Ten participants and two observers from the Faculty Council and the University Council attended the third and final meeting of the Humanities Campus Think Tank.

How did people move and form communities when human societies first shifted from hunting and gathering to farming? A new study of the Neolithic period in southwest Asia, the birthplace of agriculture, offers fresh insights.

After the KHMW Brouwer Thesis Prize for History, Vicente Fischer de Miranda Rodrigues has also won the Cornelis Thiele Prize of the Dutch Society for Religious Studies.

In the 1970s and 1980s, Argentina faced a severe dictatorship. The regime did not shy away from using brute force and torture. People who showed their dissatisfaction also regularly disappeared. For her PhD, Ana Saab researched how the memory of these disappeared people was kept alive anyway.

Emeritus professor Willem Otterspeer received a royal honour from mayor Henri Lenferink on Tuesday 20 September. The university historian was appointed Knight of the Order of Orange-Nassau.

Exotic marsh frogs from distant lands are colonising the south-east of the Netherlands. This has been demonstrated by biology students from our faculty. Although the amphibians thrive in our little country, they are harmful to native biodiversity.

Long evenings and closed university buildings make a perfect combination for listening to podcasts. Over the past six months, staff, students and alumni of the Faculty of Humanities have once again produced some great work.

In the ESOF2022 mini-symposium organized by the Social Resilience & Security programme, international experts with a background in psychology, philosophy, and law discussed how the online world is related to adolescent mental health issues, moral and emotional awareness and children’s rights. In three…

All the information about the Leiden University Global Fund (LUGF) funding instrument is given here, specifically the seed funding options for collaboration with regional partners. The LUGF awards seed funding to support regional collaborative initiatives.

Welcome to the Expertise Centre for Teaching and Learning (ECOLe). Here you will find information on didactics, teacher development, teaching innovation, assessment and the use of teaching tools at humanities. Have a question or need advice? E-mail ecole@hum.leidenuniv.nl.

From academic freedom to security and medical breakthroughs: during Leiden University’s 451st Dies Natalis, the speakers reflected on the role of universities in a world of social and geopolitical tensions.

Public procurement is not a hot topic for the average citizen. That’s a pity, says PhD candidate Erik Plas, who did research on the fair spending of public money: 'If a council project goes completely haywire, because it costs more than expected, it could even mean that local taxes will have to be r…

Lecture, Research Seminar

After a long period of isolation under pandemic, the PhD candidates of the Institute of Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology seized the opportunity to organize an in-person, on-site event: the CADS PhD Conference for 2021. With the theme "Young Scholars at the Intersection of Uncertainty,…

On March 25, the Advanced Masters of Science in International Relations and Diplomacy (MIRD) celebrated the 20th Anniversary of the programme. The celebrations began with the Reconnect event, bringing current students and alumni together, and concluded with the MIRD Gala. Throughout the day, the tight-knit…

In a packed lecture hall at Wijnhaven, Nobel Prize winner Paul Krugman succinctly summed up the essence of his argument on Wednesday 17 September: ‘Running a good society is hard’. His lecture held up a mirror to economists and policymakers.

Caroline Schep and Bianca Angelien Claveria recently joined the Institute for History as PhD candidates in the ERC-funded project “Human Subject Research and Medical Ethics in Colonial Southeast Asia”, led by Fenneke Sysling. Below they introduce themselves.

More focus on diversity in Antiquity, workshops for students with disabilities, and a card game to share stories about diversity: these and other projects will receive funding from the JEDI Fund in 2023.

The Faculty of Humanities' Justice, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (JEDI) Fund provides small grants to initiatives in support of diversity and inclusion, with specific emphasis on creating an inclusive learning environment.

This is a difficult time. Above all, for all those directly involved in this horrible case – unacceptable behaviour by a professor and his removal from the University – the case we went public about on 18 October and that has been reported in the media. This is painful and tough for the complainants…

Op welke manieren kan inclusieve communicatie ervoor zorgen dat mensen zich welkom voelen? Hierover ging het D&I-symposium van Universiteit Leiden.

Judith Pollmann, Professor of Early Modern Dutch History, has been awarded the Spinoza Prize. ‘An unbelievable honour.’

PhD defence

In het Leids Universitair Medisch Centrum wordt gewerkt aan de ontwikkeling van een nieuw malariavaccin dat effectiever is dan de huidige vaccins.

Adina Akbik has been appointed as a new member of the Young Academy Leiden (YAL) as of 1 September 2024. Akbik is Senior Assistant Professor of European Politics at Leiden University. YAL serves as a platform for early career academics, and Akbik is keen to promote the needs and interests of young researchers…

NWO (the Dutch Research Council) has granted more than 10 million euros for five human-centered AI research projects (2.1M€ each). Leiden University participates in two of these five research proposals, which are called ELSA labs.

