Humans can see the world through the eyes of other humans and imagine what they know, want, and intend. This competence is known as Theory of Mind.

I have studied the hot, diffuse gas around and between galaxies. Specifically, I have used the EAGLE numerical simulations of galaxy formation to predict the properties of this gas, and I have used those properties to predict specific observables: soft X-ray absorption and emission lines.

Lecture, LUCL Colloquium

From the first semester of 2026, Leiden University and Universidad Diego Portales (Santiago, Chile) will launch three online virtual exchange programmes. The themes are: political analysis, tensions surrounding Indigenous peoples in Latin America, and the securitisation of borders.

On Thursday 21 November 2024 Jake Benson successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated.

Leiden has the second-highest percentage of female professors of all the Dutch universities. These are the results of the annual Women Professors Monitor. The Open University is the only university with more female professors.

In the coming years, Asghar Seyed Gohrab receives an advanced European Research Council grant of two and a half million euros to spend on his research into non-conformism in Islam. ‘Hopefully I can use this to contribute something to society, to pass something on to future generations.’

The Greater Angkor Region in contemporary Cambodia was dramatically more urbanized in the 13th century than previously thought, and home to 700.000 to 900.000 people. These discoveries were made by a research team led by Sarah Klassen. Their findings are published in Science Advances.

An important award like the Spinoza Prize, the 'Dutch Nobel Prize', generates lots of media attention. An overview.

There are certainly ten airlines who do not carry out an identity check in the Schengen area upon check-in.

A major new study of ancient DNA has traced the movement of people into southern Britain during the Bronze Age. In the largest such analysis published to date, scientists examined the DNA of nearly 800 ancient individuals. Publication in Nature on December 22, 2021.

If you are new to Leiden, it might be a good idea to join one of its many student associations. You’ll quickly get to know people and build up a network that will continue to prove its worth long after you’ve graduated from your master’s.

Leiden is bursting with student associations, from sports to music associations and from social to cultural associations. And this is good news because they will help you make more than just friends.

This PhD project investigates how literary translators and journalists react and respond to machine-translated metaphors and what the repercussions for professional practice are.

Leiden University has been promoting studies on Latin America and the Caribbean for a long time.

What impact does ethnic profiling and accusations of ethnic profiling have on organisations and the border police officers working at the operational level, and what structural factors on the societal and organisational level contribute to the process of ethnic profiling? Over a period of three years…

Conference

Land van Ons, a cooperation that buys agricultural land for the restoration of biodiversity and landscape, and Leiden University join forces. Together, they will investigate over a longer period of time which agricultural management leads to the best restoration of biodiversity. The research will start…

On 3 March the book “The European Union as an Area of Freedom, Security and Justice” edited by Maria Fletcher, Claudio Matera and Esther Herlin-Karnell was officially presented at a symposium at VU University Amsterdam.

Leiden Law School will host the LDE-Majority World Workshop titled ‘Contemporary Migrations in the Americas: Cross-Atlantic Dialogue for Socio-Spatial Justice’, taking place from 24 to 28 March 2025. This workshop will address critical challenges around migration governance and human rights.

For the first time, astronomers have detected the presence of complex organic molecules, the building blocks of life, in a protoplanetary disc surrounding a young star. The discovery reaffirms that the conditions that spawned the Earth and Sun are not unique in the Universe. The results are published…

Research using the ALMA telescope by scientists including Leiden's John Tobin and Steven Bos has produced the first images of the water snow line within a protoplanetary disc. Publication in Nature on 14 July.

Using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) in Chile, researchers at Leiden Observatory in the Netherlands have for the first time detected dimethyl ether in a planet-forming disc. With nine atoms, this is the largest molecule identified in such a disc to date. It is also a precursor…

Good research means looking beyond disciplinary boundaries, said Professor of Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry Remus Dame in his inaugural lecture on 10 May. Processes that take place on DNA shouldn’t only be researched in a test tube but also in living cells, for instance.

Many protoplanetary discs in which new planets are formed are much smaller than thought. Using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) scientists of the Leiden Observatory looked at 73 protoplanetary discs in the Lupus region.

