Behind the scenes, many different people are involved in the projects within the Brave Little Ones research group. See below for an overview of the research team.

Meet the people of the Resilience Center

Hortus botanicus Leiden is a treasure trove for research into interactions between species. Surprising discoveries are being made with new techniques such as DNA analysis, machine learning, and audio and video monitoring. Hortus prefect Barbara Gravendeel will explain more in her inaugural lecture on…

Conference

Kool made a conscious choice to work for a non profit organisation. Recently, inspired by the pandemic, she also made a career switch.

Leiden University’s Van Vollenhoven Institute has cooperated for nearly three years in the SLEEI project with Indonesian partners. Next week SLEEI will present its main results on 28 March, including a course development handbook, and several teaching guides written by local law lecturers trained in…

This dissertation reports on the pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) of science teachers during a professional development program. This research intended to help us understand why and how teachers make their classroom decisions as they teach science.

Latent variable modeling of students' solution strategies and performance

One of the ambitions of the Learning@LeidenUniversity vision on teaching and learning is to foster an international and inclusive educational community in which everyone feels welcome, regardless of religion, sex, sexual orientation or cultural background. One student service that promotes inclusion…

Three Humanities lecturers received the Senior Teaching Qualification (SKO) this year. Lecturer Hossam Ahmed is one of them. What does he think makes for good education?

Photographing fluorescent flowers, searching for frogs and shooting tropical cucumbers out of trees: this is only a small part of the course Tropical Biodiversity and Field Methods. For this class, master’s students biology traveled to Malaysian Borneo for two weeks to gain experience in fieldwork.…

The death of George Floyd at the hands of the police may have sparked the Black Lives Matter protests in the United States and here in the Netherlands, but they are about more than that alone. We asked Karwan Fatah-Black, a historian who specialises in the Dutch colonial history, for his analysis. ‘We…

The Executive Board of the Institute of Psychology has a new Director of Operational Management. It’s the perfect role for Paula van den Bergh. ‘For me, “connection” is a nice word. If you see the connections between things, you immediately see the logic behind the processes.’ Her career has taken her…

Thalia Hoffman is a visual artist and researcher working in film, video, performance, and public interventions in the area she lives in, east of the Mediterranean. In 2020 she graduated from the Leiden University PhDArts programme, with the thesis Guava, a conceptual platform for art-actions.

Leiden University wants to create a safe and stimulating environment for everyone. However, you may experience issues at work that you cannot solve yourself. Your first point of contact for such situations is your supervisor. If you feel you cannot talk about it with your supervisor, you can turn to…

What are the various forms of inter-organizational collaboration in the public safety sector? How are different forms of inter-organizational collaborative arrangements related? What is the relationship between inter-organizational collaboration and innovation in the public safety sector?

This research revolves around the philosophical and linguistic elements that naturally belong to the process of learning music scores, including complex contemporary repertoire distinguished by physically decoupled notations or physical polyphonic notations.

Profile Area Political Legitimacy, Leiden University

Which adolescents are more at risk of developing social anxiety disorder later in life?

This is an Erasmus+ International Credit Mobility project of Leiden University’s Faculty of Medicine with The Wistar Institute in the United States.

The first photo of a black hole and measuring anxiety in the brain... From 13 until 22 May we're serving a free slice of science with your pizza.

Rembrandt painted this Flora, the Roman goddess of spring, in 1635. She is on display above the archway leading from the Academy Building to the lush flora of the University’s Hortus Botanicus. Rembrandt, who had his own cabinet of curiosities, almost certainly knew this botanical garden, the oldest…

Leiden University and China import partner.

Naomi Ellemers, Professor of Social Psychology of Organisations, is one of the four winners of the Spinoza Prize for 2010. ‘This is absolutely fantastic – something that as a researcher you hardly dare to dream of!’

On March 31, 2017, graduates of the teacher education programme received their diploma.

Many international students start their master programme at the Humanities Faculty in Leiden every semester. Among them also Ronghu Zu (29, China), Yucheng Lu (28, China), Mariana Diaz (25, Mexico) en Julia Seidel (27, Germany). For many students the university, city and country were completely new…

The proportion of female professors at Dutch universities is increasing, but at a modest rate. At 34.2%, Leiden University is in the top three. These are the results of the Women Professors Monitor for 2025.

