In Montreal, the 34th Meeting of Parties on the Montreal Protocol (MOP), dealing with ozone layer damage, just ended. This protocol is ratified by all countries in the world and is very successful. Shiming Yang, a university lecturer and member of the Leiden University Global Transformations and Government…

Dr Ionica Smeets, one of the well-known ‘Maths girls’, has been appointed part-time Professor of Science Communication at Leiden University with effect from 1 July. Over the coming five years she will carry out research on science communication, how the subject is taught and how to raise students’ enthusiasm…

The illicit trade in stolen cultural property is booming. Countless works of art and antiquities will be lost if we don’t do more to stop this. This is what experts warned at a Leiden Global congress at the National Museum of Antiquities.

While offshore wind farms generate clean and green energy, scientists are becoming increasingly aware of the harmful impact they may have on marine life. To get a better overview of these impacts and to find the best locations for future wind farms, environmental scientist Yali Si and her colleagues…

Scientists regularly appear in the media. They participate in science cafés, write a popular-science book or visit school classes. In that way, they want to convey their knowledge and enthusiasm to society. But do they succeed? To answer that question, a new website is launched, with a toolbox full…

Happy students and proud families, friends and lecturers; on 13 July the first fifteen refugee students graduated from the Preparatory Year for teaching in Leiden. They started a programme in September at a Dutch university of applied sciences or an academic university. 'This is just the start!'

Each year the Academy of Creative and Performings Arts (ACPA) hosts a Joint Session for her PhD candidates. The aim of this Joint Session, as its name already suggests, is to let PhD's from both doctoral programmes docARTES and PhDArts and PhD's who are not pursuing their research through a doctoral…

With the passing of Henk Jan de Jonge on 16 April 2022, Leiden University has lost one of its most characteristic, learned and devoted professors.

Since 2009-2010, the West viewed China as more assertive. Especially after Xi Jinping came to power in 2012, the country abandoned Deng Xiaoping’s ‘low profile’ foreign policy. Friso Stevens explains in his dissertation where this change has come from. The dissertation defence is on 28 March.

On 9 November 2018, Bachelor’s students from all disciplines presented their research during the Student Research Conference (SRC). This year, the Student Research Conference took place at Leiden University College (LUC) The Hague.

Intensify cooperation between the Institute of Security and Global Affairs (ISGA) and the Netherlands Defence Academy (NLDA). This is the purpose of the agreement that will be signed on 16 November at the Campus The Hague. On that day, Defence Minister Ank Bijleveld will also give a lecture in Wijnhaven…

Where should you plant ten trees so that as many city-dwellers as possible can enjoy them? If a smart algorithm knows how people move through the city and where there are already trees, it can calculate the optimal solution. Data scientist Mitra Baratchi makes this possible. Her students are now using…

The most famous cat in science is Schrödinger's cat, the quantum mechanical mammal, which can exist in a superposition, a state that is alive as well as dead. The moment you look at it, one of both options is chosen. Leiden University physicists simulated an experiment to catch this mysterious moment…

With the new academic year, the Honours Academy welcomes a new assessor: Maarten Kolpa. What does an assessor do? And what can he do for honours students? Maarten talks about it in an interview.

At the beginning of the corona pandemic, our Faculty appointed student mentors to guide first-year and international students. What drives these mentors, and what is it like to be back at the Faculty again? Mireia and Marten tell us all about it.

The refugee crisis and terror threats call for better European cooperation, was the message from Piet Hein Donner in his Cleveringa lecture on 26 November in the Academy Building. ‘Opting for an open and pluriform community takes courage.’

People in the Early Bonze Age used bronze artefacts as a means of payment. This is the conclusion reached by archaeologists Maikel Kuijpers and Catalin Popa in a PLOS ONE article published on 20 January.

Who still remembers that Leiden attracted a lot of reds from Suriname during the 1970s? The exhibition ‘Dynamic Suriname’ offers a number of surprising insights on the links between Leiden University and Suriname, which is celebrating the fortieth anniversary of its independence this year.

Examining cybercrime from criminological, legal, administrative, and technical perspectives. The new Bachelor's programme in Cybersecurity & Cybercrime addresses the growing demand for versatile cyber professionals..

Researchers Karène Sanchez and Sary Zananiri tell us about their research project CrossRoads, which investigates Christian communities during British Mandate Palestine (1918-1948) through cultural and linguistic lenses. The project was awarded a VIDI grant by NWO in 2017.

Various Leiden researchers have been awarded a European grant to explore the commercial or societal potential of previous research.

How do surgeons avoid causing nerve damage or leaving cancerous cells behind? An interdisciplinary research group at the LUMC hopes to improve operations and make them less invasive with the aid imaging techniques. They are working with medical companies to make these techniques widely available.

During the first weekend of October, a group of fourteen Master of Arts in European Union Studies alumni returned to the place it all began, 15 years after graduating from Leiden University. The international group, representing the Netherlands, Norway, Slovenia, Bulgaria, Hungary, Latvia, Belgium and…

Van TikTok tot ChatGPT: digitale technologie dringt door in ons hele bestaan. Wat betekent dat voor onderwijs en opvoeding? Het gaat niet om schermtijd, maar om de aard en context van het gebruik, stelt pedagoog Marga Sikkema-De Jong in haar oratie

Over 20,000 students, lecturers, administrators, support staff and many others protested on 25 November against the plans to make billions of cuts to higher education. Students and staff from Leiden University also travelled to The Hague to voice their objections to the disastrous plans.

