Dust particles in space form the basis for new stars and planets. But what do these particles consist of and how do they behave? Sascha Zeegers studied this. PhD defence 1 November.

Astronomers at Leiden University have discovered the first planets using a new instrument: the planet hunter MASCARA. This instrument, developed at Leiden Observatory, looks specifically for planet transitions around the brightest stars in the sky, which surprisingly enough have so far have hardly been…

No less than four Leiden research teams have been awarded a grant by NWO. On 27 July NWO honoured 21 applications in the Open Competition ENW-XL. NWO awards the grants to consortia in the exact and natural sciences who are doing unconnected fundamental research that is 'driven by curiosity'.

As of 12 Januari 2026, the FSW faculty building is called Agora. This name was chosen by the FSW community. In ancient Greece, the agora was the heart of the city: a place for meeting, dialogue and the exchange of ideas. This is exactly how we see our faculty building: an open space where knowledge,…

Four researchers from Leiden University have been awarded prestigious Vici grants the Dutch Research Council (NWO) has announced. The honoured applications are from researchers at the Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences, Leiden Observatory, the LUMC and the Faculty of Archaeology.

The Second World War is a never ending experience for those who lived it. This is what Cleveringa professor Carol Gluck and her students concluded following a critical reading of ‘De Aanslag’ by Harry Mulisch. Mulisch’s novel took centre stage in Gluck’s Honours seminar.

Three cybersecurity consortia that Leiden University is part of have been awarded subsidies of over a million euros by NWO. Leiden is the coordinator for two of the projects.

A TikTok by student Loïs de Jong from Leiden University in which Leiden sparkles as a student city won the final of the Leiden Media Contest on 13 June. According to the jury, the film was ‘the most appealing for today’s generation of current and prospective students – it includes nearly all elements…

Chemist Alexander Kros and astronomer Joop Schaye are two of the four Leiden researchers who have been awarded a Vici as part of NWO's Innovation Research Incentives scheme. They each have 1.5 million euros to set up a research group and employ PhD candidates.

Warning colours ensure that predators remember that certain prey are poisonous. But now it appears that the colours of poisonous Panamanian frogs are also influenced by fastidious females: partner choice can also lead to colour change in these frogs, as Leiden researcher Martine Maan has reported in…

Rodrigo Ochigame’s project explores how AI redefines scientific evidence, aiming to help scientists critically navigate these transformations with the Veni grant.

Take a walk through any city, and you are likely to come across a brightly coloured mural. Although these paintings often seem to serve solely as a backdrop for Instagram snapshots, art history professor Minna Valjakka says there are rich traditions and intricate histories that uncover more critical…

How can a single origami crease pattern be folded into two precisely defined target shapes? Researchers at AMOLF and Leiden University have created an ‘alphabet’ of 140 origami ‘puzzle pieces’ that allows them to do just that, as described today in Nature Physics. This discovery could help in the construction…

How do galaxies form? That is what astronomer Mariska Kriek will be researching in the coming years. She received an NWO Vici grant of 1.5 million euros to study galaxies in the early universe. ‘This research uses new and unprecedented observations from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). These allow…

Tropical butterflies adapt to their environment to improve their chances of survival. The changes are triggered by hormone signals that transmit information about temperature to the butterflies' tissues. Biologist Ana Rita Mateus shows how a complex combination of environment, physiology and genetics…

More than 700 visitors got to know the Science Faculty during the Leiden Science Family Day. People of all ages could enjoy fascinating experiments, tours, interesting lectures, spectacular nitrogen shows and various workshops. It was an informative day with many (future) scientists, amazement and,…

On 7 June, the National Museum of Antiquities opened a mini exhibition 'Scanning for Syria'. The exhibition shows how Leiden archaeologists and Delft technical specialists make reconstructions of 3000-year-old Assyrian clay tablets. The originals, stored in museum depots in Raqqa (Syria), have been…

Archaeologist Victor Klinkenberg examined an old Assyrian settlement in Syria, near to the IS stronghold Raqqa. 'Social life was more important than military life.' PhD defence 27 October.

The state should prepare 'lifers' better for returning to society, for example by giving them some control over their own lives. This is the finding of Marieke Liem in her book 'After Life Imprisonment', published on 19 August.

How do you manage a crisis? This is what Professor of Crisis Governance Sanneke Kuipers will address in her inaugural lecture.

For the first time, physicists have visualized the ‘melting’ of electrons inside a special class of insulators. It allows electrons to move freely and turns the insulator into a metal and possibly later into a superconductor. Publication in Nature Physics.

PhD defence

Alumni event

The Dick Stufkens Prijs for the best PhD thesis of the Holland Research School of Molecular Chemistry (HRSMC) has been awarded to Dr Tatu S. Kumpulainen for his thesis “Proton-Transfer Reactions in ‘Super’ Photoacids and Supramolecular Assemblies”. It describes his innovative research into methods for…

Supercomputer ALICE has been expanded, making it even more powerful and faster. This means researchers and students can work with heavier models. From language research to brain activity scans, this expansion is good news for a variety of disciplines. So who gets to work with this prima donna?

It was more than two years in the making, but despite the delays, giving up was not an option. In May, eighteen staff members of LUCAS and the Faculty of Archaeology visited NIMAR.

