Prof. Zangenberg came to Leiden in 2006 as Professor for New Testament and Early Christian Literature and is now Chair for the History and Culture of Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity.

How did the Arabs manage to maintain an empire based on Islamic principles for three hundred years? Arab expert Petra Sijpesteijn and her team will be examining this question over the coming five years, focusing on the correspondence of ordinary people. The research is being funded by an ERC Consolidator…

The university bid farewell to its Rector Magnificus, Hester Bijl, on 13 January during the ‘Hester’s Highlights’ symposium.

In a time of growing polarisation and declining trust, the rule of law is under pressure. The system as we know it today only took shape 177 years ago, with the constitutional reform of 1848. Carla Hoetink emphasises: ‘The democratic rule of law was originally designed to prevent violence and revolu…

University lecturer of modern Dutch literature Rick Honings, associated with the Faculty of Humanities, has received a Vidi grant of 800,000 euros. This allows him to carry out research into a more nuanced image of our colonial past.

Recently, archeologists of Leiden University made an excavation in Oegstgeest, where they found a unique silver bowl from the first half of the seventh century as well as imported pottery and winebarrels. Thijs Porck, lecturer in Old English language and culture at Leiden University, places the Oegstgeest…

Conference, Workshop

Lecture, Peace Histories Seminar Series

Sanjar Golomov is a senior scholar at the Al-Biruni Institute in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. In Leiden he will deliver two lectures and one masterclass for MA and PhD students as part of the Erasmus Mobility Plus project between Leiden University and the Al-Biruni Institute. The project is coordinated and…

On 28 and 29 April 2022, the fourth annual PhD Workshop on European and International Insolvency Law took place, organised by the Foundation Bob Wessels Insolvency Law Collection (BWILC). A shared first prize was awarded to Gert-Jan Boon (Leiden University) and Theodora Kostoula (European University…

Corinne Hofman, Leiden Professor of the Archaeology of the Caribbean Region has been awarded the 2013 KNAW Merian Prize for women in science. Her aim with her research is to broaden the history of the colonisation of the Americas to include the perspective of the indigenous Indian population.

Yesterday, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) issued a preliminary ruling in a case brought by Nicaragua against Germany. Nicaragua accuses Germany of genocide and violating international humanitarian law by supplying arms to Israel. Eric de Brabandere, Professor of International Dispute Settlement…

The end of January arrived together with welcome guests from Saxion University of Applied Sciences. As a part of their two-day-long visit to South Holland, almost 100 Saxion archaeology students visited our Faculty.

George Floyd's death still leads to fierce protests against police violence and racism on a daily basis in the United States and abroad. We asked Paul Wouters how he experiences these developments and what this will mean for our faculty.

Leiden Physics Poster

An external visitation committee gave the Institute of Biology Leiden (IBL) an outstanding assessment. In terms of research quality and relevance to society, the IBL gets the highest score: excellent. The increase with five new female professors also receives praise from the committee.

Pancras Hogendoorn bade farewell as Dean of Medicine and Vice-Chairman of the LUMC Board of Directors with a symposium at the LUMC.

Leiden University Libraries has made a large number of unofficial poetry journals from China accessible online in its Digital Collections. This opens up thousands of pages from an internationally unique collection of unofficial Chinese poetry for teaching, research, and the general public, including…

In July 2023, Leiden University conducted another phase of its ongoing archaeological collaboration with the Kalinago Territory in the Caribbean island of Dominica. Activities focused on mapping and assessing coastal sites impacted by climate stressors, undertaking knowledge-exchange sessions, and co-creating…

Leiden University has awarded its prestigious University Medal to Emeritus Professor Lex van der Eb. As a pioneer in genetics and molecular biology, he received this honour for his services to science and his key role in the development of the Leiden Bio Science Park (LBSP).

Historical figures such as Columbus have returned to the centre of public debate. Much remains to be discovered about his legacy and current impact on our society. A new study shows the ecological footprint that the arrival of Europeans left in the Caribbean islands.

On 8 May, the memoirs of Jang Jin-sung are appearing worldwide under the title Dear Leader. Jan Jin-sung was a member of the personal circle of the former North Korean leader, Kim Jong Il. Dear Leader provides a radically different perspective on the workings of the regime, as it reveals the moving…

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.

Detecting molecules with temperature instead of chemical reactions: that’s what scientists from the Leiden Institute of Physics want to do. They are developing a sensor that utilizes special nanoparticles to keep track of certain molecules. In this way, they can for example see how well new drugs do…

On 9 and 10 November, the Institute of International and European Law of the University of Göttingen and the Minerva Center for Human Rights of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, organized a conference called ‘Unpacking Economic and Social Rights: International and Comparative Dimensions’.

