Timo McGregor recently joined the Institute for History as a NWO-Veni research fellow. His research explores legal and political thought in early modern European empires, with a particular focus on mobility, political belonging, and enslavement. Below he introduces himself.

Do children growing up in a jihadist or right-wing extremist household develop the same extremist views as their parents?

In his research, he uses the tools and methods of physics and applies these to today’s most important challenges in electrochemistry. Now, he brings his internationally recognized expertise in nanoscale electrochemistry to Leiden University, where he contributes to pioneering solutions for the energy…

Pim Overgaauw is at his best when he can support others. His new position as Institute Manager of the Mathematical Institute is therefore a perfect fit. ‘My main goal is to ensure that our mathematicians can focus on the maths.’

How would you convert Egyptian hieroglyphs into Latin script? And what is actually the correct translation of dishes on a Vietnamese menu? On Saturday 28 January, high school students from all over the Netherlands will come to Leiden to ponder a series of language-related puzzles. Their goal? To win…

An evening program in the University Library and Middle Eastern Library in Leiden for everyone who has something to do with the Middle East; from Tajikistan to the Mahreb and from Istanbul to Sanaa. View the oldest books and clay tablets from the collection and listen to the most fascinating stories…

Almost 3,000 students from the Faculty of Humanities completed the National Student Survey (NSE) in the spring of 2022. With a response rate of 38%, the Faculty scored slightly above the national average.

Vincent van Heuven passed away unexpectedly on Friday 6 February 2026 at the age of 76 at his home in Kûbaard (Friesland), the Netherlands.

Are you a researcher or educator passionate about connecting your work with societal needs and actors? Do you want to learn and experience how to integrate civic engagement into your work while building meaningful partnerships and enhancing your impact? This hands-on, interdisciplinary training is designed…

During the Summer School Science Communication, you will learn everything about science communication.

Can humans sense where north is, using what is known as magnetoreception? This question had master’s student Björn Keyser (Media Technology) so intrigued that he started crowdfunding to be able to study this together with the California Institute of Technology.

Corrie Bakels is known as one of the founders of bio-archaeology in the Netherlands. One of her former students, Dr Marco Langbroek, active in astronomy, made a request to the International Astronomic Union to name a recently discovered asteroid after her. Hearing the news, Bakels was astounded. 'My…

How did science relate to politics and colonialism in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries? Assistant Professor Lauren Lauret has been awarded an NWO XS grant to map the colonial and political activities of nineteenth-century scientists.

The teams that will lead the themes guiding Leiden University’s strategic positioning in the coming years have been formed.

The jury of the Africa Thesis Award is delighted to announce that the 2025 prize has been awarded to Yonwaba Matshobotiyana of the University of the Free State, South Africa, with a thesis on Black women's poetry in South Africa.

In our teaching, Leiden University gives all students the opportunity to learn about sustainability themes and issues. Social issues, including sustainable development, are addressed in the teaching and research at all of our faculties. On this Day of Sustainability, we highlight a number of subject…

Children and young people feel the government is not listening to them during the coronavirus pandemic and this is a cause for concern in light of international children’s rights. This is the conclusion of a recent report by a research team from Leiden University on how children and youngsters have…

PhD defence

Lecture

Festival

Staff Association

PhD defence

Didactics

Course, Workshop

There is a reasonable chance that you came to this reading list through a social medium. Now it's our job to keep your attention. We are going to do our best. There are so many distractions; from notifications on your phone, to another screen near you, that may also be screaming for attention. Every…

On 5 May, we celebrate the liberation of the Netherlands in 1945 and the fact that we have been able to live in freedom ever since. But what does freedom mean, and how does it relate to our safety? Various FGGA experts draw connections with their own fields of expertise.

The English-language interdisciplinary minor ‘AI and Society’ explores the role of artificial intelligence in our society. The interdisciplinary nature of the minor is proving beneficiary for students and lecturers alike. We sit in during a class.

Hit the brakes! That’s the advice of the Council for Public Health and Society in a recent report. Eight psychologists share their insights on how to slow down and reconnect.

