Pablo Merayo Montes recently joined the Institute for History as a PhD candidate within the NWO-funded project 'Dutch guest workers in 18th century Spain’ under the supervision of Raymond Fagel. Below, he introduces himself.

With support of several publishers and private foundations, Leiden University Libraries (UBL) and the Scaliger Institute welcome around 15 to 20 Fellows and guests per year to consult and research materials from our Special Collections. The Scaliger Institute received many applications this year from…

Mete Oguz recently joined the Institute for History as a postdoctoral researcher within the starting grant project 'Reevaluating Conceptions of Imperial Monetary Flow: New Methodologies and Frameworks’ under the supervision of Liesbeth Claes and Isaac Scarborough. Below, he introduces himself.

Three PhD candidates from Leiden University have been awarded a Mosaic 2.0 scholarship for their PhD research. The Dutch Research Council (NWO) Mosaic 2.0 programme is aimed at an underrepresented group of graduates with a migrant background.

A tour, presentations, drinks, and a quiz: new employees were warmly welcomed at the first faculty onboarding session. On a Thursday afternoon, they got to know the faculty.

The Dutch Research Council (NWO) has awarded Vidi grants to 14 Leiden researchers. This grant of a maximum of 850,000 euros will enable them to start a new research group and develop their own line of research over the next five years.

LUC historian Jacqueline Hylkema unmasks forgeries from the early modern Dutch Republic in the research project "Mapping the Fake Republic".

Leiden Law School is organising a summer conference on Law and Artificial Intelligence as part of the interfaculty and interdisciplinary research programme on Artificial Intelligence (SAILS) at Leiden University.

NWO (the Dutch Research Council) has granted more than 10 million euros for five human-centered AI research projects (2.1M€ each). Leiden University participates in two of these five research proposals, which are called ELSA labs.

This Thursday saw the launch of PLNT The Hague, an entrepreneurial hub where Campus The Hague students can learn all about entrepreneurship. They will have the opportunity to develop entrepreneurial skills, build a network and begin an innovative startup.

Eduard Fosch-Villaronga from Leiden University has been awarded a Starting Grant by the European Research Council (ERC). This grant of 1.5m euros enables talented early-career scholars to start their own pioneer project, lead a research team, and implement their best ideas at the frontiers of their…

How do you go about the sustainable restoration of a nineteenth-century ship without affecting its historical worth? Leiden University students from the master’s programme in Industrial Ecology spent six months working on this question. We spoke to Hidde Boom (25) and Tycho Jongenelen (25), two of the…

On November 17, the Leiden Anthropology of Asia Network held its second Anthropology of Asia at Leiden Update. At Leiden University, anthropologists are not at all confined to the Institute Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology (CADS).

A consortium made up of Leiden University (Institute of Public Administration/Digitalisation & Public Policy, Bram Klievink, Sarah Giest, Bart Schermer), VU (Professor Fabio Massacci), TU Delft, TNO, and Thales has been awarded a NWO grant of 1.5 million euros. This research project looks into the ‘metadata…

With this podcast series 'Introduction to Security Studies', you will get to know more about the bachelor's programme Security Studies at Leiden University in The Hague and life as a student in The Hague.

Introducing prof. Scott Nelson, the Legum Professor of the Social Sciences at William and Mary, and on the spring exchange at the University of Leiden.

On 9 December, a lottery to conclude the first call of the Leiden University Global Fund (LUGF) Seed Fund has granted 14 project proposals €15.000. These projects will be working to enhance the relationship between Leiden University and her partners in Africa, Latin America, North East and South East…

Since the invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Russia has been conducting a covert sabotage campaign against Europe. The ‘Bewaken en Beveiligen’ (Surveillance and Security) project team at Leiden University has investigated the scale of these operations and compiled its findings in the report Russian Operations…

From social inequalities in prehistory to placebo effects in medical treatments. Four researchers from Leiden University have been awarded a prestigious ERC Advanced Grant worth EUR 2.5 million to develop their research.

Professor Jasper Knoester has been appointed Dean of the Faculty of Science at Leiden University. He will take up the role on 1 January 2022. Knoester is currently Dean of the Faculty of Science & Engineering at the University of Groningen. He succeeds Paul Wouters (Dean of the Faculty of Social and…

At the International Online Conference 'Fair Medicine and Artificial Intelligence' organised by the University of Tübingen (Germany), Hadassah Drukarch, junior researcher at eLaw, gave a presentation on how current algorithmic-based systems may reinforce biases in healthcare. This topic forms part of…

Four researchers from Leiden University have been awarded NWO Open Competition grants in the Science domain. This is for research into subjects such as immune cells in tumours, antibiotic resistance and magnetic semiconductors.

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.

Lenses from Christiaan Huygens’ telescope, instruments used to demonstrate Newton’s laws, and equipment that led to the discovery of superconductivity—around 3,000 scientific instruments from the Faculty of Science at Leiden University are now officially part of the Rijksmuseum Boerhaave collection.…

For too long the Dutch collective memory has judged the Jewish Council too harshly. This perspective needs to be adjusted, Bart van der Boom argues in his new book ‘De politiek van het kleinste kwaad’ (lit. ‘The Politics of the Lesser Evil’).

Sixteen researchers at Leiden University are to receive a Veni grant from the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO). These awards offer promising young researchers the opportunity to further develop their own ideas over a period of three years.

Conference

Historic and iconic yet expensive and cold. It’s with mixed feelings that the university is leaving the Gravensteen building, which dates back to the 12th century. How was it to work and study in this former Leiden prison?

The British astronomer and mathematician Edmond Halley was not, after all, the first to understand the cycle of the comet that now bears his name. This is shown by research conducted by, among others, Professor Simon Portegies Zwart. It was the monk Eilmer of Malmesbury who, as early as the 11th century,…

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.

Throughout the year, master's student Berber Kommerij is busy analysing medieval and early modern books and paintings. Every summer, however, she leaves for the Norwegian fjords to conduct sea kayaking tours. 'Watersports are my great love.'

2024 was an eventful year for the Faculty of Humanities. Despite becoming the centre of political discussion and budget cuts as faculty ourselves, exceptional research projects were carried out and new initiatives were launched.

You speak Japanese, know everything about medieval art or understand exactly what Hegel meant. And then you graduate. Many Humanities students find it hard to enter the labour market. A relevant part-time job can help. Therefore, the faculty has been working together with the employment agency Randstad…

Every year, an NWO PhD in the Humanities grant is awarded to a prospective PhD candidate at the Faculty of Archaeology. This year, the grant went to Maia Casna, enabling her to study respiratory disease in the past. ‘My hypothesis is that the rapid formation of cities in the medieval Netherlands, must…