Lou Boshart won the Excellence in Visual & Multimodal Ethnography Thesis Prize for his film ‘Layers of Confidence’. Lou produced a multimodal thesis about the way rat catchers in New Zealand enact conservation policies and reflect on the ethical challenges of eradicating invasive species. Xiaohui Liu…

Governance of the internet is chaotic, says Professor Jan Aart Scholte. Can we learn from this relatively new form of governance?

Studying as an asylum seeker without a residence permit. Every year, student initiative IncLUsion enables dozens of asylum seekers to take several courses at Leiden University. ‘Education has given me a lot of support.’

Today, ESA’s Gaia mission releases its new treasure trove of data about our home galaxy. Astronomers, led by the Leiden astronomer Anthony Brown, describe strange ‘starquakes’, stellar DNA, asymmetric motions and other fascinating insights in this most detailed Milky Way survey to date.

On 16 April 2021 the webinar ‘Children and young adults in contact with the law: Systemic vulnerabilities and institutional responses’ took place. In total 17 speakers and discussants engaged with the topic of vulnerability.

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 skateboarding world was highly enthusiastic about the participation of skaters in the Olympic Games in 2021, although there was also a lot of opposition. Researcher Sander Hölsgens observes that the discussion has now abated and that the Games have had positive effects for skateboarders and citi…

Second-year MIRD students showcase their thesis research on global issues during the 2025 Thesis Symposium, bridging theory and diplomatic practice.

Master’s students in the Honours Class ‘Leiden, City of Refugees?’ were asked to contemplate the concept of ‘the other’ from both an academic and an artistic perspective. The result was the exhibition ‘The Invitation’ which was presented at Stadsbauhaus on 4 June.

Jekaterina Savicka is funding advisor at Leiden Law School. She is part of the Department of Research, the department responsible for organisational and policy support for research at the faculty. How has she experienced working here since starting her position back in March 2024?

No fewer than 55 applications were submitted for a Kiem seed grant, an initiative for developing new interdisciplinary, interfaculty research partnerships and encounters. The draw took place on Monday for the allocation of 22 seed grants. The Executive Board was so impressed with the number of applications…

During illness, the stiffness or viscosity of cells can change. Tom Evers demonstrated this by measuring such properties of human immune cells for the first time. ‘The stiffness of certain cells could be a way to make a diagnosis,’ Evers said. He defended his thesis on March 26th.

Four projects led by the Faculty of Humanities have been awarded KIEM grants. The researchers will receive €10,000 to carry out their plans.

Almost 3,500 visitors came to Master’s Open Day in Leiden and The Hague.

On 7 and 8 November 2024, the International Centre for Counter-Terrorism (ICCT), the Institute of Security & Global Affairs at Leiden University, and The Netherlands’ National Coordinator for Security and Counter Terrorism (NCTV) partnered to host a ‘Blue-Sky’ Terrorist Exploitation of Artificial…

In the Netherlands, people probably grew up with De Fabeltjeskrant (a children’s show, ed.), but in France an introduction to fables plays a much more important role in a child's upbringing. PhD candidate Céline Zaepffel studied the role of fables in French education and teaching methods. It turns out…

How is academic freedom restricted by the academic community itself? This was the central question at a debate at Leiden University on 14 November.

Roberto Arciero is part of RESPIRE project (Research Educational and Storytelling Project in Italian Remote Ecosystem), an international and interdisciplinary research team led by Martina Capriotti (University of Camerino) that received the National Geographic Meridian grant. Among the different topics,…

Jessie van Straaten recently joined the Institute for History as a PhD candidate as part of Evelien Walhout's starting grant project 'Human Development and Its Outliers: A Global Microhistory'. Below she introduces herself.

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…

What does the University mean for The Hague? And what are researchers and students learning from the city and its residents? The Hague city councillors visited Campus The Hague on 27 September and spoke to administrators and researchers. ‘From Schilderswijk to Benoordenhout: we are a university for…

Egyptologist Marleen De Meyer has been appointed the new Director of the Netherlands-Flemish Institute in Cairo (NVIC). Dr De Meyer has worked for the institute, which promotes Egyptian, Dutch and Flemish collaboration in the field of education and research, since 2016.

