'Frans Rodenburg is an excellent teacher who is able to convey difficult information,' say his students. In his statistics classes, he wants to make students enthusiastic for his beloved subject. 'Most students are convinced that statistics is not for them. I am here to convince them otherwise.' Rodenburg…

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.

They make up no less than 73% of the workforce at the Leiden Institute of Chemistry (LIC), yet PhD candidates and postdocs at the institute don’t always find their way to each other. LIC73 aims to change that. The platform organises social and professional activities and amplifies the voices of these…

More severe droughts that will also last longer: this will primarily be a problem for irrigated croplands, as discovered by environmental scientist Qi Chen. Mixed forests with a variety of plant species will be the least vulnerable. Chen compared the effects of drought on different ecosystems across…

A group of biology students are working on a solution to the world’s plastics problem by getting bacteria to make biodegradable plastic.

Western civil servants openly struggle with their government’s policies on the war in Gaza. During a meeting at Campus The Hague, three former civil servants told their stories.

Nathaniel Martin, Professor of Biological chemistry, wondered what would happen if you take an antibiotic that has been known for 70 years and try to improve it with the latest tools of modern chemistry. Turns out it can become up to a hundred times more potent and prevent the growth of some drug-resistant…

How do you really measure how a country is doing? Researcher Annegeke Jansen is looking for alternatives to gross domestic product (GDP) to assess the state of society. As an economist, she focuses on well-being, inclusivity, and a healthier environment. ‘The economy should be a tool to achieve those…

Today marks the launch of the LDE Bachelor Honours Programme Sustainability. Students from Leiden University, TU Delft and Erasmus University will work together on concrete sustainability issues of organisations. Interest in the new programme turned out to be overwhelming. Two lecturers involved share…

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.

Sharing his passion for sustainability with students—that’s what Thijs Bosker enjoys most about his work. As an environmental scientist, he conducts ecotoxicological research, but next to this he loves teaching. ‘Everyone can make a difference in their own way.’

Leiden University is under fire: it is allegedly doing too little to tackle antisemitism. Rector Hester Bijl responds to this accusation and to a video from 2014 on social media in which extreme remarks are made. ‘We can be short about such comments: they are unacceptable. The university is and always…

Erik Danen is the new Dean of the Graduate School from 1 January. He is a professor at the Leiden Academic Centre for Drug Research and conducts research into cancer drugs. Danen is really looking forward to it: ‘PhD candidates are a special group: that's what I like to dedicate myself to.’

Effectively treating a severe case of pneumonia is often challenging. Identifying the pathogen behind it can be difficult. PhD candidate Ilona den Hartog tried something new: ‘We searched for answers in substances our own body produces.’ PhD defence on 17 September.

What’s really happening in the space between the cells in your body? With the Collagen Canvas project, students from Leiden University invite you to explore this question by blending science with art. This interactive artwork immerses you in the dynamics of the extracellular matrix—the invisible structure…

Search engines are getting better at answering our questions. And chatbots are increasingly likely to search the internet for relevant sources. ‘Search engines and chatbots will become more closely entwined’, says Professor Suzan Verberne.

A year ago, we launched something new: a way of working together that puts collaboration, equality and mutual support at the heart of how we lead. But how does that actually play out in daily life? Three colleagues share their experiences with collegial institute boards.

He started out as a temporary staff member at the CML’s education office, and now – eight years later – Jasper Williams is the institute’s new Director of Operations. In this interview, he talks about entrepreneurship, making a social impact, and playing competitive bridge. ‘I like doing things properly,…

The Schoof cabinet has presented its budget. As expected, higher education is facing severe cuts. In the coming period, the Executive Board will regularly look at the consequences of what it deems an irresponsible policy.

Lecturers Marjo de Graauw and Malte Riemann have both received a Comenius Teaching Fellowship.

The Master of Medicine at Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC) has won the national biennial award for best educational innovation in medical teaching. It was awarded the prize by the Netherlands Association for Medical Education (NVMO) for its MasterMinds Challenge (MMC).

Interest groups seem to be going to court more often to force politicians to act. How often do they do so? And how successful are they? The Kiem project ‘Litigation in the name of public interest’ is compiling a database on this.

With Sunday 28 January the annual European Data Protection Day, we are drawing attention to data protection and the right to privacy. Because it’s okay to stop and think before sharing our data or that of others, says privacy officer Eric van Hoof. ‘If you cross the road, you don’t do so without looking…

Since May, Assistant professor BioTherapeutics Lu Su works in our faculty. Although she is still young, she already worked in many different fields and co-operated on two publications in big scientific journals. How did she become so successful and what motivates her to keep researching the possibilities…

With a self-converted red camper van, biologists and twin brothers Kevin and Marvin Groen go on a nature adventure in Eastern Europe. Together, they search for wild animals, beautiful nature and places to sport. From a long search for a bear in the Slovakian wilderness to the discovery that pelicans…

Computer scientist Matthijs van Leeuwen is one of four science faculty members who obtained the Senior Qualification in Education in 2021. What was that like and what drives him? ‘In my own education I would have liked to see more attention paid to the responsibility that machine learning and data mining…

Het zal niemand ontgaan zijn dat de digitale dreigingen blijven toenemen. Uit monitoring door onze cybersecurity-experts blijkt dat er continu wordt geprobeerd om ook onze systemen binnen te dringen. Wat doen wij daartegen en hoe kan jij als medewerker bijdragen aan onze cyberveiligheid?

