Neanderthals were able to outwit straight-tusked elephants, the largest land mammals of the past few million years. Leiden professor Wil Roebroeks has published an article about this together with his German colleague Sabine Gaudzinski-Windheuser in the Science Advances journal.

Back in 2020, Dr Maikel Kuijpers started to write for The Correspondent. His articles offered readers a unique long-term insight into the materials that shape our world, from concrete to glass and plastics. His innovative approach piqued the interest of a literary agent, and he was invited to write…

Is the right to choose your healthcare provider protected in the Dutch Constitution? What are the consequences then for the Dutch healthcare system? PhD defence on 5 July 2022.

On 18 March the municipal elections will be held, and you can cast your vote strategically for what you consider important in your town. This raises at least three important questions: what is strategic voting, how do you know if you are a strategic voter yourself, and what do you need to do to use…

Eighty years after its founding, the United Nations faces major challenges. Once established to prevent global conflict, the organisation now operates amid geopolitical tensions, prolonged wars and growing criticism. Joris Larik discusses this in Forbes.

Successfully completing a master’s thesis in Political Science is no small feat. Not only is this for most students the most extensive and in-depth research report they have ever written, the work is also held to very high standards. Yet, every year students manage to impress their instructors and demonstrate…

The Voices of Africa platform is ten years old and has just recently won the annual popularisation prize of the Netherlands Graduate School of Linguistics (LOT). High time for a chat with Jenneke van der Wal, Maarten Mous and Nina van der Vlugt about the importance of the platform and plans for the…

Leiden biologists have found a mutation in flour beetles that allows them to speed up their development. The study has been published in Nature Ecology and Evolution.

Is it possible to measure subtle oscillations caused by dark matter moving through the earth? A Dutch-American physicist team have discovered a new route toward what could be the first-ever measurement of ultralight dark matter. They suspended a microscopic magnet inside a superconducting enclosure,…

In 2019, Federico Cappadona was one of the first students to enroll in the new master’s specialisation Applied Archaeology. He recently graduated and he is happy to share his experience.

Finds uncovered in the east of Germany show that Neanderthals stored and preserved vast amounts of meat and/or temporarily aggregated in larger groups to exploit the spoils

An international team of astronomers led by Matus Rybak (Leiden University) has proven, thanks to accidental double zoom, that millimetre radiation is generated close to the core of a supermassive black hole. Their findings have been accepted for publication in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.

Project TARGET is a research project aimed at the relation between the illegal arms trade and firearm violence. In a study conducted in seven countries, the researchers took a look at the differences and similarities. Katharina Krüsselmann and Marieke Liem took a closer look at the situation in the…

Recently Professor Joanita Vroom’s book Feeding the Byzantine City was published by the prominent academic publishing house Brepols. This volume is the fifth in a series called Medieval and Post-Medieval Mediterranean Archaeology, of which she is the editor. ‘This series aims to offer new perspectives…

Leiden-Delft-Erasmus is introducing three new minors this year: Space Missions, (Re)imagining Port Cities: Understanding Space, and Living Education Lab. Marja Verstelle, Project Manager for Teaching at Leiden-Delft-Erasmus, talks about the importance of multidisciplinary collaboration for the new generation…

When do we say violence was used in an incident? The answer may seem obvious at first. But interim results from a study by Jolien van Breen show that Dutch people are labelling events in increasingly broad contexts as violent.

A few weeks ago, Dutch pension giant ABP decided to divest from fossil fuels. But is this actually going to help the climate? Natascha van der Zwan, Arjen van der Heide and Philipp Golka (Institute of Public Administration, Leiden University) address this question in our new article for S&D.

For the first time, astronomers have observed in three dimensions that gas from spiral galaxies is blown upwards and downwards at high speed, far out of the galaxy. They thereby confirm the theory of galaxy evolution: that star-forming galaxies create intergalactic gas flows by discharging gas along…

The film Blade Runner as part of the law curriculum? It’s not that weird to Maartje van der Woude, Professor of Law and Society, and Frans-Willem Korsten, Professor of Literature, Culture and Law. ‘The film raises a fundamental question: what’s a human and what’s not?’ From the next academic year onwards,…

As a bachelor student of Bio-Pharmaceutical Sciences, Femke Vlaswinkel wrote a research proposal she was allowed to carry out in her master’s BPS. Femke subsequently graduated with honors. Her research was published in the journal Scientific Reports, she won an award from the Dutch Pharmacy Society…

The Economist published an article about a working paper about the effects of democratic elections on satisfaction with democracy. The paper was written by Dimiter Koshkov, Associate Professor at the Institute of Public Administration and Honorata Mazepus, Assistant Professor at the Institute of Security…

A team including staff from Leiden University won the Open Initiative Trophy on 11 February, a prize for the best open science initiative in the Netherlands. The winners developed Reprohak, a hackathon-like event where participants repeat research to see whether the results were reproducible.

If you do research on Leidens Ontzet in Leiden, you can count on a lot of interest. But Leiden Kennisstad interns Marieke Nolten and Alexander Nuijten had not expected there would be quite so much interest. They concluded a year of research with the presentation of a scientific paper.

