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.

What does research support involve? And what should we do to improve the support for researchers at the University? We spoke to Maribel Adame Valero, research policy officer and external cooperation coordinator at the Institute of Biology and a member of the Leiden Research Support (LRS) focus group.…

‘Very interesting’ is what two bachelor students have to say about the stories by Liesbeth van Vliet and Niki Antypa during the Psychology Science Day. The icing on the cake were the poster presentations about the bachelor's theses, admired and commented on by scientists and fellow students. Teachers…

People can be easily mislead with graphs. But they don’t necessarily stay misled, the research shows.

Organisation

Funded by a ZonMw grant, the LUMC and the Health Campus The Hague will be working with headache patients on research into the use of an electronic headache diary. This resource can help patients gain a better understanding of their migraine attacks and, together with the physician, produce the best…

In the week of 22-26 September, we celebrate the national Open Science Week at Leiden University. What is your next step towards openness?

Rodrigo Ochigame’s project explores how AI redefines scientific evidence, aiming to help scientists critically navigate these transformations with the Veni grant.

What skills do students need to function as academic professionals and engaged citizens?

Facility, ICT

Concrete actions for assessment panels, boosting responsible evaluation

The company QuantActions promises that through capturing and analysing the data of smartphones it will be able to “detect important indicators related to mental/neurological health”. Neuroscientist Arko Ghosh is the company’s cofounder and talks in The Guardian about tappigraphy patterns.

In October 2021 the Volkskrant published the article 'Rond de bloedgoudmijnen van Burkina Faso heerst de angst voor terreur' (Around the blood-gold mines of Burkina Faso, the fear of terror rules). In this report Carlijne Vos describes how Burkina Faso is rapidly destabilising. The lucrative gold mines…

Leiden students of cultural anthropology investigated the motivations and experiences of Tiny House residents in the Netherlands. Their findings highlight sustainability, minimalism and community building as core values in this alternative form of living.

Natashe Lemos Dekker has been awarded the Distinguished Women Scientists Fund 2021. This travel grant for female postdocs allows her to spend a period as a visiting fellow at the UCLA Department of Anthropology in the United States.

Genes predict whether you have a propensity for an illness but environmental factors often have the last word: nutrition, air pollution, lifestyle, stress. The exposome as both culprit and chance. Large-scale research is being carried out into this at Leiden. Thomas Hankemeier, Professor of Analytical…

Rotterdam is an extreme example of inequality in the Netherlands. There are huge health and life expectancy differences between neighbourhoods. Good access to healthcare and education isn’t a cure-all, say inequality economists Lieke Beekers and Hans van Kippersluis

How do we navigate the continuously developing landscape in research integrity, ethics, and open science? Anna van 't Veer and Eiko Fried discuss the underlying principles and values of science with all psychology units in their Responsible Scholarship workshop.

They are not always in the spotlight but are essential to our scientific research: Leiden research support professionals. And their network is growing and professionalising all the time. Over a hundred such professionals shared knowledge and gained inspiration at the Leiden Research Support Network…

International collaboration is essential to research and teaching but it also brings risks. Such as sharing sensitive knowledge and technology or foreign interference in research. Rector Hester Bijl explains what staff can do to prevent this.

Over the past year, AI experts across the university have launched initiatives for and with lecturers, students and staff. This is in response to the growing role of AI in society, with its impact and associated risks calling for greater awareness within our sector. All information for lecturers is…

Research

Neuroscientists Ineke van der Ham (Leiden University) and Anouk Keizer (Utrecht University) regularly use VR in their research. Their experiences with the medium raise many questions about the ways VR is experienced by different people. Therefore they conducted an VR experiment at the cinedans festival…

Vice-chairman of the Executive Board Martijn Ridderbos will leave Leiden University at the end of this year.

Organisation, Research

Assistant Professor Briitta van Staalduinen has received the Best Dissertation Award from the American Political Science Association, Section on Class and Inequality. Her dissertation, Ethnic Inequality in the Welfare State, aims to reconcile the persistence of ethnic inequalities in expansive welfare…

Finance, Organisation

Cognitive neuroscientist Anne Urai is part of the Neuromatch Conference team. With the prize for open science, Neuromatch wants to reduce or remove barriers in financing, education, and closed networks among well-funded labs that many scientists face, by providing always-affordable, pay-what-you-can…

ICT

Research

Library, Research

Developmental psychologist Yung-Ting Tsou's research is part of the Breaking the Cycle project. This project of the Focus on Emotions lab at Leiden University uses sensor technology to capture children’s social networks and dynamics during school breaks. Congratulations, Yung-Ting, with the wonderful…

Leiden University has seven top-rated bachelor's programmes according to Keuzigids universiteiten 2026, a consumer guide to university programmes. This is based on the National Student Survey.

‘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.’

The Countering Syndemic Vulnerability project supports communities by identifying and tackling clusters of social factors and health problems. The project works with residents and professionals in the Moerwijk district in The Hague and the Stevenshof district in Leiden.

How do we get better at detecting research errors? And how do we ensure that we no longer see those errors as evidence of our inability, but as keys to better and more reliable research? Scientists offer advice during the third Psychology Connected.

This summer, political scientist Thijs Vos received the Kaare Strøm prize for his paper ‘Power or Ideology? What structures legislative voting behaviour in Dutch municipal councils, ideology or coalition-opposition dynamics?' He was awarded the prize during the ECPR summer school on parliaments in F…

Are you looking for a free and transparent way to submit your scientific articles for peer review? Then look no further than Peer Community In (PCI). This platform, which is supported by Leiden University, is a good alternative to publication in traditional peer-reviewed journals.

Sky-high energy prices and a climate that keeps getting warmer: it’s clear that we have to turn down the heat. Sustainability Day on 10 October will mark the start of our five-month Energy Campaign and we’ll be making the switch. Sustainability Coordinators Aranka Virágh (Real Estate) and Marlies Nijemeisland…

From 1 November we will have a new mobility policy and will track our commuting with an app. The new regulation is more sustainable and will also save us time and effort, say the union reps from the Local Consultative Body.

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

How can we hack prejudice about age and ageing out of the recruitment process? That was the question data scientists, psychologists and HR professionals tackled during the AnyAge.AI hackathon. 'AI can actually be used to increase fairness in recruitment.

The fifth Leiden Research Support Network Conference, on Monday 16 June, was about the future of research support. A great opportunity for the 100 support professionals present to join interactive workshops and to network with colleagues from other faculties and the LUMC.

Three new initiatives will provide a more diverse view of Leiden’s academic history, literally and figuratively: a historical study on the background of students and scientists, a new book about the Academy Building, and two new sculptures of female scientists, Ewine van Dishoek, Professor of Molecular…

‘I could hardly believe my ears when I heard that we had been awarded the Gravitation grant,’ says Berna Güroğlu, professor of the Neuroscience of Social Relations. This grant is awarded by the state, via NWO, to pioneering scientific top research. In terms of grants, this really is something special,…

How can initiatives aimed at environmental conservation and climate change mitigation in the eastern Himalayas proceed from the cultural expectations of its indigenous ethno-linguistic minorities? Enabled by an NWO Open L grant, the research project 'Futuring Heritage: Conservation, Community and Contestation…

Fifteen knowledge institutions and the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science have signed the covenant for Open Science NL. Leiden University has also joined the covenant, via the Universities of the Netherlands. This marks the start of the Dutch Research Council’s and brings the transition to open…

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.

What are the digital challenges facing us now and in the near future? This was the question discussed by over 250 ICT experts, functional application management staff and information managers during the Our Digital Future conference on 26 January. We asked some of them how they found the day and what…