Confidentiality clauses that contain penalty clauses in television production contracts are common, permissible and useful, but can never be invoked against disclosing misconduct, such as unacceptable behaviour. This is claimed by Dirk Visser, Charlotte Vrendenbarg and Richard Trouborst in their article…

In 2021, the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) asked Leiden University to conduct a rapid review of best practices and possibilities for follow-up research on the integration of behavioral sciences in security by design methodologies and projects. This academic field is called security by behavioral…

This book questions the accepted origins of the field of International Relations (IR). Commonly understood to have emerged from the horrors of WW1 with the goal of bringing about world peace, the authors argue that on the contrary, IR came from a somewhat less noble tradition – that of the Round Tab…

What does it sound like when you create your own words in Chichewa? Can you decipher hieroglyphs after just one workshop? Visitors found answers to these and many other questions during the first edition of the Evening of Languages, held in the brand-new Herta Mohr Building. With a sold-out programme,…

We’re delighted to announce our plenary speakers.

A management strategy has been developed for field margins to reduce pesticide drift to non-target areas and to promote biodiversity on arable land. To this end, 3 and 6 m wide strips along the edges of winter wheat, sugar beet and potato crops have been left unsprayed with herbicides and insecticides…

What is Leiden University doing to reduce energy consumption and move away from fossil energy? Where can you find information about energy? And what changes can you make yourself?

Care conferences for long-term residents (15+ years) in forensic mental health care are widely appreciated by all parties involved. Research by Leiden University shows that the demand for these meetings is so great that the supply cannot be met within the desired time frame.

On March 16 students and alumni of the Advanced LLM in European and International Human Rights Law were brought together in an online Zoom event organized by our programme coordinator, Mahshid Alizadeh, and head of the LLM, Rick Lawson.

Astronomers have found complex organic ice outside the Milky Way for the first time. The discovery shows that the building blocks of life could arise early in the universe - and under a variety of conditions, said Leiden astronomer Will Rocha.

The Faculty of Humanities at Leiden University values an inclusive learning environment where all students are supported to realize their full potential. We consider diversity of thought, approach, background, and identity essential for high-quality research and learning. We therefore want to facilitate…

Composer Paul Craenen (1972) is actually a pianist, but as part of his PhD ceremony, he performed a composition on PVC pipes. Craenen studies the position and role of the body in music. ‘I am interested in what precedes the resulting sound’.

When you stretch an elastic band, it gets longer. But imagine a material that actually becomes shorter when you pull on it. Sounds strange, doesn’t it? Yet that’s exactly what physicists from Leiden University, AMOLF, and ARCNL have managed to create.

Being able to share your emotions is important for social development and for making friends; the same principle also applies in Sesame Street. The makers of the American Sesame Street programme have introduced a new character, Julia, in the hope of helping children and parents understand autism sufferers…

Students from the Royal Academy of Art The Hague (KABK) designed the 450 lustrum logo.

'How do you write a slogan to win an election?' Steven Ooms answers this question in his PhD research into ideas about good prose in the time of Caesar and Emperor Augustus. This period is considered a high point for the development of literature. The Roman Cicero and the Greek Dionysius of Halicarnassus…

During the ceremony of the Opening of the Academic Year, University Lecturer Arjan Louwen has won Leiden University's prestigious LUS Teaching Award. The prize, awarded annually by the Leiden University Student Platform (LUS), honours lecturers who excel in their teaching. For Louwen, the nomination…

Sara Petrollino, a university lecturer in linguistics, strongly believes that language influences the way we see the world. An NWO Open Competition (XS) grant will enable her to test this hypothesis among the Ethiopian Hamar people. ‘The idea that everyone thinks in geometric shapes is culturally de…

Research and design are two activities that are becoming increasingly important in the Dutch subjects O&O (‘research and design’) and NLT ('nature, life and technology’). The dissertation of Tessa Vossen (ICLON and Faculty of Science) indicates that teachers and students understand the importance of…

Bart Barendregt, Ratna Saptari, and Annemarie Samuels co-organised a two-day workshop on

After a long period of isolation under pandemic, the PhD candidates of the Institute of Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology seized the opportunity to organize an in-person, on-site event: the CADS PhD Conference for 2021. With the theme

Lotte van Dillen has every confidence in the Executive Board of new-style Institute Psychology. ‘If we work on the basis of everyone’s good intentions, we’re going to do great.’ If you lack confidence, you’re not the kind of person to jump on your bike and go off to Sicily. Want to find out more about…

On Thursday 24 of June, GTGC’s Assistant Professor Valentina Carraro, presented her work on regime complexity during the Conference of the Academic Council on the United Nations System (ACUNS).

