Every year, an outstanding lecturer receives the Faculty Teaching Prize from the teaching committee. The prize is awarded during the official opening of the academic year on 7 September. This year, students nominated eight candidates.

Graduates Bruno and Plym took part in the National Think Tank last year. Together with 20 other students and recent graduates, they spent four months pondering the future of our digital society. ‘You learn so much in the space of four months, not just practical skills but also about yourself.’

The LUCDH foster the development of new digital research by awarding a number of Small Grants each year. As in previous years the LUCDH received a large number of excellent grant applications for Research and Personal Development funds. Congratulations to the recipients of this year's research award…

Konstantinos Zoumpoulakis, Research Assistant at the Institute of Criminal Law & Criminology, has written a report on this conference

The LUCAS Audience Award 2021 has been awarded to Nadine Akkerman. This is a prize for researchers who appeal to an audience wider than the academic community. The prize consists of 1000 euros, a trophy and eternal fame.

Which two scientists will present their research best in three minutes? It could be the one with the most supporters.

But how do you do it? At the annual Education Showcase, lecturers at the Faculty of Humanities could talk to their colleagues about teaching methods and teaching. Plenty of tips were exchanged during the information fair, workshops and drinks. Five participants talk about they learned.

Bastiaan Rijpkema has been appointed Professor by special appointment of the new chair Tolerance at the Faculty of Humanities with effect from 1 July 2021. The chair was established by Stichting Leerstoel Uytenbogaert.

On Thursday 11 December 2025, Daan Roovers, the philosopher and former Denker des Vaderlands (Philosopher Laureate), will give the 54th Huizinga Lecture at the Stadsgehoorzaal in Leiden. Under the title What’s at stake: The boundaries of politics and fair play, she will reinterpret Johan Huizinga’s…

The Citizen Science Netherlands (CS-NL) network was officially launched this month with the aid of an Open Science NL grant. The new vision for this network was presented on 28 May.

More attention to the needs of PhD Candidates who are not employed at universities, but combine their research with a professional career outside the academic world. That was the main wish expressed at the workshop Supervision of dual PhD candidates, organized at the Wijnhaven building in The Hague…

Global problems such as diseases of affluence or microplastics in the sea are too complex to be dealt with from a single scientific discipline or by just one country. Leiden University has the expertise to bring solutions to these enormous problems a step closer. Read more in the research dossier on…

Changing your diet can improve both your health and the environment. A new study shows that the national dietary recommendations on reducing animal products can reduce environmental impacts in most high-income nations. Publication in PNAS journal.

Today is the general election in the Netherlands – although the polling stations have actually been open for two days already because of the coronavirus restrictions. Leiden researchers and students are involved in all manner of ways, and are analysing the campaigns and possible results.

The way DNA folds, largely determines which genes are read out. John van Noort and his group have quantified how easily rolled-up DNA parts stack. This costs less energy than previously assumed. Publication in Biophysical Journal.

In a well-filled Telders Auditorium, university learners of Korean competed with each other to see who speaks Korean the best.

On 10 May 1940, the Netherlands was taken completely by surprise by the attack of the German army. Wasn’t it? In his dissertation, Wouter Linmans debunks the idea that the Second World War took the Netherlands by surprise. ‘From 1935 onwards, all major political parties wanted to invest in the military.’…

Why do we sometimes speak more slowly or more rapidly, and why do we sometimes have a longer pause between uttering particular words? This has to do with whether you are about to use a noun or a verb. This is the finding from research by an international team led by linguist Frank Seifart from the University…

Medewerkers van de Universiteit Leiden trappen maandag 10 maart de estafettestaking af van de Nederlandse universiteiten tegen de kabinetsbezuinigingen.

Tuesday 7 September sees the release of the book ‘Plots stond het Leidse leven stil’ by Charlotte Boin, a freelance writer from Leiden. This book of interviews gives an impression of the turbulent effect of coronavirus on the lives of students, researchers and partners of Leiden University.

Clinical psychologist Bernet Elzinga has been appointed as Professor of a personal chair at the Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences. This professorship will contribute both nationally and internationally to the broader promotion of Leiden University in the field of stress and psychopathology.

Fossil Free against KLM on greenwashing, municipalities against Chemours on PFAS discharge, climate cases against Shell and ING Bank… There are many examples of recent civil lawsuits on sustainability. But does climate litigation in the civil courts actually have an effect?

A significant percentage of children who have spent a period in youth care institutions or foster homes since 1945 received inadequate protection from physical, psychological and sexual violence. Interventions by supervisory authorities in cases involving violence were inadequate.

