Space travel has long since progressed from being just about rockets, travelling to the moon, and Russia and America. The Netherlands has its own Space Agency and one of its important tasks is collecting and making available increasingly advanced satellite data.

The design for the METIS instrument for the Extremely Large Telescope (ELT) is final. The European Southern Observatory (ESO) has given the green light for production of all parts of the instrument. It is the first ELT instrument, designed and to be built under Dutch leadership, to formally pass the…

A research team from Leiden University, in cooperation with Bureau Boekhoorn Sociaal-Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek en Advies (BBSO), is to evaluate Dutch counterterrorism legislation.

Latin America matters! With its rich history, culture, its impressive resilience and creative innovation in the face of such a diverse array of challenges, Latin America can indeed show the way forward inspiring for positive change. Working together with Latin American institutions, our researchers…

By making use of artificial tax arrangements via the Netherlands and other countries, corporations and wealthy individuals worldwide together manage to avoid paying $472 billion in tax.

Welcome to 2024! I hope this message finds you doing well and reenergised following the holiday season. With that said, I can imagine that many of us are not quite ready to be back in the classroom (either as a student or a lecturer)! The good news is that we have plenty of activities to jump start…

The Rein Dool painting depicting board members of Leiden University will be moving soon to the Reception Room in the Academy Building, where more people will be able to see it.

In a confidential meeting, the University Council (UR) and the Executive Board (CvB) have discussed security within our buildings, partly as a result of media reports on this topic that appeared during the summer. The University Council has shared concerns expressed by staff and students concerning…

Earlier this week, a working group of the United Nations, comprising all 193 of its member states, adopted a consensus report on norms for responsible state behaviour in cyberspace. Dennis Broeders, full professor of Global Security and Technology at the Institute of Security and Global Affairs, Leiden…

Leiden University continued to reduce its carbon footprint in 2021 by being more careful with natural resources and making structural reductions to its energy consumption. This is what it says in the Sustainability Report 2021.

The map of Suriname, drawn in 1830 and acquired by Leiden University Libraries (UBL) in 2023, has now been made available online via Digital Collections in open access. The map can be viewed and downloaded in high resolution.

Research

It was not light, but its absence that caught Stephanie Noach's attention a few years ago. With her research on darkness in art, she aims to show how darkness can question and sometimes even undermine colonial imagery.

An article by Georgina Kuipers has been published this month in Dutch journal Overheid & Aansprakelijkheid (Government and Accountability). It deals with policy introduced in response to damage caused by the construction of the Amsterdam North/South metro line and its aim to rebuild trust. The title…

Inaugural lectures and PhD ceremonies are usually held in the Grand Auditorium in the Academy Building. Due to its temporary closure for the installation of a new audiovisual system, Lokhorstkerk is serving as an alternative venue. Beadle Erick van Zuijlen tells us more.

Recently, the oldest parts of the Leiden University Archives have been preserved and digitised thanks to a grant from Metamorfoze. This makes an important source on the history of Leiden University – and academic life in the Northern Netherlands in a broader sense – widely available.

Lecture

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…

Erik de Maaker, Sybille Lammes, Anke Klerkx, and Michiel van Groesen received a 10k€ KIEM grant for 'Networking Heritage at Leiden University' to boost heritage research.

Social

Simone van der Hof is a member of the Comparison Committee set up as part of the Online Content Moderation Project (PrOCoM).

No joke: on 1 April, the antique Van de Wall telescope was relocated to the atrium of the Gorlaeus Building. Have you spotted it yet?

On 8 October, Armin Cuyvers was interviewed by RTLZ News and BNR News Radio on the shocking ruling by the Polish Constitutional Tribunal of 7 October 2021 (both in Dutch).

Education, ICT

What are the advantages of a day’s work at home? Were we happy working from home during the pandemic lockdowns? And who is actually responsible for a healthy and happy homeworker? The employee, or the employer?

The new welfare state is said to be close to its citizens and does not dominate, but cooperate. “But this paradigm has a hard time to acknowledge the power relation that shapes the relation between state and citizens,” says Anouk de Koning in the interview 'The Downsides of Equality Talk in the Welfare…

Organisation, Social, Security

Organisation

Education, ICT

Organisation

Research

Skandapurāṇa V presents a critical edition of Adhyāyas 92-112 from the Skandapurāṇa, with an introduction and annotated English synopsis.

Organisation, Social

Prof. dr. Douwe Breimer, emeritus Professor of Pharmacology, former Rector Magnificus and founder of LACDR has established a foundation to stimulate, support, and promote scientific meetings in the field of Pharmacology. Particularly those concerned with fundamental research and mathematical modelling…

Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC) has started vaccinating staff from its intensive care, emergency and COVID departments. Junior doctor Christianne van Lieshout received the first jab on 6 January.

Organisation, Social

Leiden University's humanities have one of the top places in the Times Higher Education Rankings. This year, we were placed 26th.

In the new video series 'The World of Linguistics', alumni and academics talk about their passion for their field. Student Aline-Priscillia is particularly curious about how language is processed in the brain.

On the 8th of December 2021, Leiden Academic Centre for Drug Research (LACDR) organized “Circuit Topology 2021”, the first international symposium on circuit topology. The focus was on the mathematical notion of Circuit Topology, and its applications to physics, chemistry and biomedicine.

The president of South Korea, Yoon Suk-yeol, has chosen not to use his presidential compound. Professor Remco Breuker states in Time that this marks a change in South Korea’s approach to the compound.

Nadine Akkerman's book Spycraft, which she co-wrote with historian of science Pete Langman, has garnered top publications, with reviews featured in The Telegraph, Literary Review, The Spectator, History Today, and the Times Literary Supplement.

Roderick Geerts, a PhD candidate of the Faculty of Archaeology in Leiden, takes us on a short journey through the rich history of the Red Sea port of Berenike in Egypt.

The Leiden Papyrological Institute celebrates its 90th year anniversary

For over six centuries, the Tatars have been part of Poland’s social and cultural fabric. In this 8-episode series, released weekly, professor Maurits Berger and assistant professor Ewa Górska explore how this Muslim minority has maintained its identity across generations, how Islam is practiced in…

Social

Security