Interest organisations are increasingly taking legal action and that’s a good thing for democracy, says PhD candidate Rowie Stolk. ‘It means that the most vulnerable social groups – including children and refugees, who tend to have a weaker political position – are protected.’

Associate Professor Lettie Dorst has received a Vidi grant to research how machine translation programmes such as Google Translate and ChatGPT translate words and expressions used metaphorically. This still regularly goes wrong, resulting in far too literal, incorrect and sometimes incomprehensible…

The nominees for the IRO thesis prize 2021 and for the Prof. Dr. J.Th.J. van den Berg prize 2021. Who wrote the best Political Science bachelor’s theses?

Hans Ulrich Scherer is Professor of Rheumatology, in particular Translational Rheumatology. He wants to build bridges between research and clinical practice and between departments and organisations at home and abroad. Scherer will give his inaugural lecture next Friday. ‘To make progress, we have to…

After the May elections a new University Council has now taken seat. The university democracy is the result of the long-lived national student protests in 1969. Students from Leiden joined the protests for greater representation, although their actions were less revolutionary than at other universities.…

At the start of the new year, we celebrate the release of a new selection of collection items into the Public Domain. This year, Leiden University Libraries (UBL) is making approximately eight hundred items freely downloadable via Digital Collections.

Just like the professional riders from the Jumbo-Visma team, amateur cyclists will soon be able to analyse and improve their performance. Leiden data scientists working with the cycling team are making their smart data model available so that every serious cyclist can keep track of their fitness.

An archaeologist as a modern-day shaman. An unexpected comparison Professor by Special Appointment of Public Archaeology Luc Amkreutz will make in his inaugural lecture.

Psychedelic drugs like magic mushrooms and LSD are embraced by some and seen as lethal by others. Cognitive psychologist Michiel van Elk delved into the world of psychedelic drugs and wrote a surprisingly sober book about them. ‘Without first-hand experience my story wouldn’t be complete.’

With the addition of over 16,500 new catalogue records, the collection of Johannes Tiberius Bodel Nijenhuis (1797-1872) is now almost entirely searchable online. The private collection of the Leiden map collector laid the foundation for the special collection of maps and atlases of Leiden University.…

In brain diseases such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's, proteins clump together to form fibres. ‘Chaperone proteins’ unravel those fibres, but in the test tube biochemist Anne Wentink saw that this can also cause new problems. She is going to find out what happens inside cells to determine what a drug…

From Persia and Arabia to North Africa: as early as the nineteenth century, there were Dutch people who used the camera themselves in various regions of the Middle East.

March

Conference

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.'

For hundreds of years, children in Ancient Egypt learned to read using The Satire of the Trades, a text in which a father gives advice to his son through descriptions of different professions. PhD candidate Judith Jurjens investigated how this worked in practice.

Collaborating in drug discovery and health research was the goal of a visit to the Leiden Bio Science Park on 14 May by a Swedish delegation including His Majesty King Carl XVI Gustav of Sweden. The delegation visited Leiden University’s Faculty of Science.

Lecture

Personal development

Over a period of seven years, researchers from the International Brain Laboratory mapped 279 brain regions at the cellular level. Their findings are now published in Nature, with both data and software openly shared. Cognitive neuroscientist Anne Urai: 'Any researcher with a good question can make use…

Tahir Abbas, Professor of Radicalisation Studies at the Institute of Security and Global Affairs, is organising a book launch for his new book: 'Ruminations: Framing a sense of self and coming to terms with the other'. The book launch will take place on Thursday 15 December from 16.00-17.00 hrs. at…

Within a single generation, the digital world has changed completely: from a technical niche for ‘nerds’ to a reality that affects everyone. Cyberattacks, data breaches and system failures can disrupt essential social processes. How can we ensure that our society remains digitally resilient?

From street harassment to coercive control: gender-based violence has many faces. University Lecturer Mischa Dekker has studied street harassment in the Netherlands and France, and supports institutions and organisations in embedding structural change.

Adults who lost a parent during childhood tend to experience greater attachment anxiety in romantic relationships, according to Carline van Heijningen’s doctoral research. However, this anxiety was less pronounced among those who recall having a strong bond with their deceased parent during childhoo…

Online, hybrid, on campus... It was an unpredictable year, also for the Faculty of Humanities. Luckily, there were also non-corona related stories. Let's review 2021 with this list of the most-read news articles per month.

The LUCAS Dissertation Prize has been awarded to Dr. Renske Janssen for her PhD thesis Religio Illicita? Roman Legal Interactions with Early Christianity in Context.

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.

Debate, Leiden Asia Academy

Conference

Lecture

Lecture, Research talk

Conference, D&I Event

The Leiden Leadership Centre (LLC) aims to connect science with practice when it comes to public leadership. The Centre, founded by, among others, Dr. Ben Kuipers and Prof. dr. Sandra Groeneveld, is collaborating with a number of organisations. A recent result was a research assignment for a new vision…

Finally we know for sure that there is a black hole at the centre of our own galaxy. Today, astronomers unveiled the first ever photo of Sagittarius A*, a super-massive object at the centre of the Milky Way. This picture could only be taken thanks to the cooperation of telescopes worldwide.

In the Pioneers of Leiden University series, we talk to past and present students who were the first in their family to go to university. In this second instalment: historian and university lecturer Nadia Bouras (1981). ‘Although I only found out later that was my mother’s dream, it was as though I…

Only the fittest cyclists stand a chance of taking yellow in the brutal Tour de France. Team Jumbo-Visma is working with data scientists from Leiden. They have analysed the stages and performance of Jumbo-Visma’s riders in previous Grand Tours. And they are researching how to determine the fitness level…