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…

Soil ecologist Emilia Hannula has been awarded a Vidi grant by NWO to examine how soil could become a promising ally in combating climate change and improving biodiversity. ‘Soil creatures might be invisible’, she says, ‘but they play a huge role in creating a healthy environment.’

Employee participation an issue that is not of your interest? On the contrary, your vote directly affects your working environment at Psychology. You know, where you give your best every working day. Three of our colleagues are getting in the race for a spot in the Unversity Council. Take that chance…

People who move most in the afternoon and evening are less insulin resistant than people who move mainly in the morning or spread throughout the day. This makes them at lower risk of type 2 diabetes. These are the results that researchers from the Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC) have published…

They never cross our minds until, that is, they become damaged and then they’re a huge problem: our sewers. Their maintenance could be much faster and more accurate, PhD candidate Dirk Meijer has discovered. Algorithms are also proving to be a godsend deep underground.

The rising energy prices cannot have escaped anyone’s notice. They have dominated the news in recent months. As a university, we too face a big challenge as the prices continue to rise. We will all have to do our bit in the coming months, also in view of the climate crisis that we want to help resol…

When a challenge or question presents itself, our first reaction is often: ‘Let’s organise training’. But is that always the best solution? The working day often offers plenty of informal learning and development opportunities

Since September, Jelle Oonk has been the chair of the Science Faculty Council. Jelle is a third-year student, combining Physics and Astronomy studies with this responsible role. Time to get to know him better. Five questions for the new chair.

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.

Last year, Dr. Henk van Steenbergen received a Grass Shoot grant to completely redevelop the research master's course 'Experimentation I: Programming Psychological Experiments'. The revised course was taught for first time last block and has just come to an end. Time for a brief recap.

The student navigator 'Find your way' helps students find their way around the university. Student advisers can also be found on the roadmap. JanPieter, student advisor at the Institute of Security and Global Affairs (ISGA), explains what a student advisor does.

Could we stop cancer cells by cutting off their energy supply? That’s what Dione Blok, a bachelor’s student in Bio-Pharmaceutical Sciences, aimed to find out during her thesis research. She investigated a compound that affects the tumour cells’ energy metabolism. ‘Hopefully, these insights will provide…

Leiden University will continue to offer its BA in Italian Language and Culture. The Board of the Faculty of Humanities has reversed its decision to stop admitting new students as of the 2026/2027 academic year.

The annual homicide rate has decreased considerably since the 1990s. In their hunt for an explanation, researchers Pauline Aarten and Marieke Liem made a surprising discovery: if you divide homicides into categories, you find significant differences in the homicide rate. Publication in the European…

There are lots of important items on the education and teaching agenda for 2024. Reaccreditation for the Law programmes including Notarial Law and Tax Law degree programmes, preparations for the implementation of the Kernvisie Bachelor, a new online teaching platform and a Teaching Fair, to name just…

Huiselijk geweld is een ingrijpend probleem in Nederland, met jaarlijkse fatale gevolgen. De impact gaat verder dan alleen de slachtoffers zelf en raakt ook nabestaanden en de samenleving als geheel. Tot nu toe/Momenteel ontbreekt het echter aan een gestructureerde manier om fatale gevallen systematisch…

In an essay Professors Jan Willem Erisman (Leiden University), Chris Backes (Utrecht University) and Wim de Vries (Wageningen University) suggest amending nitrogen policy in the Netherlands. They call for a shift from a deposition to an emissions policy, with sectors responsible for reducing their own…

Tracking mucus-eating bacteria, mapping the complexity of planetary nebulae and a signalling pathway in cancer. These three Leiden projects have been awarded Open Competition Science-M funding by the Dutch Research Council.

In the context of the 2021 Day of General Discussion of the UN Committee on Rights of the Child, this time dedicated to alternative care, Defence for Children in collaboration with Leiden University has contributed with a paper on the 2019 Dutch Inquiry Committee on Historical Child Abuse in Alternative…

Facility

What should you do when you fall ill? And what can you expect from your direct supervisor? As both an HR adviser and someone with personal experience, Marian van de Walle outlines the key things you need to know.

Transferring poo from healthy donors to the intestines of chronically ill people has beneficial effects on these recipients’ gut bacteria, also in the longer term. This is the conclusion of research by the Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC) and the Netherlands Donor Feces Bank (NDFB).

PhD candidate Daniël Gomon has developed statistical methods that could significantly improve research in fields like medicine and demography. ‘Mathematicians don’t like unrealistic assumptions,’ he says. Gomon will defend his PhD thesis on 19 June.

On top of the Gorlaeus Building’s bike parking sits a hidden green surprise: Leiden’s largest rooftop garden. Since this academic year, the garden has been open to all students and staff.

