Professor Jenny Doetjes at Leiden University researches similarities and differences in languages, specifically in the area of numerals and quantifiers. Her research provides insight into language patterns, bu also in the working of the human brain. Inaugural lecture on 26 January.

Brain scanners have radically changed neurolinguistics. They are increasing our understanding of how the brain processes language. Professor Niels Schiller has produced a standard work on this.

Children’s brains react in the same way to social feedback as adults’ brains. But handling frustration or aggression after being rejected is a different matter, developmental psychologist Michelle Achterberg has discovered. Using fMRI techniques, the development of the child brain has now been studied…

Leiden University will set up further activities with the Asian Development Bank (ADB).

We aim to engineer streptomycetes to fully exploit their potential for natural product productions, by a rational design and evolution approach.

Foster children’s behaviour is more problematic than that of their peers in ‘normal’ family situations. However, it is difficult to determine the exact cause of behavioural problems. Anouk Goemans, a researcher in clinical child and adolescent studies, calls for more screening and monitoring. PhD defence…

The article offers a comparative systematic literature review of the principles, norms, and strategies associated with Security by Design and Privacy by Design

Professor of Cardiothoracic Surgery, in particular pulmonary surgery, Jerry Braun will give his inaugural lecture on Friday 23 September entitled ‘Out of countless millions’. Braun has been a professor and acting head of the LUMC’s Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery since January 2020. Covid meant…

Leiden University has a new platform. On 19 September Vice-Rector Hester Bijl officially launched the LGBT+ Network.

On World Refugee Day, held every year on 20 June, we commemorate the strength, courage and perseverance of millions of refugees. Leiden University is committed to students with a refugee background. For example, the university has set up a Meeting Point and the Leiden Science Run raises money for UAF,…

Physicists, including Leiden researcher, Sanli Faes, have devised a new technique for studying processes at microscale rapidly and extremely precisely. This new method will make it easier to develop antiviral medication. And it doesn’t stop there. Publication in ACS Nano.

Biophysicist Alireza Mashaghi and his collaborators are taking up the fight against muscular dystrophy: genetic disorders that cause muscle weakness. They want to inhibit the clumping of proteins that results in toxic aggregates. For this, the team receives 550,000 euros from Health Holland. The team…

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.

The research programme Industrial Ecology aims to support the ecological transformation of society and environment towards sustainability. The research subject is Industrial Ecology in its broadest definition, covering environmental systems analysis, and incorporating the social and economic aspects…

Leiden University has designed a new Urban Development Plan for the Humanities Campus. This plan incorporates participation from the immediate environment (neighbours and nearby residents). The plan will be available for viewing at the Leiden city council offices from 22 December for six weeks.

The objective of this project is to show how teacher research can encourage teachers’ learning process as professionals, improve teaching practices and generate knowledge about these practices.

Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) Spectroscopy is a non-destructive analytical technique that is used to study the nature and characteristics of molecules with an atomic level precision. It has a wide range of applications especially in synthetic chemistry, biological and biochemical research groups…

Staff and student mobility, a cooperative education programme and the possibility of a joint research center in artificial intelligence and data science. A delegation from Chinese partner XJTU paid a fruitful visit to the Faculty of Science in the last week of October.

A peer educator intervention can give pupils more knowledge and awareness about their LGBT peers, and sometimes also a more positeve view. This is the subject of Marieke Kroneman's dissertation. Defence on 15 September.

Children in the Netherlands develop prejudices based on ethnicity at an early age. Ymke de Bruijn (27) came to this conclusion in her dissertation ‘Child Interethnic Prejudice in the Netherlands: Social Learning from Parents and Picture Books’. For her PhD project she took a closer look at the behaviours…

Textbooks in the Netherlands contain significantly fewer female than male characters and relatively few characters from a non-Western background. They also contain implicit stereotyping. This is what Judi Mesman, Professor of the Interdisciplinary Study of Societal Challenges at Leiden University, has…

A new regional atlas, with information about the presence of pesticides in surface waters, has been developed by the Institute of Environmental Sciences (CML) in collaboration with Royal Haskoning DHV. The aim of the regional pesticide atlas is to support decision making at local and regional levels,…

Team leaders and other immediate supervisors play an important role in facilitating inclusiveness within public organisations. This is the finding of research by public administration expert Tanachia Ashikali. PhD defence 20 November.

Researchers from Leiden have developed a promising TB vaccine that users can self-administer via a special patch. This could be beneficial for countries with limited health services, says PhD candidate Malene Neustrup.

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) should have ended poverty, inequality and climate change by 2030. In a special campaign, the Dutch universities are showing how they are helping to achieve these goals.

What do Master Card, the UN High Commissioner on Refugees (UNHCR) and Leiden University have in common? They all work on new sets of guidelines for responsible data use.

The coronavirus has the world in its grip. Finding a cure has never been more important. Unfortunately, the development of new drugs for treatment of the COVID-19 disease caused by the virus and development of a vaccine are complex, lengthy, and above all costly processes. With the help of computer…

Providing each cancer patient with the right treatment remains a challenge. Oncode Accelerator aims to change this by innovating the way we develop cancer treatments, thus ensuring the patient is at the heart of the process.

Higher design and engineering educators have different views on what a new or renewed curriculum should entail, content-wise as well as pedagogically. This research aims to describe how these ‘curriculum perspective perceptions’ influence working definitions, end goal formulation, and the scope of results…

Every year the Faculty of Archaeology organises Lance: the Leiden Archaeology Network and Career Event. Federico Cappadona and Laura Fernández-Pampillón Enguix wrote a review about this years edition which they attended as representatives of EXARC.

Arts and leisure, Arts and leisure

Lecture, colloquium