As artificial intelligence continues to transform recruitment and workplace practices, questions around transparency, fairness, and trust are becoming increasingly urgent. A new article sheds light on how workers and job applicants across Europe experience and perceive AI-driven data practices, offering…

A logical next step and a new challenge: Harold Linnartz is ready for his new position as Programme Director (PD) of the Leiden Observatory. He will follow up current PD Paul van der Werf on 1 October. 'The programme has grown tremendously. That will be a logistics tour de force.'

The Dutch universities as a whole are lobbying for a 'normal' academic year from the end of August, where on-campus teaching will be possible. It's a view that Leiden University shares. Rector Hester Bijl talks about what teaching will be like then. She also looks back on a year of lockdown.

The brief removal of Rein Dool’s ‘cigar-smoking white men’ painting generated a storm of reactions last November. Students, staff and alumni reflected on this at a symposium on Friday 26 May.

Mum works in healthcare, dad in engineering and everyone is straight: many textbooks still show men and women in stereotypical roles, PhD candidate Tessa van de Rozenberg has discovered. She also found that children’s views on these topics often closely resemble those of their parents.

Every year on or around International Women’s Day on 8 March, Leiden University holds its Annie Romein-Verschoor Lecture. This year’s lecture will be given by Sylvana Simons, MP and leader and parliamentary chair of the BIJ1 party. What does International Women’s Day mean to her and which challenges…

Jojanneke van der Toorn, professor by special appointment in Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Workplace Inclusion at Leiden University, states that it is difficult to create an inclusive work environment. This is partly due to the fact that lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people have themselves…

Despite increasing attention to inclusion, loneliness statistics are not improving for people with intellectual disabilities. University lecturer Paul van Trigt will use an ERC Consolidator Grant to conduct research into friendships between people with and without intellectual disabilities. What does…

What happens when you ask students and staff how they’re really doing? On Tuesday 14 April, FGW members were able to share what was on their minds at the (s)Tattoo pop-up studio. Three artists turned their stories into drawings or poems.

Keynote & Q&A

The Institute of Psychology is responsible for innovative and interdisciplinary research and education within psychology and related disciplines.

The project seeks to come to an understanding of the archaeology of the desert and the ways in which its inhabitants engaged with their constraint, marginal environments through time. It compares and interprets site distribution and community organisation over a long time scale and across several different…

The Faculty of Humanities is committed to creating an inclusive and diverse community, where all students and staff are supported, respected, and empowered to do their best work, irrespective of gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, ability, age, religion, or socio-economic background.

ERC StG SAFE and SOUND has the ambition to connect the policy cycle with data generated in robot testing zones to support evidence-based policymaking for robot technologies.

Project Announcement: ‘EU human-centered digital transformation’ (2023 – 2027) funded by Leiden University Starting Grant In Spring 2023, Simona Demková and Daniel Mândrescu from the Europa Institute secured the new Leiden University Starting Grant, valued at 240,000 EUR, for a collaborative project:…

To safeguard the quality of research within Leiden University, a committee of external experts evaluates the University’s institutes once every six years according to the Standard Evaluation Protocol which is drawn up by the Association of Universities in the Netherlands (VSNU), the Royal Netherlands…

The research group ‘Quantum and Society’ explores the boundary between quantum technology and science communication.

Democracy in Action is a Horizon Europe-funded initiative exploring how grassroots movements, cultural spaces, and digital innovations can strengthen democratic participation. With a special focus on youth, women, ethnic minorities and night culture, we bring together researchers, grassroots movements,…

At the heart of this study is a thorough inquiry of categorisations of social identity used in the VOC’s record-keeping bureaucracy. How were service, occupational and caste groups classified and shaped by the VOC?

To maximise your personal development, we ensure tutorials are small-scale and staff members extremely accessible. In year one, you’ll have an average of 12 contact hours, half of which comprise lectures (in English) and the remainder tutorials (optionally Dutch or English).