This summer, one of our BPS-master students, Ramazan Kiliç, will travel to Baltimore to present his research at the annual ARRE Research Symposium, a conference on ASXL-disorders that attracts researchers from all over the world, including the US, Japan, Germany, Ireland and, of course, The Netherlands.…

Translating texts, rehearsing scenes or practising music. Over the last few weeks, students of the BA Classics programme have been focused on just one thing: their production of the Greek tragedy Hecuba. Almost a third of them are involved in it. Iris de Smalen, who plays Hecuba, and Christoph Pieper,…

How do organs work in the body, and how can we create mini-organs to study diseases and test new medicines? That’s the idea behind organ-on-a-chip technology. During his PhD, Flavio Bonanini worked on developing the best possible mini-livers. ‘Make them as simple as possible, and as complex as neede…

In April 2025, Ms. Esther Rachow from The Hebrew University in Jerusalem presenting her ongoing doctoral research at an Austria Centre Leiden lunch-time talk. She answered a few questions about her visit below.

From 7-9 June 2023 Global Transformations and Governance Challenges (GTGC) organises its second international conference in The Hague. Deadline for submissions: 15 February 2023.

Leiden professor of molecular astrophysics and astrochemistry Ewine van Dishoeck was presented with the Niels Bohr International Gold Medal on Friday 7 October. The medal, instigated by the Danish Society of Engineers IDA, was awarded by Queen Margrethe of Denmark at a ceremony at the Carlsberg Academy…

PhD student and research journalist Sebastiaan Grosscurt won a Tegel in May. In the data category, Grosscurt and his colleagues won the prestigious Dutch journalism award. 'For me, ecological research and journalism are two ways of achieving the same thing.'

Fiffy the chimpanzee had rapidly developed cataracts in both eyes that made her as good as blind. Eye doctors at the Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC) have now managed to replace the lenses in both her eyes. As far as we know, Fiffy, who is thought to be between 30 and 40 years old, is the first…

Pigeons, zebra finches and parakeets. Carel ten Cate studied bird sounds. But not just that. Together with linguists from Leiden, he investigated parallels between birdsong and language. On 9 June, his farewell symposium was held to mark the end of his broad career. Well, the end? Carel ten Cate has…

Leiden University’s Living Lab is moving to the middle of the Leiden Bio Science Park. In the lab’s new home between the University of Applied Sciences, Mentor and Naturalis Biodiversity Center, the first ditches have now been dug. This new location is more accessible to both researchers and the public.…

CWTS will get a new board of directors for the coming three years, starting on 1 January 2024. The Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences of Leiden University has appointed Ludo Waltman as scientific director and Tjitske Holtrop, Wolfgang Kaltenbrunner and Clara Calero Medina as deputy directors.…

SAILS and CAIRELab, the LUMC’s AI expertise centre, recently held an event that gave healthcare professionals and computer scientists the chance to meet. The meeting proved fertile ground for new collaborations.

Psychology teacher of the year is Anouk van der Weiden. The master thesis awards are for Irina Verhülsdonk and Christel Klootwijk. Eliška Procházková receives the PhD publication prize; Katja Cardol and Judith Tommel the PhD wild card: the Open Science Award. Conny Binnendijk earns the OBP prize and…

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?

The submission deadline for applications to Leiden University Libraries (UBL) Scaliger Institute fellowship programmes has been set for 1 February 2026. The Scaliger Institute, the special collections research centre of the UBL, supports scholars in any field of study and from anywhere in the world…

Warja Tolstoj, alumna Art History, has been awarded the 2021 edition of the Ted Meijerprijs. Named after the former director of the KNIR (Royal Netherlands Institute in Rome), the prize is awarded yearly to the best MA/ReMa thesis or PhD in the Humanities.

With the start of the new academic year, the Social Resilience & Security programme proudly presents their yearbook. In the yearbook, you read about the programme’s interdisciplinary research building bridges between institutes, its educational activities such as the new Minor ‘Violence Studies’ and…

Dr Claire Achmad has taken up the role of Aotearoa New Zealand’s Chief Children’s Commissioner from 1 November 2023, for a term of five years.

Since 1 June, the Faculty of Humanities has gained a position. As knowledge broker, Marlieke Ernst wants to connect researchers: with each other and with the outside world.

The ROBUST consortium, which is the initiative of the Innovation Center for Artificial intelligence (ICAI), has received 25 million euros from the Dutch Research Council (NWO) to strengthen fundamental AI research.

Since 1 February 2016, Paul van Trigt is postdoctoral researcher in the project Rethinking Disability: the Impact of the International Year of Disabled Persons (1981) in Global Perspective at the Institute for History.

A world-famous light experiment from 1801 has now been carried out with sound for the first time. Research by physicists in Leiden has produced new insights that could be applied in 5G devices and the emerging field of quantum acoustics.