So much has happened this year! 2023 was an eventful year in which several wars raged about which our experts could offer interpretation. It was also the year in which the government made apologies for the slavery past. Leiden humanities scholars were at the forefront of this with their research on…

Piercing through the skull with an ice pick, administering electric shocks without an anaesthetic, or applying leeches to the uterus: these may seem like medieval methods of torture, but they are in fact therapies used in medicine. Willem van der Does writes about all of them in his new book. ‘Physicians…

How can our university really become inclusive? This is what students and staff discussed at our annual Diversity & Inclusion symposium. ‘It’s moving from a have-to to a want-to’

On 28 June, ten dedicated lecturers received their Senior Teaching Qualification (SKO). Rector Hester Bijl congratulated them in an online meeting. We asked some of them what this qualification means to them, what they believe ‘good teaching’ entails and what makes them so passionate about education…

‘Am I setting a good example myself?’ Hanneke Hulst wonders. As Recognition and Rewards project leader, she maintains that we should stop expecting researchers to be experts at everything, even though she herself keeps a lot of balls in the air.

The Caribbean as we know it today is fundamentally a product of colonial activity and globalisation. Practically everyone that inhabits the Caribbean has ancestors from different continents due to colonial activity, which profoundly affects the area to this day. Caribbean writers, both in the Caribbean…

The academic playing field is becoming more complex all the time, making a strong research support network crucial. Over 100 research support professionals shared knowledge, gained inspiration and became acquainted or got to know each other even better at the third Leiden Research Support Conference…

Helping first-year students at the Faculty of Governance and Global Affairs find their way in a rapidly changing university world because of Covid-19. That was the goal of the mentor project that has been running since this academic year. At the end of January, the first phase ends and in February new…

De studentassessor: één student die als lid van het faculteitsbestuur aanschuift bij alle belangrijke overleggen en projecten. Zo wordt de student, een van de belangrijkste doelgroepen, vertegenwoordigd bij bestuurlijke besluitvorming. Assessor Julie Külsen draagt volgend collegejaar per 1 september…

Marjolein van Reisen has been Institute Manager Finance for a year, and Wiesje Zikkenheiner has been Institute Manager HR for two months. This duo job is by no means a luxury in an ever-growing organisation. Marjolein: 'We’re both new to this world, so we have our hands full.'

‘Culture change takes time,’ said Vice-Rector Hester Bijl at the closing panel of the University’s Diversity Symposium on 26 January. She talked about the road to a diverse and inclusive university. The symposium provided plenty of concrete examples of small steps that can already be taken.

Persian stories with beautiful miniatures, letters on papyrus from Egyptian traders and medicinal manuscripts translated from Greek and edited in Arabic. Studium Generale organizes a lecture series on the world-famous manuscripts from the Middle East collection of Leiden University Libraries (UBL).…

As Board Secretary, Corry Donner aims to be a ‘spider in the web’; someone who keeps a watchful eye on and brings together all the different perspectives of the institute’s board. Now she's left her carefully woven web at the university and transfer her tasks to her successor. Last September, we talked…

Medici kunnen veel repareren, maar ziekte voorkomen of uitstellen is beter. Daarvoor is vaak leefstijlverandering nodig en dat blijkt lastig. Gezondheidswetenschappers Sandra van Dijk (Universiteit Leiden) en Valentijn Visch (TU Delft) doen onderzoek naar de vraag hoe je mensen kunt helpen met gedragsverandering…

Genes predict whether you have a propensity for an illness but environmental factors often have the last word: nutrition, air pollution, lifestyle, stress. The exposome as both culprit and chance. Large-scale research is being carried out into this at Leiden. Thomas Hankemeier, Professor of Analytical…

Erwin Muller, Dean of FGGA and Administrator of Campus The Hague, and Koen Caminada, Vice-Dean, share their thoughts on how ‘we’ as a faculty are doing based on three themes. A discussion about the balancing act between what is and what isn’t possible and the natural urge to continue to grow, the utility…

For their research many neuropsychologists use the brain scanners at the LUMC. At the start of the pandemic, the rules for visiting the hospital became stricter and a large amount of psychology research looked as though it would fall through. Thanks to good protocols the researchers can now pick up…

In November, the Dutch will elect a new parliament. Not all eligible citizens will go out and vote, however. How can this be explained, and how big of a problem is it? International research into voter turnout can shed new light on this issue – and offer possible solutions.

Collaboration

Conference, Lorentz Center workshop

PhD defence

Lecture, COGLOSS lecture