On Tuesday, the 16th of May, the Faculty of Archaeology put a festive end to the 25th year celebrations. The programme included a dedication of our largest meeting room, the sealing and burying of a time capsule, and a BBQ.

Antibiotic resistance is one of the major threats to human health. This week the National Antibiotic Development Platform, NADP, was officially launched via a meeting in Utrecht, with many of the stakeholders in the field present.

On 5 September, spaceEU was launched at the Ars Electronica Festival in Linz, one of the world’s largest science, technology and media art festivals. This 1 million euro European-funded project is coordinated by Leiden Observatory. SpaceEU fosters a young, creative and inclusive European space community…

Scientific research, heritage management and public outreach intertwined.

The online summer programme Space in Your Living Room by Leiden Observatory has won the first prize ‘Most Innovative Event’ of the Astronomy@Home Awards from the International Astronomical Union. In July and August 2020, participants could for example talk to real astronauts and imagine life forms in…

Antibiotic resistance is an economic problem. Pharmaceutical companies cannot earn much from antibiotic research, so they do not invest in it. This makes it important that universities do so, says Ned Buijs.

The Faculty of Archaeology proudly presents the research brochure Perspectives on the Past, featuring passionate, dedicated researchers introducing a dazzling scala of research topics: from present-day traditional knowledge in Africa to the power of glue in Palaeolithic Europe. In addition to these…

Staff and students from the Faculty of Archaeology are just back from a newly started Field School in the inland of Portugal.

With the start of June, the annual Leiden Archaeology Field School has begun. Like last year, the Field School takes place in Oss. Every week, a group of 25 first year students gets to learn the ins and outs of a professional excavation.

Advanced fluorescence microscopy techniques have revealed how steroid receptors move inside the nucleus. The results were published by a team from Leiden University and the Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam, led by IBL-researcher Marcel Schaaf.

Publication by: Anouk Wezel, Sabine Welten, Wida Razawy, Max Lagraauw, Margreet de Vries, Eveline Goossens, Martin Boonstra, Jaap Hamming, Ekambar Kandimalla, Johan Kuiper, Paul Quax, Yaël Nossent and Ilze Bot. Annals of Surgery. 2015;262:841-848.

Leiden University and Leiden University Medical Center have joined the Netherlands Centre for One Health (NCOH), further strengthening the academic network in which such problems as antimicrobial resistance are studied.

On Tuesday 12 January 2021, the Leiden Law School thesis prizes were awarded at the New Year’s event.

A CT scanner to treat eye cancer, energy-efficient software for the future and a test to identify male chick eggs. Three projects by researchers from Leiden University are to receive funding from research funder NWO’s Open Technology programme, to which the business sector also contributes.

If Europeans eat less meat and dairy, this will have major consequences for farmers. New research shows that many barns and machines could lose their value. With the right policies, these losses can be limited. This is shown by research from Leiden, Oxford and Vienna.

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'.

Scientists need individual photons for quantum cryptography and quantum computers. Leiden physicists have now experimentally demonstrated a new production method. Publication in Physical Review Letters on July 23rd.

In the Leiden Municipality Challenge, 25 students investigated how Leiden could become more sustainable. In doing so, they enlisted the help of the city's citizens. 'When citizens themselves participate in the research process, they have a better understanding of how science works.'

The international regime governing displacement shows a number of gaps, most notably with regard to (internally) displaced people who are not covered by the definition of refugee of the Refugee Convention. These protection gaps translate into solution gaps for displaced people.

From the first semester of 2026, Leiden University and Universidad Diego Portales (Santiago, Chile) will launch three online virtual exchange programmes. The themes are: political analysis, tensions surrounding Indigenous peoples in Latin America, and the securitisation of borders.

The feature drama film In Times of Rain will have its world premiere at the Guanajuato International Film Festival (#GIFF 2018) in Mexico. The film is a result of the Leiden University project ‘Time in lntercultural Context’, funded by the European Research Council.

Covid year 2021 might have felt somewhat less strange than the year before, but the virus still left its mark on University life and our students and staff. Fortunately there was also room for research, visiting dignitaries and in-person classes. And our social media accounts weren’t only about covid…

As part of Mariana Françozo’s BRASILAE project, a group of representatives of the Ka’apor people was invited to visit Leiden. The Ka’apor, an indigenous people from Brazil, are some of the present-day relatives of the Tupi-speaking peoples who used to live in the northeastern region of Brazil, claimed…