Researchers from Leiden University, McMaster University and Public Health Ontario are calling on colleagues to track down archival specimens of mosquitoes from museums and other collections and to examine them with modern methods. This will tell them more about malaria transmission.

Leiden University’s Executive Board (CvB) visited Leiden University College in The Hague on Friday 11 November during a working visit tour past the Institutes of the Faculty Governance and Global Affairs. Hester Bijl and Martijn Ridderbos were provided with an overview of the programme, the research,…

Writer and columnist Nicolien Mizee will be Leiden University’s new writer in residence from autumn 2023.

Legal protection in education is something of a neglected child: oddly split between administrative law and civil courts. Brechtje Paijmans is calling attention to this issue as Professor by Special Appointment of Conflict Resolution and Legal Protection in Education.

On 26 January, Rowie Stolk, Laura Hanrath and Marloes Noorloos spoke at the lecture ‘The Right to Demonstrate under Scrutiny’. This discussion session, part of the university lecture series Community. Conversation. Connection., was organised in response to difficult questions about the right to demo…

If it is up to university lecturer Evelien Walhout, in a year's time we will know exactly what people from Haarlem and Zwolle died of a century ago. Together with colleagues from other universities, she started the doodsoorzaken.nl platform, where causes of death are recorded. ‘Somewhere around the…

Leiden criminologists have co-developed an artificial intelligence technology that tracks firearms incidents by scanning over 350 news sources.

In the research for her upcoming book, Elizabeth Stuart: Queen of Hearts, author and academic Nadine Akkerman stumbled upon a little-known portrait of Elizabeth Stuart, Queen of Bohemia and grandmother of King George I, which she believes would have been considered treasonous at the time it was pain…

If there's one thing that students should get from their teachers, it’s good feedback, says assistant professor Andrei Poama. ‘But we need to do it in a more fair way.’ Together with a team of experts on educational sciences, he is working on a project that develops GenAI applications that teachers…

Dr. Joana Cook and Dr. Graig Klein, assistant professors at the Institute of Security and Global Affairs of Leiden University, have been awarded a Google Trust & Safety Research Award for their project Countering Violent Extremist Content Online: A Multidisciplinary Approach.

Leiden University’s Living Lab is moving to the middle of the Leiden Bio Science Park. In the lab’s new home between the University of Applied Sciences, Mentor and Naturalis Biodiversity Center, the first ditches have now been dug. This new location is more accessible to both researchers and the public.…

In een goedgevuld Teldersauditorium vond op maandag 24 juni het symposium ‘Het Erfgoed van Meijers: 70 jaar waardering en inspiratie’ plaats. Vanuit verschillende perspectieven werd gereflecteerd op de omvangrijke nalatenschap van de Leidse hoogleraar Eduard Maurits Meijers, die precies zeventig jaar…

On 18 January 2025, the Annual Reconnect & Gala of the Advanced MSc International Relations and Diplomacy (MIRD) celebrated over 20 years of bringing together current MIRD students, alumni, and faculty members. This year’s discussions focused on the theme: 'The Future of IR: Digital Innovation, Climate…

As of 1 May 2025, Professor Kartica van der Zon has been appointed professor by special appointment of Family Law, Law of Persons and Juvenile Law at the Faculty of Law of the University of Groningen.

University lecturer Steven Lauritano has been awarded a Comenius Teaching Fellow grant. Lauritano will use the grant of 50,000 euros to improve hybrid education in classes featuring particular objects.

The Sustainability Monitor 2024 reveals that Leiden University has again taken significant steps to become a more sustainable and future-proof university. Since 1990, its carbon emissions have decreased by 50 per cent and, compared with 2019, its natural gas consumption has dropped by 32 per cent. Its…

With the conference circuit slowly reopening after Covid forced almost all academic interactions online, thousands of conference attendees descended on Brussels for Europe’s largest technology conference. eLaw’s annual sponsorship of one of the many CPDP conference panels brought a diverse range of…

Marion Pluskota is the new post-doc on Manon van der Heijden's 'Crime and Gender' project.

In 2024, the Herta Mohr building was brought into use. The Faculty Office was the first group to be housed in the new building. Towards the end of 2024, a workplace satisfaction survey was conducted among these staff members. With the relocation of LIAS to Herta Mohr in September 2024, the building…

Astronomers and surgeons from Leiden are collaborating with industry to develop an optical instrument that delivers faster, more accurate imaging of tumour tissue and abnormal blood flow during surgery.