This month, the new digital communication code of conduct came into force. Why did this code need to be in place? And what do we gain from it as a faculty? Dean Mark Rutgers and vice-dean Mirjam de Baar explain.

Philosophy alumna Naomi Rebekka Boekwijt returns to Leiden University on 20 June to present her latest novel Stemmen (Voices) in Plexus. ‘I wanted to show that things could be done differently in psychiatric care.’

The issue of how to deal with a development such as digitalisation in the public domain raises difficult questions for the municipality: who is responsible and when do you intervene?

Much of the work of Serge Fehr, Professor of Quantum Information Theory, is abstract and theoretical and comprehensible to very few people. But his work helps make the digital world safer so that in future our internet banking will still be problem free, for instance. He will explain more in his inaugural…

No less than 33 project received a Leiden Kiem grant in 2023. How did they fare? Olga Bogolyubova shares experiences from her project ‘Interdisciplinary Approaches to the Study of Safety and Danger in the Digital World’.

It is the end of your archaeological research project, and you may be wondering where to deposit your data. After the excavation, all of the finds are drawn, scanned, digitised, and the database is completed. Perhaps you have also accumulated a lot of data through further scientific analysis of the…

Can a robot perform a religious ritual just like a monk? And what exactly is a religious ritual? Robots and religion seem to be two different subjects, but according to university lecturer Elpine de Boer, both can make us think about what it means to be human and what we consider to be of value. Together…

In many Central and Eastern European countries, a period of greater openness emerged in the late 1980s. How did this affect the future perspective of residents? And can we learn anything from this period for our current times? University lecturer Dorine Schellens delves into the literature to investigate…

In Harper’s Magazine, reviewer Dan Piepenbring discusses the latest book by professor Nadine Akkerman and Pete Langman. ‘Spycraft’ showcases how and why messages were ciphered in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century England.

Nadine Akkerman recently appeared as a guest on a BBC podcast and the History Extra podcast to discuss her book Spycraft. In these interviews, she delved into the fascinating world of espionage, sharing insights from her research and highlighting key themes from her work.

In April 2025, Ms. Esther Rachow from The Hebrew University in Jerusalem presenting her ongoing doctoral research at an Austria Centre Leiden lunch-time talk. She answered a few questions about her visit below.

How do you make lobbying and rhetoric both challenging and understandable for high school students? Professor Jaap de Jong found the answer in climate activist Greta Thunberg. Together with his colleague Arco Timmermans, he developed a digital guest lecture on how to present a convincing story.

Over 30.000 pages of new material have been added to the online collection of unofficial poetry publications from China in the Leiden Digital Collections. Produced outside the system, these journals and books are hugely influential yet very hard to find. To address this paradox, Leiden University Libraries…

Workshops

Dr Mark Leiser, Assistant Professor in Law and Digital technologies at eLaw, has been appointed an International Research fellow at the Coordinated Research Center in Information Society and Law of the University of Milan in Italy. The aim of the Center is to conduct research on issues related to the…

The ERC consolidator project "Food Citizens? Collective food procurement in European cities: solidarity and diversity, skills and scale" will organise a winter school on visual and collaborative methods in anthropological research at Leiden University’s Institute of Cultural Anthropology and Development…

A special find has been made in the Alkmaar Regional Archive: a number of 17th-century book bindings contained pieces of parchment from a manuscript from the 11th century. The original manuscript may have belonged to a princess who fled England after the Norman Conquest.

Workshops

ICT

The Royal Holland Society of Sciences and Humanities (KHMW) has appointed four Leiden professors as members. Petra Sijpesteijn, Vanessa Mak, Mariska Kret and Miranda van Eck have recently joined the KHMW.

Lecture, LUCL Colloquium

Last week, the sad news reached us that Dr Jan Schmidt passed away on 11 August 2025. We wish his partner, friends and family strength and comfort as they cope with this loss. Jan Schmidt will be remembered as one of the most prolific and learned scholars in the field of Ottoman codicology and histo…

It was long thought that the early development of Japanese children's books served mainly as a propaganda tool of the state: the literature was supposed to have been written to shape children into perfect citizens. PhD student Aafke van Ewijk nuances this image. Children's book writers wanted to have…

Leiden University Centre for Digital Humanities (LUCDH) has had a new director since 1 February. Associate Professor Angus Mol wants to connect people and knowledge in his new role.

Gert Renkema, Head of Financial Economic Affairs/Business Controller of FGGA, tells us how the faculty is doing

Leiden University has a new professor. On 1 June Nadine Akkerman became Professor of Early Modern Literature and Culture, a position she feels is designed to help her help others.