Leiden Observatory has achieved a rare feat: two of its research teams have been awarded prestigious ALMA Large Programmes, allowing them to study how galaxies formed and evolved in the early Universe using cutting-edge telescope observations.

International researchers have, for the first time, pinpointed the moment when planets began to form around a star beyond the Sun. Using the ALMA telescope, in which the European Southern Observatory (ESO) is a partner, and the James Webb Space Telescope, they have observed the creation of the first…

In the discs of dust and gasses around young stars, mysterious structures occur. Together with professor Ewine van Dishoeck, PhD student Paolo Cazzoletti investigate how we can explain these forms, such as rings, spirals and holes. On 12 December, he will defend his thesis.

From the effects of hormone fluctuations in women via the interior structure of giant planets to the prehistory of the languages: six Leiden researchers have been awarded a Consolidator Grant by the European Research Council.

Rychard Bouwens from the Leiden Observatory is the first scientist in the Netherlands to be assigned a Large Programme on the state-of-the-art ALMA telescope in Chile. With his team, he wants to use the unique capabilities of the billion-euro facility to investigate the build-up of massive galaxies…

A team led by Leiden University in the Netherlands and the National Radio Astronomy Observatory have, for the first time, robustly detected semi-heavy water ice around a young sunlike star. In this ice, some of the ordinary hydrogen atoms have been replaced by deuterium, a heavier variant of hydroge…

What if particles don’t slow down in a crowd, but move faster? Physicists from Leiden worked together and discovered a new state of matter, where particles pass on energy through collisions and create more movement when packed closely together.

Astronomers in Leiden have used the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) in northern Chile to produce a new detailed image of the centre of our Milky Way. This allows them to investigate the life of stars in the most extreme region of our galaxy. The Leiden scientists, led by Katarzyna…

The first direct detection of gravitational waves opened the possibility of mapping the Universe via this new and independent messenger.

“Music is about everything else,” theater director Peter Sellars said upon accepting his Polar Music Prize back in 2014. Although it is about particular musical problems, Stanimiras dissertation is about ‘everything else’, too. What and how that is, could be summed up in different ways depending on…

Many of the big challenges of the 21st century (climate change, international migration, financial instability, socio-economic inequality) find their origins in the organisation of the global economy. Any solution to the world’s big challenges therefore requires forceful policy interventions at the…

What was the name, the appearance, development and the playing technique of the cello in the Low Countries between 1600 and 1800 and what music was composed for it?

This is an Erasmus+ International Credit Mobility project of Leiden University Medical Center with the Anton de Kom University of Suriname.

The Journal of Global Slavery (JGS) aims to advance and promote a greater understanding of slavery and post-slavery from comparative, transregional, and/or global perspectives. It especially underscores the global and globalizing nature of slavery in world history.

Crises arising from terrorism, cyber threats, and natural disasters dominate world news and make Crisis and Security Management a heavily politicized and hotly debated topic at the top of the national and global societal and governance agenda.

To apply for an exchange or study abroad programme at Leiden University, you must first select the individual courses or projects you want to follow. Each of your course requests will then be evaluated by the relevant faculty. Once you receive faculty approval for at least 15 EC worth of courses or…

The need for knowledge among practitioners and the lack of an academic knowledge base for specifically collective arrangements of social work in the Netherlands were the reason for Anouk de Koning, Femke Kaulingfreks and Maartje van der Woude to start working on a Dutch Research Agenda (NWA) application…

This project seeks to develop a conceptual framework and provide empirical evidence on academic leadership that builds a fairer world and fosters trust in polarised times.

This programme starts from the idea that cultural discourse is one of the main engines of intellectual history and the history of ideas.

This project studies the roles of prehistoric foragers in past ecosystems to establish the character of past “natural” landscapes and enhance the management of current ones.

How do documentary moving images and fictional narratives involve and evolve each other?

Pressing Matter: Ownership, Value and the Question of Colonial Heritage in Museums is a large-scale research project funded through the Dutch National Research Agenda, and led by Wayne Modest and Susan Legêne (Vrije Universiteit). Work Package 3 on “Value” phrases its main research question as follows:…

In the Aarts lab we combine or structure materials, mostly in thin film form, in such a way that the hybrid has different and novel properties or functionalities.