ICT

At one time, the railway from Kimberley to Kambove in Southern Africa symbolised prosperity and progress. Today, the exhausted mining towns along its route are marked by decay and pollution. Professor Jan-Bart Gewald has been awarded an NWO L grant to investigate the long-term global consequences.

An Honours Class about the ostensibly unrecognisable worlds of insular Southeast Asia teaches students a fundamental piece of wisdom: "We do not differ much from the people at the other end of the world."

A new graphene-based method could make for faster, cheaper and more accurate DNA sequencing, say a group of Leiden physicists and chemists.

Education

A higher level of legal firearm availability does not lead to more violent deaths in Europe but does lead to more female deaths.

When do we say violence was used in an incident? The answer may seem obvious at first. But interim results from a study by Jolien van Breen show that Dutch people are labelling events in increasingly broad contexts as violent.

In November, Leiden organized a book presentation to celebrate the first Dutch translation of the collected works of the twentieth-century poet W.H. Auden. A poetry translation contest added lustre to the occasion. There were no fewer than three winners.

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.

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.

Dutch political parties have presented their own 'solutions' to make society 'safer'. How do the party positions compare with scientific research on crime reduction?

On Saturday 25 June, the Europa Institute of Leiden University hosted the 61st Leiden-London Meeting, an annual event organized jointly by the Europa Institute and the British Institute of International and Comparative Law (BIICL). This year’s meeting had “Interdependence, cooperation and strategic…

The LACDR green lab initiative is a group recently founded by employees of the LACDR. We are devoted to stimulating sustainability in our education and research! With the support of the Institute manager and scientific director of the LACDR, our main goal is making the labs more sustainable by e.g.…

Its idyllic setting and white sandy beaches have made the Maldives a hotspot for tourists. This provides an income but is a problem for the fragile natural environment. Students from various universities worked with the local people to make the soil more fertile. How did they go about it?

How do you make niche subjects interesting and accessible? Benjamin Suchard, historical linguist and researcher, seems to have created the perfect recipe, which consists of his various projects alongside his regular research, including a Twitter account and a major international film.

On 3 February 2021, Prof. Matthias Haentjens spoke at the second conference on bank resolution, jointly organised by the European Banking Institute (EBI) and the Single Resolution Board (SRB).

The Executive Board is delighted to announce that Joanne van der Leun took up the position of the university’s Academic Lead International Affairs as of 1 January 2025.

After more than five years, Professor Armin Cuyvers has handed over the position of Programme Director for the master’s programmes in Law to Marije Schneider, who started on 1 January 2024. Her vision, drive and experience mean she is well placed to fulfil the role.

Research

Darinka Piqani is one of the researchers in the interdisciplinary research project 'The Challenge of Enforcing Rule of Law in International Organizations: Winning the Public and Resisting Populist Attacks'

How feasible is the new migration deal and is it really the breakthrough politicians like Mark Rutte claim it to be? Dutch television programme Nieuwsuur asked various experts, including Mark Klaassen, for an answer to that question.

There are approximately 60 million skateboarders worldwide. And yet in the academic world, this culture is not always looked upon seriously. Visual anthropologist Sander Hölsgens believes that this has to change. Last summer his book 'Skateboarding in Seoul' and the accompanying film 'Reverberations'…

Sharing scientific data, transferring money, or sending other sensitive information online: with cryptography, applications make sure your data does not fall into the wrong hands. Mathematician Thomas Attema (CWI/TNO/Leiden University) helps with this. For his PhD research, he developed a new technique…

Tech giants such as Google, Apple, and Microsoft are increasingly shaping the digital world we live in. Reijer Passchier cautions: 'Urgent measures are needed to curb this influence.'