The highly successful deep-sea telescope KM3NeT can now expand both its size and scope. Using a new type of microphone for underwater use, the telescope will attempt to detect the sound produced by neutrinos as they travel through the sea. The data collected will also be of great interest to other research…

Dutch municipalities are racing to digitalise, introducing virtual services, fraud-detection algorithms and more. The digital city may not always serve its residents. Professor Jiska Engelbert calls for civil servants who dare to push back.

If you missed the annual LUCDH Winter School Week of Digital Humanities workshops and Pilot Project Symposium (27 – 31 January 2025) this time around, you’ll have a chance to take part next year. Save the dates for the last week of January 2026!

Veel Nederlanders hebben fysieke, psychische en sociale problemen tegelijk. Zij hebben hulp nodig van meerdere professionals uit verschillende organisaties. Fia van Heteren onderzoekt hoe deze professionals met elkaar én met cliënten samenwerken, en welke factoren deze samenwerking versterken of bel…

Marta Fiocco has been appointed as of 1 April as professor of applied mathematics, in particular medical statistics. Fiocco's appointment is at the Faculty of Science and at the Leiden University Medical Centre (LUMC). She conducts research into 'personalised medicine', tailor-made medicines for cancer…

The Covid pandemic has had a considerable impact on academics’ work and well-being. They have had much less time to spend on their research. The Young Academy and the Dutch Network of Women Professors have conducted research into how the situation has been for academics. The two organisations have recommendations…

Colleagues from three departments were treated to cake by Vice Dean Jan Crijns. This was to celebrate the ratings, excellent and above-average, awarded in the Keuzegids, the master’s programmes guide for 2025.

On 24 June, members of the Executive Board, unit chairs, department heads and education and research coordinators gathered to strengthen the basis for collaboration within the institute. This included discussions on how we can better organise ourselves, and what clear agreements we can make to deal…

Herman Paul (professor of History of the Humanities) has been elected a member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW). He will be officially installed on 30 September.

The thesis is a major milestone for master students graduating in Political Science. It demonstrates their ability to conduct research independently and to provide a thorough, objective and sound analysis. That requires instruction, discussion, thinking and hard work. Lots of it. In some cases this…

Taner Kuru, an eLaw alumnus, was awarded the prestigious European Data Protection Law Review ‘Young Scholar Award’ for his paper on the shortcomings in the GDPR for the regulation of genetic testing at the prestigious Computers, Privacy and Data Protection Conference (CPDP).

Leiden health psychologist Liesbeth Van Vliet receives recognition for her research on doctor-patient communication and its influence on quality of healthcare. Van Vliet has been awarded one of four Heineken Young Scientists Award 2022 for promising young researchers working in the Netherlands.

Joop Schaye, Professor of The formation of galaxies, has been elected as a member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW). He will be officially inaugurated on 29 September.

The highly successful deep-sea telescope KM3NeT can now expand both its size and scope. Using a new type of microphone for underwater use, the telescope will attempt to detect the sound produced by neutrinos as they travel through the sea. The data collected will also be of great interest to other research…

Leiden University College The Hague (LUC) has received a bronze medal in Elsevier’s Beste Studies 2022 (Best Study Programmes 2022). This means that both the student satisfaction regarding the quality of the programme and the programme’s performance have scored above average. Each year, Dutch news magazine…

One of our PhD candidates at the LACDR, Joey Zuijdervelt, recently achieved recognition by winning the first prize in the ‘Schild-De Groen Onderzoeksprijzen’ for cancer research. His award-winning master’s thesis explored glioblastoma multiforme through an innovative orthotopic zebrafish xenograft model,…

The third edition of the Krijn Rietveld Memorial Innovation Award was won by Anne Dirkson, former LIACS PhD student. During her PhD she researched the automatic collection of patient experiences from online forums. ‘With this work, Anne has shown how the exchange of knowledge between medical professionals,…

Leiden University is awarding an honorary doctorate to virologist Marc van Ranst. Van Ranst has been one of the main advisers of the Belgian government during the Covid pandemic. German Arabist Beatrice Gründler will also receive an honorary doctorate for her work in the field of Oriental Manuscript…

The Leiden University College team behind the Learning Mindset project has been nominated for the Dutch Higher Education Award, an award for innovative teaching in higher education. The Ministry of Education, Culture and Science announced this on 15 March.

One of the aims in the development of the university’s new strategic plan is to foster a dialogue between as many students, staff and external stakeholders as possible about which topics and ambitions should be included in the plan. At the beginning of May we therefore invited all our students and staff…

On World DNA Day 25 April, Leiden University is pleased to focus the spotlight on Rosalind Franklin, whose name was given earlier this month to the Campus Square on the Leiden Bio Science Park. This square will now be known officially as the Rosalind Franklin Square.