Martina Huber, Jacqueline Labra Munoz research Alzheimer's disease. They study ferritine, iron storage in the brain. An inbalance of iron could play a role in this form of dementia.

Cancer research generates massive amounts of data, but traditional tools often fail to fully harness their potential. How can we unlock this data to provide better treatments for cancer patients? PhD candidate Marina Gorostiola González explored this by using advanced data analysis techniques to guide…

Leiden physicists Alexandre Morin and Samadarshi Maity study self-organisation and flocking phenomena. They shed light on flocking, which helps to understand how it is possible that birds in a flock don't collide. With plastic microbeads, they create an experimental setup and they developed a mathematical…

Luckily we’ve been able to meet up on campus again for a few months now after two years of mainly online teaching. Alongside the inconvenience, enforced digitalisation has brought us valuable innovations and smart tools. The question is: what’s going well and what could we do differently? I’d love to…

Are we on the right track towards a circular economy in 2050, with fully renewable energy technology and circular construction? The CML of Leiden University, together with the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency (PBL), TNO, Utrecht University and RIVM, is investigating what is needed to achieve…

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.

To facilitate the search for new antibiotics. That is the aim of Gilles van Wezel, professor molecular biotechnology at the Institute of Biology Leiden (IBL). He wants to do this by looking at similarities in the DNA of antibiotic-producing bacteria. Van Wezel has been awarded an ERC Advanced grant…

Did he dare take a gamble with his PhD research? Jeroen Methorst didn’t have to think long about it. It could fail or turn out very well. The latter is the case. Methorst developed a computer system that helps researchers find the protein they need. ‘Our whole group is now using this program.’ Methorst…

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.

The university is responsible for the safety of over 40,000 people who work, study and visit around 50 buildings in Leiden and The Hague. Find out which security measures are changing and what this means for you.

Researchers from the Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC) have successfully used stem cell gene therapy to treat a baby with the severe congenital immune disorder SCID. An important milestone: it is the first time stem cell gene therapy of Dutch origin has been administered to a patient, and also…

The annual commemoration of the nation’s war dead on Dam Square and at Waalsdorpervlakte, the Dutch apologies for historical slavery and the Cleveringa Lecture itself: our relationship with history is often ritualistic, Cleveringa Professor Frank van Vree will say in his inaugural lecture on 27 Nove…

It’s Cybersecurity Awareness Month, and we’re spotlighting the importance of digital safety in the workplace. Our Chief Information Security Officer, Sylvia Bunte-Thelen, shares how staff can help keep our university a safe place to work and study. ‘We need to work together to protect our knowledge.…

People already diagnosed with a mental disorder before the COVID-19 pandemic did not show a disproportionate increase in symptoms afterwards. This is one result from the first systematic review of longitudinal studies following their study population from before to during the first eighteen months of…

A standing ovation. A wave and a smile from the president. A final selfie. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky addressed students in the Netherlands for the first time on Tuesday morning via a livestream in The Hague. He did so in front of two packed lecture halls at both Leiden University and The…

Researchers, civil servants and local residents met on 27 September to talk about partnering for sustainability. What were the results? In a green ‘city oasis’ in the centre of The Hague they spoke about the energy transition, bottom-up initiatives and citizen science.

It doesn't happen every day that the research project of a first-year bachelor’s student results in a scientific publication. And not only that, but as first author and on the cover of a leading physics journal. ‘We have given our lab education a thorough overhaul and it is paying off.’

Researchers need to work in specialized environments when they work with dangerous bacteria and viruses. These microbes spread easily, so only in labs with a high biosafety levels they can be studied. Unfortunately, to look at the microbes properly, expensive microscopes are needed that are not always…

Dutch children’s picture books are full of animals, but mainly mammals are portrayed. Especially pets and exotic animals are popular. A large part of the Dutch fauna is less visible, but biologist Michiel Hooykaas of Leiden University sees plenty of opportunities for a more biodiverse book world.

The gas prices now exceed 300 euros per megawatt hour – a record. The transition from fossil (natural gas, coal, oil) to renewable energy is needed and soon. But how do you get a society (and its citizens) to switch to sustainable energy?

A fresh vision on publishing, a broad set of quality criteria for education and research and plenty of opportunities to share good practices and learn from each other. These are all on the 2025 agenda for Academia in Motion: our university-wide programme that brings together Open Science and Recognition…

Last year he became Teacher of the Year because of his innovative and online teaching, now Alexander van Oudenhoven has to change course again and teach physically. What have the first weeks been like for him? ‘Let's apply what we learned in the lockdown period.’

Assistant professor Joost Willemse firmly believes that as a teacher, you’re never done learning. ‘Students ask questions about things you’ve never thought of yourself. Ultimately, that makes you better at your job.’ That’s why he always encourages his students to ask questions. And it’s appreciated:…