The Etymology Calendar for 2020, which was compiled by five linguistics students from Leiden University, has now hit the shops. After the resounding success of the first Etymology Calendar last year, this year’s version is being published by big-name publishing house Brill.

The 2020-2021 academic year has begun. The new academic year may have been opened in a pared-down ceremony, but a ceremony it was nonetheless, with around 150 guests in the familiar setting of Pieterskerk and around 1,000 people watching the livestream. ‘Universities will always exist, however rapidly…

Having lectures on sustainability when you're a first-year student of Law, or a course on climate change when you're studying Public Administration may sound odd, but that is just what Associate Professor in Environmental Sciences Thijs Bosker wants to see happening. Together with his colleague Paul…

On a sunny Lammermarkt, thousands of new students gathered to kick off their student life in Leiden at the 56th edition of EL CID.

Benson van der Bij is a family member of Holland's most famous master: Rembrandt van Rijn. What does he think of this relationship? And did he know that Rembrandt was also enrolled as a student here?

The whole world is waiting anxiously for sufficient supplies of coronavirus vaccines. As Launch Navigator at Pfizer, alumnus Dennis de Mik must help ensure that the Netherlands receives 19.8 million doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine. How is he going about this and how has his Bio-Pharmaceutical Sciences…

Since it was announced that North Korean President Kim Jong-un is ready to launch an intercontinental nuclear missile, fear of a nuclear war is growing by the day. Professor and North Korea expert Remco Breuker talks about the increased international tensions and their consequences for his work.

So many interesting programmes, but which one suits me best? It was the Bachelor’s Open Day in Leiden and The Hague on Saturday 12 October. Among the many things to do in The Hague, prospective students could find out more about three new bachelor’s programmes: Science for Sustainable Societies, Cybersecurity…

After 45 years at Leiden University, it is time for Kees Goudswaard to retire. In his farewell lecture, he reflects on developments in his field: social security.

How do you offer proper education in times of corona? Annebeth Simonsz (Educational Advice and Quality Assurance) and Anna Benjamins (ECOLe) work closely together to support lecturers in hybrid and online education. They are happy to share with the faculty, lecturers’ creative solutions for the new…

The Executive Board appointed Sanneke Kuipers as full professor effective January 1, 2022. Her chair is Crisis Governance. She combines this chair with her position as education director of ISGA, the Institute of Security and Global Affairs. A conversation about working 24/7 in crisis management, her…

Some bacteria, it turns out, have proteins much like ours that organise the DNA in their cells. They just do it a bit differently. This is revealed by new research from biochemists at the Leiden Institute of Chemistry and the Max Planck Institute for Biology. The discovery helps us better understand…

How do people vote? How rational are voting choices? How much do external factor weigh in? In this article social scientis provide some background.

Our lecturers had just a week to convert their lessons into online formats. It was an enormous challenge because by no means everyone at Leiden University was involved in online teaching. Professor of Korea Studies Remco Breuker has found that doing everything on line takes a lot more time. 'I've also…

The need for knowledge among practitioners and the lack of an academic knowledge base for specifically collective arrangements of social work in the Netherlands were the reason for Anouk de Koning, Femke Kaulingfreks and Maartje van der Woude to start working on a Dutch Research Agenda (NWA) application…

Even the Mohawk Indians were talking about Serv Wiemers’ thesis. This Law alumnus, who has been intrigued by the world of American Indians since he was a boy, recently wrote a book about that world.

CFP: Two-day PhD/ Research MA masterclass Feminist Theory with and around the work of Prof. dr. Lynne Huffer organised by the OZSW in cooperation with NOG

We spoke with Mathilde Witkam about her research as a dual PhD candidate at the Dual PhD Centre. Her dissertation is about the effect of open government on public trust. Mathilde: ‘Trust in government ensures that people are more honest in their tax returns; less control saves time and money.’

Our annual "Science to Experience" exhibition of student works is hosted by the V2_ Lab for the Unstable Media. This year's theme is "LIVING".

As a researcher, it can be fun and useful to talk to the media about your work. But on what terms should you agree to do an interview or appear on a talk show? And how do you tell an engaging story? The Media Guide for Researchers is here to help. Three colleagues share their top tips.

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.

Last week on Monday evening, four international Leiden Law School alumni working in various sectors and areas of expertise came back to their alma mater to talk to current students. So who are these alumni?

Confetti cannons announced the opening of HUBspot, the new venue for innovation and entrepreneurship at the Langegracht in Leiden, on 31 October. But all attention was on the young student entrepreneurs who presented their businesses.

Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro called the COVID-19 disease “a minor illness”. With more than 200.000 confirmed corona cases today (May 18) however, Brazil is quickly becoming one of the world’s emerging coronavirus hot spots. How long can Bolsonaro continue to downplay the corona crisis? We asked…

Professor Leo Lucassen often adds his voice to the public debate on his specialist field. If there is talk of a 'flood of migration', he feels compelled to give the issue some historical perspective. 'Concerned? Yes, I am.'

