Personal development

The nominees for the IRO Thesis Prize 2024 and the Prof. Dr. J.Th.J. van den Berg-prijs 2024. Who authored the best thesis in Leiden University’s bachelor’s programme in Political Science?

Lecture

Ionica Smeets is planning to give the prize money that she won with the Iris Medal, a prize for excellent science communication, to student projects.

The tenth International Conference on Rapa Nui (Easter Island) and the Pacific will be a special edition with a focus on reconciliation. The fatal shooting in 1722 will be remembered, when the Dutch shot and killed ten Easter Islanders. The conference will be held in Leiden from 19 to 24 June.

A star does not just appear in the sky overnight. Its creation takes tens of thousands of years. Twenty years ago, astronomers took a picture of a star in its birth phase. The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) could now capture that same star in much greater detail. This does not only provide beautiful…

Joris Larik has been appointed Director of Education at Leiden University College The Hague (LUC). The timing is perfect: this year marks his tenth anniversary at LUC. After a decade full of experiences and challenges, he now looks ahead. ‘How do we keep innovating?’

On Monday, 13 October, Jasper will travel to Brussels with a delegation from Key Region Leiden. Why is this collaboration important? And who will he be having dinner with that same evening in Voorschoten? Jasper shares his account of a long and interesting Monday.

Why is water wet? What is ADHD? In De Hoe?Zo! Show, curious 9-and-10-year-olds get answers to their questions. PhD candidates take to the stage to demonstrate just how exciting science can be while enhancing their own communication skills at the same time.

Simulations of galaxy formation provide much more information about galaxies than a telescope. Simulations have been improving significantly in recent years. Astronomer Evgenii Chaikin made such a significant contribution to this field that he graduated with honours on February 27th.

Fat is a very valuable food component, packed with calories, especially important when other resources might be scarce. Our earliest ancestors in Africa already cracked open bones to extract the fatty marrow from bone cavities. But now a new study published in Science Advances demonstrates that our…

‘I could hardly believe my ears when I heard that we had been awarded the Gravitation grant,’ says Berna Güroğlu, professor of the Neuroscience of Social Relations. This grant is awarded by the state, via NWO, to pioneering scientific top research. In terms of grants, this really is something special,…

Sacrificing yourself for the greater good: in China, martyrdom and hero worship have been strongly encouraged by the Communist Party for the past decade or so. University lecturer Vincent Chang tells us more about this far-reaching development.

If an echo (or ultrasound) shows that a foetus has a heart or other defect, parents face difficult decisions. Then an idea of their child’s shorter and longer-term future is literally a matter of life and death. Haak will argue in her inaugural lecture that the cohort studies of rare diseases that are…

Professor Joanita Vroom, together with the Royal Netherlands Institute in Rome (KNIR) offered the course Byzantine Rome in September 2023. The course, co-taught by Vroom, Letty ten Harkel and various guest lecturers, investigated the transition of the city of Rome from Late Antiquity to the Middle Ages,…

Jasper Knoester is the dean of the Faculty of Science. How is he doing? 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.

When Jeanette Wagenaar read Simone van der Vlugt's De amulet (The Amulet) at the age of eleven, she decided that she too wanted to write a historical novel one day. Thirty years later, Gooilust, about Louise Blaauw-Six, has now been published.

Students presented the prototypes of educational tools they made in the first ten weeks of the new minor Living Education Lab. We asked two students and a teacher about their first experiences in this minor.

The Advanced Nano-electrochemistry Institute Of the Netherlands (ANION) consortium will receive 23.6m euros in Gravitation funding for research on important electrochemical processes for energy transition. An additional four consortia with members from Leiden have also been awarded funding.

Rather than one key and one strong lock, biology often uses tens or hundreds of weaker links to bind parts together, such as cells membranes. This allows for selectivity and also reversibility: the binding can also be undone. Researchers first caught this phenomenon using spheres or colloids, and published…

Opening facultair jaar FDR

Universele Verklaring voor de Rechten van de Mens en het Genocide verdrag, 75 jaar Oekraine

How can chimpanzees, so closely related to humans, have almost no sense of rhythm? ‘The best students ever’ and behavioural biologist Michelle Spierings demonstrated that chimps can actually drum and move rhythmically—each following their own unique beat.