Two researchers from the Institute of Political Science were recently awarded prizes. Claire Vergerio received the Francesco Guicciardini Prize for her book on the historical origins of the primacy of the state in international law ('best book in the historical international relations category'). In…

A live online New Year’s event on Tuesday 12 January marked the start of the New Year. Dean Joanne van der Leun toasted 2021 and as usual at this event, the annual Meijers prizes and thesis prizes were awarded.

If you end up in prison somewhere in the world, the chances are you won’t be allowed to vote. If it were up to researchers Tom Theuns and Andrei Poama, rather than disenfranchise felons, we would oblige them to vote. That would be a better way to express democratic values.

A team of European astronomers has found a silicate-based weather system on a cloudy gas planet around the star WASP-107. It is the first time astronomers have found silicate clouds and rain. They also conclude that temperatures deeper in the atmosphere are rising rapidly. 'The presence of clouds has…

Ramsey Albers wins Political Science Master’s Thesis Prize 2022

The FGGA starter grants provide researchers with the opportunity to launch innovative projects that contribute to both scientific knowledge and societal impact. In this article, Allard de Graaf and Joy Lee share their experiences and ambitions for their research, made possible by this funding.

175 years ago, the Netherlands took great strides towards parliamentary democracy with a revamped Constitution. Where does the Constitution stand today?

How do you write a job advertisement that appeals to both men and women? This question is particularly pressing in French, where every noun has a clearly visible grammatical gender. University researcher Benjamin Storme investigated how employers can best deal with this issue.

Missions to the moon have become popular again. In just one week, a lunar mission from Russia failed while India landed a spacecraft in a historic first. Companies, too, want to go to the moon. But can anyone just go to the moon? Tanja Masson-Zwaan explains the rules of international space law on Dutch…

Scientific Director of the Leiden Academic Centre for Drug Research (LACDR) Hubertus Irth: ‘We test substances and look for new concepts for treating disease.’

Course and exam enrolment

In an interview on the website of the NWO, Sabine Luning, Marjo de Theije and Esther van de Camp talk about the gold miners they met in various African and South American countries and they come to new insights.

The Washington Post reviews Nationalism by university lecturer Eric Storm. In this book, Storm explores how nation-states became the dominant political organizational form.

How to represent and assess legitimate interests? On behalf of the Dutch Ministry of Interior and Kingdom Relations, Caelesta Braun and Bert Fraussen developed the framework ‘Afwegingskader Legitieme Belangenvertegenwoordiging’ (Assessment Framework Legitimate Interest Representation). The researchers…

The problem of unequal sports participation will only be addressed if sexism and racism in recreational sports and exercise are taken seriously. That's what cultural anthropologists Jasmijn Rana (Leiden University) and Kathrine van den Bogert (Utrecht University) write in an opinion piece in the Dutch…

Discover how skateboarding transforms cities by reading anthropologist Sander Hölsgens' research. Learn about his two new books exploring skateboarding as a sensory experience and powerful learning tool within areas as diverse as therapy, care, parenting and education.

Finland reduced its suicide rate from 30 deaths per 100,000 citizens. Marieke Liem and Leah Prencipe discuss this in The Conversation.

University lecturer Andrew Gawthorpe argues in The Guardian that the Republican's new agenda for a second Trump term is more radical than the first. He says that they seek to take control of federal agencies by replacing civil servants with ‘American First footsoldiers’.

Tjerk Oosterkamp of the Leiden Institute of Physics managed to do the first-ever measurement of gravity on a tiny particle - just 0.43 milligrams - where the quantum regime starts. He explains in Physics World why this is so challenging.

The Neumark-Nord 2 site in central Germany, dates back to 125,000 years ago. During an interglacial period with temperatures similar to those today, Neanderthals where doing something we previously thought happened only tens of thousands of years later.

Do political knowledge and democratic values encourage young people to participate in politics or not? Political Scientist Leila Demarest had a closer look at adolescents’ participation intentions in Nigeria and shared her findings with The Conversation.

Hackers have got their hands on data from the Royal Dutch Football Association (KNVB). Lockbit, a collective of cybercriminals, is after the money. What now?

After a semester of brainstorming, writing, rewriting and editing, the time has come: the fifth edition of Leiden Elective Academic Periodical (LEAP) has been launched!

Hundreds of millions of Chinese workers have moved from the countryside to the city. This social transformation has birthed a tradition of migrant worker poetry, professor Maghiel van Crevel states in Jacobin.

Alanna O'Malley, Associate Professor at Leiden University Institute for History, talks about the possible expelling of the Russian ambassador Yuriy Filatov and the risks that come with the decision.

Episode 5 of BOLDcast, the podcast of the Leiden-Delft-Erasmus Centre for BOLD Cities, discusses the evolution of libraries from simple lending points for books to places where people can come together and brush up on their digital skills. The guests in this episode are Frank Huysmans, associate professor…

In this article in The Irish Times, Pádraig Corrigan talks about his experience studying abroad at Leiden University College in The Hague.