ovation. A wave and a smile from the president. A final selfie. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky addressed students in the Netherlands for the first time on Tuesday morning via a livestream in The Hague. He did so in front of two packed lecture halls at both Leiden University and The…

Nelson Mandela, former President of South Africa, who died on 5 december 2013, received an honorary doctorate from Leiden University in 1999. Mandela’s response was modest: ‘It is not a personal achievement. It is a tribute to all those who emerged from underground, from prison, from exile...’

Wearing All Stars and ‘just’ a pair of jeans, with a backpack slung over his shoulder. It was an informal Friday afternoon with Mark Rutte, NATO Secretary General, at Wijnhaven. Perched on a desk, he took questions from students in the audience.

Jasper de Bie, who obtained his doctoral degree at the Institute of Criminal Law & Criminology and who is currently employed by the Ministry of Security and Justice, has been awarded an honourable third place in the international competition 'TRI Award for the Best Doctoral Dissertation on Terrorism…

Professor of Molecular Astrophysics Ewine van Dishoeck is portrayed as a heroine in a pictorial children's book. ‘It starts with a dream' tells the stories of twenty exceptional Dutch women who have had a positive impact on society. The book aims to give young girls role models and encourage them to…

Leiden University and Delft University of Technology are committed to providing you with a quality graduate education by scientists who bring their cutting-edge research into the classroom. For the Industrial Ecology MSc programme, both universities integrate the expertise of two internationally recognised…

The 289 students who recently moved into the tower on Kolffpad at the Leiden Bio Science Park are sitting pretty. A self-contained unit in the middle of the campus yet surrounded by green, with a launderette, games room and study area on the ground floor, and, coming soon, a branch of Coffee Star.

In 2015, Jorryt Matthee thought he discovered an extremely distant galaxy called CR7, which lacked elements heavier than helium. Three years later, he shows with measurements using the ALMA telescope that the galaxy does have carbon after all, and even in normal concentrations. The American Astronomical…

The Chairman IBM Europe & Country General Manager IBM Netherlands, Harry Van Dorenmalen, gave a guest lecture in the M.Sc. ICT in Business course ‘˜Change Management‘™. Van Dorenmalen emphasized the need in the current knowledge economy for people to become specialists. His lively lecture discussed…

Researchers from Leiden University are working with Ouwehands Zoo to improve our understanding of emotions and intelligence in orangutans. Visitors to the zoo can now watch orangutans as they play with computer touch screens.

More than twenty students were awarded an ALGANT diploma, the prestigious two-year master's in Algebraic Geometry and Number Theory from the Mathematical Institute of eight collaborative Universities on July 18th. At the graduation ceremony in Padua, Italy, five students who had spent their second year…

A new government, conflicts around the world and obviously a lot of science: these are the five stories about Leiden University that you enjoyed reading in 2024.

The Leiden Summer School in Language and Linguistics is visited every year by many scholars worldwide. Four of the 120 participants of the 7th Summer School in 2012, share their view of Leiden.

Below we present our past and future events of the Multigreen project

The Institute of Psychology is committed to play a prominent role in teaching and research at the national and international level.

Organ transplantation is often subject to ethical, economic and political discussions. In the Honours Class Organ Transplantation, students take part in these discussions to get a better understanding of the many different views on transplantation.

We are grief-stricken that our PhD student Maolin Zhang passed away during the early morning of January 17th 2019. He died during a terrible fire that took place at his house in Hillegom.

The Hortus botanicus Leiden has one of Europe’s largest collections of living plants from the Asian region. This rich resource is no longer the sole domain of botanists. Multidisciplinary research, teaching and the general public are equally at home in the Hortus. This is the view of Paul Kessler, professor…

Glorious sunshine, dozens of enthusiastic academics and huge numbers of Leiden residents ensured that this year’s special jubilee version of 3 October University was a great success.

The greatest threat to the North Korean regime is not the outside world but its own developing private market and the growing frictions at the top. This was the argument put forward by North Korean exile Jang Jin-sung in his lecture in Leiden on 18 September 2014.

On the menu of the LLP Skills Café no beer and snacks, but communication skills as listening, resolving conflicts, and giving feedback. ‘Once you really learn to listen, you become a better leader and nicer friend.’

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a technology that often puts women and minority groups at a disadvantage because it tends to be developed by straight white men. What if that changed and women were the driving force behind AI? This is the thought experiment at the heart of Maaike Harbers’ Annie Romein-Verschoor…

On the 9th of November 2022, 149 groups of last year's primary school children from 31 schools around the Netherlands had the opportunity to become social scientists for a day, researching their own social environment in a Citizen Science project called ‘Wij vinden!” (We find!)

‘When I look back on the honours programme, all I can do is smile. It has transformed me into a student who thinks in terms of opportunities and solutions,’ said Roos ter Elst, student of Education and Child Studies, at the ceremony for the award of Honours certificates to bachelor’s students, on 6…

Nanoplastics can accumulate in developing hearts, according to a study by biologist Meiru Wang from Leiden University. Her research on chicken embryos sheds new light on how these tiny plastic particles pose a threat to our health.