In recent years, the Walad Djifir from Chad found themselves in a turbulent environment due to the unrest in Nigeria, Libya and the Central African Republic. How did they adapt? Inge Butter explored their situation in her PhD thesis. PhD defence will take place on 2 July.

Each year, the Dutch government publishes its Budget Memorandum on Budget Day, or Prince’s Day as it is known. The economy is doing well, and elections will be held at the start of 2021, so it’s most likely that many a rose-tinted plan will emerge from the briefcase on Prince’s Day on 17 September.…

From painful joints to intense fatigue: a third of rheumatism patients suffer serious effects from this chronic condition and rely long-term on medication. Leiden psychologists are to receive a subsidy from the Netherlands Arthritis Foundation to investigate whether placebo techniques can help patients…

Physicist Remko Fermin from Leiden University was awarded a Rubicon grant from NWO. He will use it to study superconducting diodes that could contribute to reducing the CO2 emission of data centres.

The Panama Papers and Paradise Papers provide evidence that companies and individuals are evading tax on a large scale. Worldwide tax agreements can put a stop to this. But for the time being a treaty that will address the problem at its root is not in sight, in the opinion of legal expert Dirk Broekhuijsen.…

For some time blackbirds have been settling in towns as well as in woods. As a result, town blackbirds have now begun to develop differently from their counterparts in forests. These are the findings of the PhD research carried out by behavioural biologist Erwin Ripmeester who defends his dissertation…

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.’

Is Europe skilling for sustainable food?

Last Thursday the Dutch House of Representatives held a debate on children being put into care when the childcare benefits scandal (toeslagenaffaire) had caused problems for their families. Four Leiden University academics were asked by the House to produce a fact sheet for this debate, bringing together…

The Leiden Institute of Chemistry (LIC) is to be joined by a further two talented young chemists. Bela Bode and Michele Pavanello have each won a Marie Curie subsidy. Bode will be studying electron transport in photosynthesis and Pavanello will be using computer models to study charge transport in large…

Bhumika Gupta (21), International Studies alumna, secured an internship in the OPCW, the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. She has set a path for herself, leading towards the job of her dreams, and this internship is a big step towards that future job.

About 90 per cent of Austronesian and Papuan languages are under threat of soon becoming extinct. Marian Klamer is the only professor in the world who researches both these language groups. She records languages before they disappear and sheds new light on the history of Indonesia. Inaugural lecture…

‘There is no such thing as a timeless Japanese soul,’ says newly appointed Professor in Modern Japan Studies Katarzyna Cwiertka. The first month of her professorship turned out to be a crucial test: Japan was hit by a destructive earthquake and tsunami, and Cwiertka had to keep her head in the midst…

Nine museums in eight days, and an average of 25,000 steps a day? You must be talking about a trip with the Leiden Art History Association! In July, 20 students and a lecturer travelled to New York to take in all the art, architecture and other high points the city has to offer. We spoke to Joëlle Daems,…

How can Ronald Mulder run his skates across an ice layer at 60 km/h? His skating blades get help from a lubricating layer of meltwater. In Leiden, physicists found this explanation to be incomplete. Theoretician Hans van Leeuwen and experimental physicist Tjerk Oosterkamp searched for a deeper answe…

Shell cooperates with theoretical physicists and chemists of Leiden University to research how quantum computer algorithms can help simulate complex molecules.

The nominees for the IRO Thesis Prize 2024 and the Prof. Dr. J.Th.J. van den Berg-prijs 2024. Who authored the best thesis in Leiden University’s bachelor’s programme in Political Science?

Kitesurfing, colonising the Binnenhof and most important of all - meeting fellow students. More then 700 students of Leiden University in The Hague get to know the city and one another during the HOPweek.

Bacteria that fluoresce green, blue or red may play a role in combatting resistance against antibiotics. Under the motto of 'Say yes to stress', thirteen ambitious Leiden students are aiming to amass 9,000 euros to carry out their research project.

Sending migrants back. Open borders. These are the kinds of words that are used, but what does the situation really look like at these borders? Professor of Law and Society Maartje van der Woude, an expert in crimmigration, is researching precisely this.

Assistant Professor Anna Dlabacova has been awarded a Starting Grant by the European Research Council. She will use this grant of around 1.5 million euros to conduct research on the Dutch vernacular ‘book of hours’.

On March 28, 2023, our esteemed colleague Prof. Harry Wijshoff passed away. He died after a struggle of several months against a serious illness.

At the faculty of Governance and Global Affairs we are proud to celebrate social entrepreneurship, which is why we decided to introduce you to an amazing project by two of our students: Kimberly Schoenmaker and Caroline Flohr. Ambitious, driven and incredibly conscious of the corporate responsibility…

In academia, the mention of Wikipedia might be met with suspicion. However, for Tsolin Nalbantian, university lecturer Modern Middle Eastern Studies, the encyclopedia is an opportunity to broaden the skills of her students and to increase public knowledge. She received a Teaching Comenius Fellowship…

As of 1 August, Anika Bexkens has been appointed Professor of Evidence-Based Clinical Practice for Child and Adolescent Mental Health. Her research focuses on the optimal application of scientific knowledge in practice. ‘Scientists and practitioners often speak past each other.’