On 18 January 2025, the Annual Reconnect & Gala of the Advanced MSc International Relations and Diplomacy (MIRD) celebrated over 20 years of bringing together current MIRD students, alumni, and faculty members. This year’s discussions focused on the theme: 'The Future of IR: Digital Innovation, Climate…

ICT, Security

New Report Launched by ACPF with the support of the Department of Child Law and Health Law

From a new generation of antibiotics and more-effective vaccines to a map of dark matter and new light on Hindu traditions. Four researchers from Leiden University have received a prestigious €2.5m ERC Advanced Grant to develop their research.

South African poet Antjie Krog will be the writer in residence at Leiden University in autumn 2021. Krog is famous for her poetry collections and books, which are often inspired by the history of South Africa. In her role as writer in residence, she will give the annual Albert Verwey Lecture and a series…

The Grotius Centre for International Legal Studies is proud to announce a fortified partnership with the International Bar Association to annually stage the largest moot competition focused on international criminal law: The International Criminal Court Moot Court Competition.

Yung Lin’s research explores how citizens in Taiwan and Southeast Asia actively shape public diplomacy, build trust across cultures, and address identity-based conflicts, highlighting the shift from government-led to citizen-centred diplomacy.

What began as a PhD project has grown into a website with 120,000 unique visitors each year. With the platform OpenML, researcher Jan van Rijn is contributing to open science, aiming to make machine learning more transparent, accessible, and fair.

On January 1st Jasper Knoester started as our new dean. How is he finding it? What kinds of things is he doing and what does his day look like? In each newsletter Jasper gives a peek into his life as dean.

A few law students were given the opportunity to conduct an eight-week internship at the Rechtbank Den Haag. They took part in hearings as clerks, in discussions about cases in the judges’ chambers, and contributed to the formation of decisions. They held a presentation about their experiences during…

Organisation

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

Next generation immunodermatology (NGID) is a nationwide, large-scale project, funded by a large grant of the Dutch NWO to unravel novel biomarkers for six different skin diseases. These biomarkers will drive a high-tech, patient-centric approach in clinical practice. Health psychologist Sylvia van…

The past years Wouter Kool has been active as Privacy Officer at the Faculty of Archaeology. This was part of his position as Information Manager. Recently, however, he doubled his responsibilities when taking over the Information Manager position at the FGGA as well. He remains only human though, so…

Leiden University's eLaw Center's BIAS Project and the Universidad de la Laguna's AEQUITAS project will collaborate to develop a deeper understanding of AI technologies' impact on workers and inform policies accordingly.

Organisation

Fungi germinating in the lungs of patients. Doesn’t sound too nice, does it? Luckily, humans can deal with this normally, and we are able to clear the infection before anything comes to harm. However, in people with health issues, Aspergillosis can cause a lot of damage, especially if the fungus becomes…

For her research into complex family problems, an assistant professor in Forensic Family and Youth Care Studies Sabine van der Asdonk has won the Gratama Science Prize 2021, a prize for talented young researchers from the universities of Leiden and Groningen. The jury praised Van der Asdonk’s excellent…

Medical drugs are expensive to make and can have an adverse effect on the environment. Researchers Stefano Cucurachi and Justin Lian have developed a framework to help the healthcare system assess the economic and environmental sustainability of medical compounds.

The antibiotic EVG7, developed in Leiden, has proven capable of fighting the dangerous gut bacterium C. difficile with only a minimal dose. What’s more, the bacterium is far less likely to return, a major issue with existing antibiotics. The research was published in Nature Communications.

The most problematic themes in the Faculty of Humanities are workload and social safety, according to the recently completed Personnel Monitor. What happens now?

As you know, the faculty is working on a follow up strategy built around six different themes. Each theme now has its own writing team. Every week we speak with one of these teams about the content of their theme, and share an update in the newsletter. This weeks theme: AI led by Niels Laurens.

The SENSYN project has found a solution to few public datasets for criminological research: synthetic datasets. Marieke Liem talks about this unique innovation

Since 1 October 2022, Sarah Nelson is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Institute for History. Below she introduces herself.

Rik van Gijn was appointed professor of Ethnolinguistic Vitality and Diversity in the World from 1 December 2024. He is keen to use the position to set up research on language vitality. ‘People almost never give up their mother tongue entirely voluntarily.’

Three fundamental research projects at Leiden in physics, chemistry and medical science have received funding from the Dutch Research Council (NWO). They involve research on magnetic fields in the universe, the role of myeloid cells in cancer immunotherapy and the evolution of ancient proteins.

Acute stress seems to have a surprisingly positive effect on our health. Researcher Erin Faught received an NWO veni grant to find out why that is and how we can use that knowledge to our advantage. For her lab research, she uses a remarkable small animal to learn more about our own stress levels.

Carlotta Rigotti and Eduard Fosch-Villaronga have published a new article that offers an insightful and critical literature review on fairness and AI in the labour market as part of the BIAS project.