Research

ICT, Security

How do you make effective use of AI and medical technology? And what role do you play in this as a doctor? This is what the LUMC/Leiden University is preparing medical students for, right from the first year of their studies.

Education, Research

Publish Your Reviews is an initiative encouraging peer reviewers to share their reviews and to contribute to open science and transparant research communication.

Generative AI presents journalists with new options for image use but also raises ethical questions.

Eight early-career researchers from around the world have been awarded a 51 Pegasi b Fellowship – a prestigious opportunity for astronomers. Julia Santos, a PhD candidate at Leiden Observatory, is one of them. We asked her four questions about this remarkable fellowship.

From Wednesday-Thursday 19-20 April 2023 the Stichting Bob Wessels Insolvency Law Collection (BWILC) invites PhD students from Europe and beyond to participate in the 5th edition of the PhD workshop on European/International Insolvency Law. Following four successful editions, PhD students are invited…

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.

A lecturer winning a prize, an expert appearing in the media or a professor giving their inaugural speech: these are faces we often see. But we rarely see the staff who work behind the scenes to make their work possible. They are now featured in the photo exhibition ‘The forces behind the faces’.

Professor of Brain, Safety and Resilience Anne-Laura van Harmelen has been nominated for the Huibregtsen Prize. The winner of the prize will be announced on the Evening of Science & Society (4 October).

Organisation

All the information about the Leiden University Global Fund (LUGF) funding instrument is given here, specifically the seed funding options for collaboration with regional partners. The LUGF awards seed funding to support regional collaborative initiatives.

How can you ensure that your research hits the headlines? How can you bring your research output, such as PhD research or a publication, to the attention of the public?

In 2025, students, lecturers, researchers and alumni of the Faculty of Humanities were once again at the heart of society. They demonstrated the importance of the humanities through their groundbreaking research, meaningful education and strong collaborations.

Recognition and rewards. Open science. These topics are increasingly in the spotlight: globally, nationally and within our university. Who is working on these themes within the Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences (FSW)? Which steps are we already taking and what should we do next? These questions…

Hanneke Hulst has held the new Leiden chair in Neuropsychology in Health and Disease since 1 September. From 1 January she will also be chair of the Health, Medical and Neuropsychology (HMN) unit. ‘HMN is my new base. I’m curious to find out about the people who work here, what they do and what motivates…

Bring over a hundred driven researchers together in one room and the good ideas will start to flow: that was the thinking behind the internal networking meeting on interdisciplinary collaboration on Wednesday 17 May. Representatives from the nine interdisciplinary programmes were waiting at their stalls…

Two colleagues have each received a prestigious Vidi grant. We spoke to criminologist and Associate Professor Hilde Wermink, and Eduard Fosch Villaronga, Associate Professor of eLaw, about what this grant means to them and their research plans.

PhD defence

As you know, the faculty is working on a new follow-up strategy with six themes. Each theme now has its own writing team. Every week we speak with one of these teams about their work, and share the highlights. On this page you can find the current article and an overview of all articles on the follow-up…

Na een grote verbouwing is het souterrain van het Pieter de la Courtgebouw bijna onherkenbaar veranderd. Donkere, verouderde ruimtes maakten plaats voor frisse, lichte onderwijszalen en ruime, moderne labruimtes met state-of-the-art faciliteiten. Donderdag 12 juni was de officiële opening.

Fake news a new phenomenon? Not according to Rens Tacoma and Indira Huliselan. In an NWO project, the associate professor and PhD student will delve into the twisting, scheming and tampering with facts that went on thousands of years ago.

Technological innovations such as home dialysis could significantly improve the quality of life and health of kidney patients. Professor Joris Rotmans therefore wants to continue pushing for new medical technology, as he will explain in his inaugural lecture on 24 March.

A team including staff from Leiden University won the Open Initiative Trophy on 11 February, a prize for the best open science initiative in the Netherlands. The winners developed Reprohak, a hackathon-like event where participants repeat research to see whether the results were reproducible.

Language is omnipresent: when you talk, app or meet in Teams. Understanding how we communicate with one another and what communication does to us is essential. In her inaugural lecture, Nivja de Jong will call to redress the balance between the sciences and the humanities.

Alisa van de Haar is one of three humanities scholars to win a KNAW Early Career Award this year. The university lecturer of Ancient French Literature is receiving the award for her innovative research on multilingualism and migration. 'It would be nice to use this to set up a project with students.…

Carla van Baalen was awarded the Thorbecke Medal on 4 June. She received the award in recognition of her remarkable and varied oeuvre in the field of parliamentary history.