Starting March 2015, the Honours Class ‘Miscarriages of justice and fact-finding in (Dutch) criminal procedure’ has given me, a student of Education and Child Studies, the opportunity to submerge myself into this area of law, together with twelve other enthusiastic students.

In this thesis, the role of plant-mediated soil legacy effects in shaping aboveground plant-insect interactions was investigated.

Promotor: P. Stevenhagen, Co-promotores: B. de Smit, F. Andreatta

To increase the accuracy of climate models, it is crucial that they include past human land-use and human-driven vegetation changes. Here archaeology can make an important contribution. Current models are based on reconstructions of past vegetation. However, their accuracy is limited because it does…

The Old Obervatory Leiden is one of the partners of the local learning ecosystem ‘Verwonder om de Hoek’, an educational platform from Leiden that lets school children and families wonder about the world of Nature, Science, Technology and Sustainability. On this page you will find the educational programmes…

Together with colleagues from the Stimson Center and in the framework of the Global Governance Innovation Network, Dr. Joris Larik has recently published the report

Cultural Anthropologist dr. Anouk de Koning has been awarded the Urban Citizen Fellowship to carry out research about democratisation of local democracy in Amsterdam.

How can the importance of the image in late medieval spirituality be understood in the context of the love mysticism inspired by the imagery of the Song of Songs?

On the 8th of September Yun-An Olivia Dung successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated.

Mirjam de Bruijn and camerman Sjoerd Sijsma have been travelling through Chad and Cameroon. The Arab spring hasn't arrived there yet, but the effects of internet and mobile telephony show in everyday life. Mirjam and Sjoerd look for counter voices: young people who try to change these countries in their…

Understanding how galaxies form, interact, and evolve comes largely from comparing theory predictions with observational data. Numerical simulations of galaxies provide the most accurate approach to testing the theory, as they follow the non-linear evolution of gas and dark matter in great detail and…

On the 24th of June, Martijn Wackers successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated. The Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Martijn on this achievement!

In some parts of the Roman Empire public meals were the norm: the wealthy treated the whole city to a meal. This phenomenon that suddenly arose and disappeared just as quickly had to do with political and social developments, according to historian Shanshan Wen. PhD defence 6 September.

The European University for Well-Being is organising a hackathon from 14 to 21 September to generate concrete proposals for this virtual university and to create a EUniWell identity. Leiden students and staff are welcome to take part.

On the 20th of June, Camil Staps successfully defended a doctoral thesis. Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Camil on this achievement!

Cutting-edge technological innovation for businesses and consumers, enabled by top-tier research on space and the quantum world.

Career and apply for jobs

Cyber agent technology and intelligence agencies is a project that is commissioned by Tracks Inspector, a Dutch company that develops innovative software.

Late Antiquity is characterized by migration movements, political unrest and religious strife. The way we assess these religious conflicts is often coloured by a post-Reformation understanding of ‘religion’. In my research, I show that late ancient authors understood religion in a way that differs much…

In collaboration with the Biate community of Meghalaya (Noth East India), I am co-creating the first-ever bilingual picture book in the Biate language. The project began with Biate schoolchildren collecting stories about their environment — stories shared by parents, neighbours, and village elders.

The current and future board of F.D.L. Gibalaux, the study association of the French language and culture programme, talk about the association, the change of board, their experiences and plans.

Spatial technology such as virtual reality can help patients who have difficulty with spatial cognition, for instance if they keep on losing their way. In her inaugural lecture, neuropsychologist Ineke van der Ham will talk about the importance of avatars, the patient experience and room for innovat…

Terrorism is not a successful communication strategy. After an attack, the attention quickly shifts from the terrorists to authorities and citizens. This is what Jeanine de Roy van Zuijdewijn argues in her dissertation: 'The aftermath: meaning-making after terrorist attacks in Western Europe'. ‘A year…

In 2023, the OSCL, together with the University Library and Academia in Motion, ran a survey to better understand the state of Open Science at our university. In this year's follow-up, we are asking you to give your input, so we can jointly develop how Open Science evolves in our university.