Researchers from Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC) and the Leiden-based biotech company Ncardia have joined forces to develop a new platform that enables the automated production of 3D cardiac microtissues. This platform will allow large numbers of drugs to be tested quickly

Meet Thomas King, alumnus BA International Studies: ‘I’m currently living in London which is a really amazing experience! I’m a British citizen and I moved to the Netherlands to study BA International Studies back in 2017. I had the best three years ever living in The Hague and studying at Leiden.’

Are you interested in ancient Egypt, the rich cultural heritage of Mesopotamia or bliblical Hebrew and Aramaic? Students of all faculties can follow electives of Ancient Near Eastern Studies without prior knowledge or special entry requirements. Archaeology student Annely Arends talks about her expe…

The rule of law is crumbling in the Netherlands, lawyer Lilian Gonçalves-Ho Kang You warned in her Cleveringa Lecture.

This month marks the two-hundredth anniversary of the deciphering of Egyptian hieroglyphic writing. NINO, the Language Museum, Things that Talk and the National Museum of Antiquities are seizing the opportunity to organise the first Week of Ancient Writing.

On 26 November historian Jan Grabowski and sociologist Barbara Engelking will both give the Cleveringa Lecture. They wrote a book about the Holocaust in Poland and were taken to court for defamation.

Physicist Martin van Exter works with light at nanoscale, at the forefront of nanocomputer research. But as Director of Education he also has a vision for physics teaching. Inaugural lecture 18 November.

Conference, Book presentation

Lecture, Leiden Yemeni Studies Lecture Series

PhD defence

Lecture

Lecture

At first glance, archaeology seems like a job that is hard to take home. Nothing could be further from the truth though! Our archaeologists are currently developing new dating methods, are looking for lost cities in their living rooms, and perform daring acts of experimental archaeology!

Most people think of waste as something dirty that needs to be disposed of as soon as possible, but Olivia Yun-An Dung's dissertation aims to show that this does not always have to be the case. For this purpose, she focuses on Tzu Chi recycling in Taiwan. There, an army of elderly volunteers has been…

What is the environmental impact of the fish on our plates? And is an electric car really more sustainable when we include the generation of electricity? Jeroen Guinée maps the environmental impact of products and technologies. He analyses them from raw material to waste disposal. He was appointed Professor…

Playing with tiny building blocks might sound like child’s play, but Vera Meester knows better. On June 7 she will defend her thesis on colloids: micro particles with which you can form larger structures. Meester developed a method to make unusable structures usable.

Steeds drukker is het in populaire banen rond de aarde voor ruimtevaart. Niet alleen met satellieten, vooral met meer afval, wat onveilig is. Zhuang Tian promoveert op de juridische kant van afgedankte ruimte-apparaten. Wie troep veroorzaakt, moet het weer opruimen.

In the MS Cognitietour, psychologists and neuroscientists from Leiden University discuss the latest scientific knowledge with MS patients and their loved ones. This leads to insights: 'One lady told how much stress she felt from all those caregivers around her bed.'

Environmental researcher Martina Vijver is over the moon with her ERC Consolidator Grant. This prestigious grant is recognition, she says, of the study of the behaviour and possible toxicity of new nanomaterials in ecosystems.

Students who also want to develop their artistic talents can take a year-long art class – Practicum Artium – at the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague. ‘I can express my creativity and am learning to approach subjects in a visual way.’

Leiden Law Cast is a podcast made by Leiden Law School, Leiden University, for everyone who wants to learn more about current legal issues.

PhD candidate Jianhong Zhou aimed to better understand whether and how plant species adapt to environmental changes. She developed two databases that she used to analyze how easily or difficultly plants adapt to changing conditions. Zhou defended her PhD thesis on 4 September.

International bachelor’s and master’s students started the OWL on Monday morning. During this introduction week they get to know their new university, city and each other.

One and half years ago, Lewis Borck exchanged the arid and hot Southwest of the USA for the Netherlands. While an expert in Ancestral Pueblo and Hohokam archaeology, he switched to the Caribbean as a researcher in the NEXUS 1492 project. “Theories and methods brought me in first.”

Elephant toothpaste, a trip among the stars or a lecture on mathematical juggling: on Sunday 8 October 2023, the Faculty of Science opened its doors for the third edition of the Leiden Science Family Day. A programme jam-packed with workshops, demonstrations, lectures and peeks behind the scenes for…

Bringing Dutch and international students together. One way to do that is by playing Archery Attack, archaeology student Timothy Stikkelorum suggested. On 13 November, he and his team, a committee from the Terra study association, won the Van Bergen Prize with their idea.