For thirty years, the Dutch Newspaper AD conducted an annual search for the best herring. This came to an end when economist Ben Vollaard, based on a statistical analysis, claimed it was rigged. But that claim doesn't smell right, says Leiden statistician Richard Gill. ‘The way you code and process…

Professor of Health Psychology Andrea Evers is one of the coordinators of the national Health and Wellbeing programme and of the Leiden-Delft-Erasmus (LDE) programme that goes by the same name. The aim is to use technology to promote our health. LDE has already been working on this topic for some ti…

As a strategy and international security specialist, Julien Bastrup-Birk (41) has advised both NATO and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime and worked at the UK Foreign and Defence ministries. Next week, he will defend his PhD on clandestine non-state power in the international system.

The coronavirus outbreak raises fundamental questions about the politics and narratives of crisis, as well as about our “ordinary” everyday lives and sociality. Irene Moretti and Annemarie Samuels introduce a collection of blogposts of Leiden Anthropologists reflecting on the pandemic and offer a set…

Part One: Casting off, Amsterdam

Big celebration upcoming weekend: MIRD's 20th anniversary is on the cards. Four alumni from different periods tell what this unique two-year master's in International Relations and Diplomacy has brought them.

Intelligence and National Security is the new specialisation in MSc Crisis and Security Management (CSM). It will start next September 2021. Do you want to know more about this track?

This year, the Netherlands and China reflect on fifty years of diplomatic relations at ambassadorial level. How has the relationship between the countries developed over the past half century? An interview with university lecturer Vincent Chang.

NWO has awarded a Vidi subsidy to a total of 89 young and innovative researchers. Leiden researchers have won twelve of these subsidies and three subsidies have gone to the LUMC. Each researcher will receive up to 800,000 euro to develop a particular research theme or to set up a research group.

Professor by special appointment Jojanneke van der Toorn organised a symposium in cooperation with Workplace Pride, hosted by the university in the academy building on 18 May. Jojanneke van der Toorn occupies the chair of LGBT workplace inclusion, a special appointment that Van der Toorn and Leiden…

How long should and may a doctor remain silent if he suspects child abuse? A GP who often sees the whole family, or a paediatrician, fills a crucial role when it comes to picking up signals of child abuse. Mirjam Sombroek-van Doorm examined how tenable professional confidentiality of medical practitioners…

To celebrate the fifth anniversary of the Hazelhoff Centre for Financial Law, the conference ‘Public and Private Regulation of Financial Markets’ was held on the 11th of May 2017 at law firm Stibbe in Amsterdam. The conference attracted an international audience originating from more than five different…

New ways of working like working from home can have a positive impact on a person’s career, but only when their superior supports their choice. Researcher Maral Darouei will defend her PhD thesis on sustainable careers on 9 June 2020.

Are disturbances to the brain, such as Alzheimer's or autism, linked to specific defects in the underlying communication networks in the brain? If this is the case, subtle changes in the networks can act as a marker for brain disturbances. Neuroscientist Serge Rombouts will be investigating this, together…

What does Rector Magnificus Carel Stolker think about subjects such as student stress, ‘clean’ transcripts and the onward march of the English language? Law students fired their questions at Stolker during the Leiden version of College Tour on 27 January.

Students, staff and alumni of the Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences joint forces to interact, debate, pitch, and speed date together at the Connecting Social Sciences science festival on Friday 22 November, 2019. After the opening speeches and panel discussion on science and societal impact,…

ESA’s space telescope Gaia, which maps the Milky Way, completes its active phase of scanning the sky on 15 January. Over the past decade, Gaia has made more than three trillion observations of about two billion stars and other cosmic objects. ‘Gaia is already the discovery machine of the decade,’ Leiden…

Permission was recently given for all members of the examining committee and co-supervisors at PhD ceremonies to wear academic dress, even if they’re not full professors. How historic is this change?

Patients and healthcare providers use Remote Patient Management platforms to exchange information with each other. New methods like this are desperately needed to future-proof our healthcare systems. Professor Maaike Kleinsmann is working to scale up these systems and implement them nationwide.

On Friday 5 September, to mark our 450th anniversary we celebrated the opening of the faculty year together with the Leiden Revisited alumni event. Combining both annual events was a huge success, especially as staff brought along their family, partner or friends.

Our annual "Science to Experience" exhibition of student works is hosted by the V2_ Lab for the Unstable Media. This year's theme is "TIME".

In June 2016, Dr. Ann Brysbaert and her SETinSTONE team were invited to participate in the fieldwork training season on Salamis island in Greece.

President John Quincy Adams studied in Leiden. His father, John, who was also president, also stayed here and received a lot of support from professor and publisher Johan Luzac. And how are presidents Bush and Obama linked to Leiden?

‘There’s a lot of evaluation in the Netherlands, but this doesn’t always lead to change,’ says Wout Broekema, Assistant Professor of Crisis Governance at the Institute of Security and Global Affairs. Learning from a crisis is complicated, but experts can help.

How can we speed up the transition from large cities to a circular metropolis? This is the question that Leiden students and former students Elsemieke, Fabian and Eveline are getting their teeth into. They and seventeen other young academics are taking part in the National ThinkTank and they have four…