Various guests with a background in human rights, law, politics and international relations will be taking part in the ‘Human Rights and the World Cup Qatar’ debate on Friday 30 September. Royal Dutch Football Association (KNVB) Secretary-General and Leiden alumnus Gijs de Jong will be there to provide…

An astonishing twelve students from Leiden University have received a Young Talent Award from the Royal Holland Society of Sciences and Humanities in Haarlem, a record. During the festive ceremony on 25 November, five master students received a Young Talent Graduation Award for their thesis and seven…

Recently, our respected and talented former colleague Bente Hilde Bakker passed away after a long and brave fight with illness. She received her mathematical training at the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam and also obtained her PhD there under the supervision of Jan Bouwe van den Berg and Robert van…

The Faculty of Science celebrated the 500,000th open access publication in NARCIS with all employees who help making Leiden Science publications open access. During this event the importance of open access was stressed, for both the Faculty and the researcher.

Neanderthals at Pech-de-l'Azé I in South Western France had a striking use for manganese dioxide 50,000 years ago.

2021 saw many prizes awarded to staff and students of Leiden Law School. Grants for new research projects were also awarded and our staff were invited to particpate on committees or recognised in other ways too. An overview of this year’s achievements is given below.

Fishes rely heavily on sound to find their way during migration or dispersal. Many species are affected by noise pollution. Hans Slabbekoorn from the Institute of Biology Leiden received a HORIZON2020 grant of 500,000 euros to study the impact of sound conditions on movement decisions of fishes.

'If a local dares to speak to you, do interact, but mind what you say.' This was the advice given to Stephanie van den Akker, second-year student of International Studies, during her visit to North Korea. And yes, one local did actually speak to her, leaving her completely speechless.

This week Dr. Lara Weiss (of the National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden), who together with Dr Christian Greco (of the Museo Egizio in Turin) heads the project "The Walking Dead: The Making of a Cultural Geography in Saqqara", was visited by the NVIC team. During the visit she introduced them to the…

Researchers from Leiden and Delft have found a way to look inside early-modern bookbindings. An x-ray technique has allowed them to search for remains of medieval manuscripts hidden inside the bindings. After the Middle Ages many manuscripts were recycled, their pages pasted inside bookbindings to provide…

A cultural delegation from Taiwan has presented 175 books and journals to Leiden University. The gift is meant as thanks for all the research carried out by the university on the subject of the indigenous peoples of Formosa, as Taiwan was called in the past.

An international team of researchers led by astronomers from Leiden University (the Netherlands) has produced the first sharp radio maps of the universe at low frequencies. Thanks to a new calibration technique, they bypassed the disturbances of the Earth's ionosphere. They used the new method to study…

A workshop (Cairo, Egypt, 14-15 September 2018) organized by the Netherlands-Flemish Institute in Cairo with support from “DICIS” / Digital Cinema Studies https://www.digitalcinemastudies.com/

Thursday afternoon 31 May the Public Leadership Challenge took place in the Living Lab, of Leiden University The Hague. During this afternoon a diverse group of professionals, academics and students focused on the challenge of autonomy in the digital society. Working together on this complex and interesting…

Dear students and researchers at our institute,

We are very happy to announce that as of 1 March Marleen De Meyer is our new NVIC Director!

On Thursday, December 12, 2024, historian and terrorism expert Beatrice de Graaf will deliver the 53rd Huizinga Lecture at the Stadsgehoorzaal in Leiden. Under the title

During his two-day visit to the Netherlands, the Chinese Prime Minister paid an unexpected visit to Leiden on 16 October. Li Keqiang spoke with Rector Carel Stolker, Chinese PhD candidates and students of China Studies.

Are you looking for some listening material for the upcoming long weekend? Staff members and alumni of the Faculty of Humanities have been creating various podcasts over the last few months. A selection is shown here:

2024 was an eventful year for the Faculty of Humanities. Despite becoming the centre of political discussion and budget cuts as faculty ourselves, exceptional research projects were carried out and new initiatives were launched.

Julia van Alem had never held a camera before, but she and her classmates were appointed as the City Photographer. ‘This project helped me learn how to create my own work better.’

The city of Leiden is enriched by a dense infrastructure of knowledge institutes, with a uniquely strong focus on health and well-being. This gives Leiden

A new NMR microscope gives researchers an improved instrument to study fundamental physical processes. It also offers new possibilities for medical science, for example to better study proteins in Alzheimer patients’ brains. Publication in Physical Review Applied.

Lecture, Workshop

Over the past year, many of our staff and students have won prizes, been awarded a substantial grant or been appointed to an academic association or a position in public life. All of these are good reasons to include them in our 2018 Hall of Fame. We are proud of them all.

The brand-new American President Donald Trump delivered his inaugural speech on 20 January. There was little sign of conciliation and he was liberal with the truth, in the opinion of a number of Leiden academics. One professor is more positive: 'He wants to take on radical Islam.'

Op maandag 1 april 2024 stierf onze leermeester, vriend en gewaardeerd collega Dr. Alexander Hendrik de Groot (Sander).