With the new Euclid satellite, scientists are going to map a large part of the sky. The satellite ofthe European Space Agency (ESA) will soon give them a better view of the galaxies and matter in the universe. Professor of Galactic Astronomy Koen Kuijken and a team of Dutch scientists are receiving…

Prof. Andrea Evers is a health psychologist who studies the role of behavioural factors in health and disease. As a Medical Delta Professor, she is now affiliated with Leiden University, TU Delft and Erasmus University. In that position, she conducts research at the intersection of various disciplines.…

Studying how single DNA molecules behave helps us to better understand genetic disorders and design better drugs. Until now however, examining DNA molecules one-by-one was a slow process. Biophysicists from Delft University of Technology and Leiden University developed a technique that speeds up screening…

A breakthrough from the PhD research of medical chemist Elmer Maurits may help patients with autoimmune diseases and blood cancer in the future. But bringing a discovery from the lab to the clinic is not so easily done. Thanks to NWO's Venture Challenge, Maurits and his team will receive ten weeks of…

Maarten Jansen, professor emeritus at the Faculty of Archaeology, was appointed as Distinguished Emeritus Professor for two years at the University of Bonn. In this position, Jansen, a world-renowned specialist on ancient Mexican pictorial manuscripts, will further expand upon the long-standing collaboration…

A consortium including economists, psychologists and public administration scholars from Leiden University will study public acceptance of the hydrogen transition in the Netherlands. They will look at the labour market impact, public perceptions of hydrogen and businesses’ willingness to invest.

How should the municipality of Eindhoven organise the reception of asylum seekers? What is the best electoral system for the Dutch Parliament? Governments regularly ask citizens for their opinions. Computer scientist Michiel van der Meer has improved the method used for citizen assemblies. He will defend…

Adults are more likely to reoffend after a short prison sentence than comparable adults with a non-custodial sentence, Leiden University research shows. This is true for the likelihood and extent of repeat crime.

Jasper Knoester is the dean of the Faculty of Science. How is he doing, what exactly does he do and what does his day look like? In each newsletter, Jasper gives an insight into his life.

A microscope with incredible sharpness that leaves samples unharmed – Guido Stam helped develop one. During his PhD research, he combined light and electrons to study biological samples. ‘We can now measure things that simply weren’t possible before.’

How can we hack prejudice about age and ageing out of the recruitment process? That was the question data scientists, psychologists and HR professionals tackled during the AnyAge.AI hackathon. 'AI can actually be used to increase fairness in recruitment.

Leiden researchers share their work with a global audience through the international journalistic platform The Conversation. What are the benefits? And how does it work? Two researchers talk about their experiences and why colleagues should consider taking the same step.

While the United States continues to carry out drone strikes, and China conducts large-scale cyber and information operations, Ukrainian and Russian soldiers live in trenches, and NATO sends tanks to the Donbas front to force a breakthrough. Has war changed dramatically in recent decades as a result…

Are we going vegetarian this year? Shall we keep the dessert the same? Where do I find inspiration for a festive meal during the holidays? For readers who like to postpone these questions, for those who like to tell a good story with their culinary contribution, or for those who simply want to know…

Graphic Novels and Comics have developed from pulp status to an entirely self-contained medium. This form of storytelling is not limited to stories of superheroes but has been used, molded and reshaped to display historical events, classic stories and autobiographical memoirs. But where should you begin…

PhD defence

Lecture, Economic and Social History Brown Bag Seminar

Male scientists owe their position to their brilliance, women to their hard work. Or do they? The Equalista app helps staff and students at the Faculty of Humanities to become aware of gender equality.

Eastern and Southern European countries struggle with ‘brain drain’ as skilled workers move to other EU Member States. Could restricting free movement be a legitimate and lawful way to address this trend? Researcher Martijn van den Brink will investigate the issue.

A European team of astronomers, led by Leiden-based researcher Konstantinos Migkas, has uncovered a large filament — a long, thread-like structure — of hot gas connecting four clusters of galaxies. This filament is made up of what scientists call the warm-hot intergalactic medium.

Health Day has won the LUF Relationship-Promoting Activities Prize (LUF RAP). This 5,000-euro prize is awarded to an initiative by Leiden University students that brings the academic community together.

One of the aims in the development of the university’s new strategic plan is to foster a dialogue between as many students, staff and external stakeholders as possible about which topics and ambitions should be included in the plan. At the beginning of May we therefore invited all our students and staff…

Prof. Annetje Ottow and Assist. Prof. Seda Gürkan visited the College of Europe campus in Bruges on 22 March 2024.

Only 27 per cent of Dutch households are financially healthy. This appears from a joint study conducted by Deloitte, ING, NIBUD and the Department of Economics of Leiden University.

From March 1, Alenka Prinčič will be the new Head of the Centre for Digital Scholarship (CDS) at Leiden University Libraries. Her expertise in the areas of Research Support, Research Infrastructures and Open Publishing as well as her longstanding experience as a manager are excellent starting points…

The Netherlands has gained a third commentary on the Constitution – with Leiden as its home base. The first copy of Een nieuw commentaar op de Grondwet (A new commentary on the Constitution) (published by Boom Amsterdam) was presented to Prime Minister Mark Rutte in the Torentje last week.

We need to be quicker and better at discovering side effects. In her inaugural lecture, Agnes Kant, Professor by Special Appointment of Innovation of Pharmacovigilance, calls for more research on these adverse effects.