Human cells are protecting their proteins from unfolding and aggregating. That's what biophysicist Alireza Mashaghi and his team discovered after seven years of in-depth research into the folding mechanisms of proteins. With an unprecedented approach, the team was able to study the folding of a single…

Tuesday was the opening session of the LDE Bachelor Honours Programme Sustainability. Lecturers introduced themselves, students got to know each other and it was revealed what they will do to contribute to a more sustainable world in the coming months.

The Sustainability Prize of the Leiden University Green Office and the Local Chamber of Associations has been won this year by student association Catena. In the shadow of the corona pandemic, Catena worked exceptionally hard to improve sustainability.

In some university restaurants and cafés, you can already order them and, come January, you can enjoy them everywhere: the Pure products. Sustainable, healthy and/or vegetarian. The beautiful lime green, also the colour of the plates and bowls, is the vibrant symbol of these products. And Pure is even…

The world’s population is expected to rise to 9 billion people in 2050. At the same time, climate change urges us to dramatically reduce our use of resources. Does the transition to a circular economy offer us a way out, and if so, how? Master Honours Class’ students are looking into this issue: ‘Change…

Today marks the launch of the LDE Bachelor Honours Programme Sustainability. Students from Leiden University, TU Delft and Erasmus University will work together on concrete sustainability issues of organisations. Interest in the new programme turned out to be overwhelming. Two lecturers involved share…

From underground heat exchangers at the Bio Science Park to drinking taps to replace water coolers. With its new environmental policy plan, Leiden University will become greener in the coming years.

What is the relationship between humans and nature like? And how can we use it to tackle climate problems? In the Master Honours Class ‘Planet in Peril’, students approach climate issues from the perspective of the humanities. ‘Things are not always as one-sided as they seem.’

Fascinated by science since high school, Alireza Mashaghi Tabari is driven to explore new ways of thinking in medicine. With a strong academic network, he educates students and gives public lectures. For his research at LACDR, he won the C.J. Kok Public Award 2018, making him the Faculty of Science's…

De Faculteit Archeologie bestaat dit jaar 25 jaar. Ter ere van dit jubileum opende de faculteit op 1 maart zijn deuren voor het brede publiek.

What effect did the lockdown have on young people? Leiden researchers started a study of this in the first year of the covid pandemic. They discovered an impact on the development of the brain areas involved in social behaviour. The researchers published their discovery in Scientific Reports at Nat…

Industrial ecologists Stefano Cucurachi and Flora Siebler are part of the new consortium PROGENY, which received 3.6 million euros from the European Commission. PROGENY is an exciting project that will study the possibilities of soap films for innovations, such as ultra-thin screens.

External PhD candidate Liselore Tissen (Leiden University/Delft University of Technology) has been blogging on the Faces of Science website since March about her daily work as a researcher. ‘Academia is anything but stuffy.’

The electrochemical reduction of a group of organic compounds on platinum is strongly dependent on the arrangement of the atoms in the platinum surface. Christoph Bondue, postdoc in Marc Koper's group, published this in Nature Catalysis on 4 March. The reduction of such compounds is an important process…

As a lecturer of a block 4 course, osteoarchaeologist Dr Rachel Schats is preparing to give her education remotely. For this she uses Kaltura, Leiden University’s video platform. While she is new to remote teaching, like most of the University’s lecturers, she already has some tips and tricks based…

Alumnus Rennie Roos lives and works in Indonesia. What took him there, what does he do there and what inspires him?

What does the University mean for The Hague? And what are researchers and students learning from the city and its residents? The Hague city councillors visited Campus The Hague on 27 September and spoke to administrators and researchers. ‘From Schilderswijk to Benoordenhout: we are a university for…

Literature – and films and social media too – helps us understand ourselves and society. That makes literary studies an eternally modern discipline, especially if you dare to combine it with other disciplines, says Nidesh Lawtoo.

From bedtime stories about mathematics to podcasts about microplastics and games on weeds: master students from the Science Communication & Society track presented the real-life products they developed during their final presentations on 20 December. Many of the products are already implemented by c…

Are you curious about how the human skeleton works? Discover this and more on 3 October in Leiden and on 4 October in The Hague.

Taking a Bachelor’s in Security Studies while starting and running two businesses: student Mohamed Sulaiman never stops. But he wouldn’t have it any other way. PLNT The Hague entrepreneurs’ hub is a source of help and inspiration.

In 2025, our colleagues from the Institute of Psychology once again made a strong presence in the media. From (inter)national newspapers to podcasts, discover where they shared their expertise in the media this year.

Innovation in nest building: bird nests made from anti-bird spikes. Researchers from Naturalis Biodiversity Center and the Natural History Museum Rotterdam describe this behaviour in a publication.