People from the Dutch islands of Bonaire, Saba and Sint Eustatius say that violence (mainly verbal) is fairly common in families. This is according to research by Leiden University, the University of Curaçao and UNICEF Netherlands. The researchers make recommendations for preventing such violence over…

Increasingly, citizens are going to court to challenge decisions by the Public Prosecution Service not to prosecute in certain, sometimes socially sensitive, cases. Yet, these citizens are not always taken seriously as democratically engaged persons. A mistake, says Sophie Koning.

Starting February 6, the Leiden interdisciplinary research programme Global Transformations and Governance Challenges (GTGC) will host a lunch seminar series on pressing global governance issues. The series will feature researchers from various disciplines. It promises to be a trove of inspiration and…

The newly established Leiden Jewish Studies Association aims to bring together Leiden scholars working on Judaism. The first annual conference will take place in Leiden on 6 and 7 December. Leiden professors and co-organisers of the LJSA Sarah Cramsey and Jürgen Zangenberg talk about their plans.

Over hundreds of thousands of years, our region witnessed the comings and goings of various types of hominin. This depended on the temperature as ice ages alternated with warmer periods. In ‘De eerste mensen in de Lage Landen’ (‘The First Humans in the Low Countries’) Leiden archaeologists Yannick Raczynski-Henk…

An international visitation committee has judged the research programme of the Institute of Public Administration of Leiden University as excellent. The report, which looked at the period 2014-2019, was published last week.

Hydropower plants need not be disastrous for fishermen and nature. For that, we need to place new dams more strategically, but also modify or even remove some existing ones. Valerio Barbarossa and Rafael Schmitt showed that with a computer model of the Asian Mekong basin.

Annetje Ottow, president of the Executive Board of Leiden University, has been the new chair of the Leiden-Delft-Erasmus (LDE) strategic alliance for just two months. What does she want to achieve during her two-year chairmanship?

Each scientific institute has its own dynamics. The Executive Board is visiting the different institutes to find out what is going on there. On 11 March, staff at the Institute of Tax Law and Economics talked to the Board about their teaching and research. What is going well and what are the challen…

Dick Schoof kan ook wel de buurman van de Haagse faculteit worden genoemd. Vooral vanuit zijn rol bij de NCTV werkte hij veel samen met de Universiteit Leiden en hielp hij onderwijs en onderzoek vooruit, vertelt hoogleraar Terrorisme en Contraterrorisme Edwin Bakker. ‘Voor een kritische vriend was altijd…

When you think of physics, do you think only of complicated formulas? You’re not the only one. Therefore, every year, the Leiden Insitute of Physics organises the LION Image Award to show another side of physics: beautiful images about intriguing science. The winner of the 2022 photo competition captured…

In a collaborative effort between the Leiden Children’s Rights Observatory, the Leiden Law Academy, UNICEF and the Petitions Section of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, a symposium held last week commemorated the tenth anniversary of the Optional Protocol to the Convention…

Archaeologist David Fontijn was nominated for the University Teaching Prize. His students nominated him for this award for his innovative ways of online teaching. In the corona-year 2020-2021 he gave a new course and experimented with the way he taught. ‘It clearly appealed to the students, so we are…

How can we ensure that we act climate-proof and climate-neutral? We asked climate and earth scientist and lecturer at the Climate Change course Joeri Reinders.

Do you know what the capital of St Eustatius is? Or which province Curaçao belongs to? No idea? You are not the only one: the majority of European Dutch people know little about the Caribbean islands within the Kingdom of the Netherlands. This is according to a large-scale opinion survey led by political…

The Leiden African Studies Assembly (LeidenASA) held its Annual Meeting on 12 December. LeidenASA is the network of Leiden based Africa-researchers. Fifteen researchers gave pitches on their projects, and sketches of Leiden University's Africa strategy were outlined.

Professor Pieter ter Keurs has spent his entire career studying collecting. Now, he is retiring. ‘I hope the focus on collections will carry on.’

On 8 March, International Women’s Day, equal opportunities for women worldwide, empowerment, and gender equality take centre stage. For years, the role of women in the past has been nearly invisible. Four archaeologists reflect on this inequality of focus, from hunter-gatherers in the palaeolithic to…

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