A team of international researchers led by Tomas Stolker in the Netherlands has imaged a young gas giant exoplanet near a 12-million-year-old star. The planet is orbiting a star at which planet formation has finished, while the same-aged companion star still has a planet-forming disk. The researchers…

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.

Connecting space to society and gaining problem-solving experience: that’s the goal of LDE Space & Society, a new honours programme for bachelor’s students in Leiden, Delft and Rotterdam. What does the programme look like? And what do students hope to learn? We visited a kick-off session full of exc…

The Mindlab theatre and discussion programme will launch at the Faculty of Humanities at the end of September. What exactly does this programme on social safety entail? And who is it intended for? HR adviser Brigitte Heming explains.

Two workshops on imbalance are scheduled in the near future: one for staff members and one for managers. The aim is to help people recognise signs of imbalance earlier and to take appropriate action.

A consortium of research infrastructures focused on water quality has received €4.18 million in funding from the Dutch Research Council (NWO). This grant will support the transformation of outdoor laboratories at Leiden University, NIOO-KNAW, Radboud University, and Wageningen University & Research…

What makes young people susceptible to misinformation? And how do their friends influence this? Psychologist Jiemiao Chen aims to find out by using eye-tracking to monitor where young people focus their attention while watching TikTok videos.

Kamila Smagulova recently joined the Institute for History as a PhD candidate, as part of Carolien Stolte's ERC project 'Reconciling Peace: International Coalitions for Peace in the Era of Decolonization, 1918-1970'. The project runs alongside Carolien Stolte's VIDI project 'Peace Palms. International…

Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur for human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories, visited Leiden Law School on 8 December within the scope of International Human Rights Day.

How do you get citizens more involved in energy transition projects? This is the central question of the new transdisciplinary research project EmPowerEd. As a consortium partner, Leiden University is focusing on effective and inclusive collaboration between citizens, municipalities and industry.

The PDI-SSH grant will be used by Meuwese to create a web portal and collection of tools and resources, named ‘WetSuite’, that will help researchers apply Natural Language Processing (NLP) methods to legal textual data from public bodies.

Whereas ethical research rules were previously mainly associated with the sciences, today they also play an increasingly important role in the Humanities. What are the consequences of this for researchers in the Humanities? And when do you need the Ethics Committee? We discussed this question with Dorota…

Aya Ezawa bade farewell as Diversity Officer of Leiden University at a celebration in the Academy Building on 11 June. Since her appointment in 2019, she has been a tireless advocate for culture change and a champion for diversity, inclusion and equal opportunities for all.

From scanners in lecture halls to systems for working from home: the discussion about new technology is being held on various fronts. That is why the University wants to make more use of its in-house experts. At the Technology and Trust symposium at Leiden University on 2 February, researchers from…

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.

In the ‘Educatips’ column, psychology lecturers share their valuable insights about lecturing. This month: Franz Wurm is developing entrepreneurship workshops together with PLNT for master’s students of Clinical Psychology. ‘We want to teach students to develop from passive consumers to become active…

How you think about yourself is important for the choices you make. Adolescents are faced with choosing a study programme that will determine their future, while their self-image is still under development. Tough choice? Research by psychologist Laura van der Aar has shown that taking a training course…

While tens of thousands of visitors dance to deafening music, a team of Leiden psychologists are trying to collect data for their research at Lowlands. How do festivalgoers experience a virtual trip? And what role do factors such as too little sleep and whether they have experience with psychedelics…

The Graduate School of the Faculty of Humanities conducted a survey of its PhD candidates and their supervisors in spring 2023. What is going well? And what could be improved? The results are now known.

‘We may have taken steps together, but there is still much to do in the fight against racism and discrimination’, says Annetje Ottow, President of Leiden University’s Executive Board. ‘We have to be aware of this and continue to focus on this difficult, uncomfortable and often confronting topic.’

From science to startup: How do you approach it? Why should you take your research to the market in the first place? And what obstacles will you face? ‘It takes time to find a company that matches your motives.’

Can humans perceive single photons? What is our place in the universe? How can we make quantum computers more stable? Five researchers from the Faculty of Science have received funding for their research projects within the Dutch Research Agenda (NWA).

It is sufficiently plausible that the professor from the Faculty of Archaeology exhibited the ‘inappropriate and unacceptable behaviour’ detailed in the advice of the investigating committee. That is is unless the professor provides counter-evidence. This is the conclusion of the Subdistrict Court…

Cognitive decline and anxiety in Parkinson’s disease are often only recognised at a late stage, in spite of their great impact. Research by Marit Ruitenberg focuses on new tests and methods to show up these symptoms earlier and make them more specific.