A lot of municipalities work with a points system to encourage construction projects to take biodiversity and creating green areas into account. But this way of working also benefits local neighbourhoods and residents, master's student Marije Sesink discovered. She based her study on The Hague.

From chilling on the beach to a speech by the mayor. HOPweek is a speedy way for hundreds of ‘Leiden’ students who are going to be studying in The Hague to get to know each other. Many of them come from abroad. ‘I actually dare to cycle here.’

Motivated, innovative lecturers are the driving force behind our teaching. Thijs Porck is a lecturer in Medieval English at the Leiden Centre for the Arts in Society. He passed the Senior Teaching Qualification at the end of last year. ‘As a lecturer, it’s good to keep thinking about what motivates…

Two Leiden astronomers will receive the prestigious IAU PhD Prize. Both Jorryt Mathee and Niels Ligterink of the Leiden Observatory won a prize. Scientific director Huub Röttgering: We are proud that this year two of our PhD students receive an IAU prize for the best thesis in their field of researc…

Does a snake die when it bites its lip? Why will a mongoose survive a scorpion’s sting, but we humans perish? These questions occupied the minds of toxin-enthusiasts and Master’s students Biology Jory van Thiel and Roel Wouters. They collected information from many sources and published their findings…

However tempting it may be to lock yourself in your room or in favourite library nook in the days running up to an important exam, it's not a very wise choice, stresses neuroscientist Judith Schomaker.

Charlotte Poot (31) is co-founder and chair of Hospital Hero, an app that prepares children for a hospital visit. She studied and obtained her PhD at the LUMC.

Just like the professional riders from the Jumbo-Visma team, amateur cyclists will soon be able to analyse and improve their performance. Leiden data scientists working with the cycling team are making their smart data model available so that every serious cyclist can keep track of their fitness.

For the first time, an international team of scientists led by Leiden Observatory and SRON can explain the extreme jet streams observed around the equators of all the giant planets using a single model.

The past two years, Laura van der Knaap and Professor Karsten Lambers worked on creating open teaching materials on agent-based modeling, funded by Erasmus+ and in collaboration with Danish, Irish and Dutch partners. Programming is an important skill involved in this, which is often seen as intimidating…

In his new book 'Flooding and Management of Large Fluvial Lowlands', Paul Hudson Associate Professor of Physical Geography at Leiden University College in The Hague, examines human impacts on lowlands rivers. The past twenty years the pressure on large fluvial lowlands has increased tremendously because…

The National ThinkTank presents an analysis and seven solutions to the social issue of ‘meaningful ageing’.

Marion Anker is a junior curator at the Rijksmuseum, the National Museum of the Netherlands. She studied History in Leiden and Amsterdam. Together with her team, she organised the controversial exhibition ‘Revolusi! Indonesië onafhankelijk!’ What did studying History teach her?

A passion for video games, visuals and science: it almost seems impossible to bring all of this together. Yet, scientific animator Vera Williams found that dream combination at NeCEN's microscopy lab. 'An image or animation can help clarify the content of complex research.'

A logical next step and a new challenge: Harold Linnartz is ready for his new position as Programme Director (PD) of the Leiden Observatory. He will follow up current PD Paul van der Werf on 1 October. 'The programme has grown tremendously. That will be a logistics tour de force.'

Human activity at sea makes a terrible racket. To what extent does this disturb marine animals? PhD candidate Annebelle Kok studied the effect on harbour porpoises, long-finned pilot whales and their prey, and discovered the sheer complexity of the problem. PhD defence on 12 November.

Ships are still emitting too much nitrogen oxide. Till now it has been impossible to measure this at sea, but that is set to change. Solomiia Kurchaba combined satellite data and developed algorithms to identify which ships are emitting too much. Kurchaba received her PhD on 11 June.

Last week, the first seven professionals successfully completed the new Leiden Legal Technologies Programme (LLTP). They received their certificates during a festive ceremony. Smiling faces all around for founder Jaap van den Herik, Programme Director Nikol Hopman, and The Hague alderman Saskia Bruines.…

Bringing together chemists and physicists to thoroughly investigate how electrochemical processes work on the smallest scale. That is the goal of the new Advanced Nano-electrochemistry Institute of the Netherlands, or ANION for short. The consortium receives a Gravitation funding of 23.6 million euros…

Roderick Bouman is collection manager of the Leiden Hortus botanicus. He keeps track of which plants there are in the garden, where they come from and makes sure visitors can find the right information about them. ‘We are like a regular museum,’ says Bouman. ‘Except that our objects are alive. That…

Erik Danen is the new Dean of the Graduate School from 1 January. He is a professor at the Leiden Academic Centre for Drug Research and conducts research into cancer drugs. Danen is really looking forward to it: ‘PhD candidates are a special group: that's what I like to dedicate myself to.’

Since the credit crisis erupted, drastic cutbacks have been made in all kinds of public sector organisations, creating some very difficult choices for the top civil servants who had to implement them in their own organisation. This is the conclusion of Public Administration scholar Eduard Schmidt, whose…

Violette Defourt came to Leiden for her master’s just before Covid hit. Four years later, she is leading her own biotech company, which aims to radically speed up diagnostics.

On Friday 28 October, Leiden University organized its annual Physics Ladies Day for female high school students. To mark this festive day, we put the spotlight on four female researchers, who talk about their experiences in physics.