Apply now for the LUCIS Summer School on Philology and Manuscripts from the Muslim world, which will take place from Tuesday 15 August until Friday 25 August 2017 in Leiden. The deadline for applications is Friday 16 June 2017.

Eastern and Southern European countries struggle with ‘brain drain’ as skilled workers move to other EU Member States. Could restricting free movement be a legitimate and lawful way to address this trend? Researcher Martijn van den Brink will investigate the issue.

Organised by the Common Law Society of Charles University, Prague, the summer school takes place during two weeks in July at the University’s mountain house 'Patejdlova bouda'.

To investigate the effectiveness of an online self-help programme for people with HIV and depressive symptoms.

Dr. Vicky Kosta (Europa Institute, Leiden University), together with Professor Niamh Nic Shuibhne (University of Edinburgh), provided a course on “Cultural Diversity and European Law” at the EUI’s Academy of European Law two-week summer course in June 2023.

Intensive 5-day programme on the world-famous Antwerp-based printing and publishing house founded by Christopher Plantin in 1555. International experts will discuss how it developed the production and distribution of religious books and related illustrations and prints in the following centuries.

This thesis presents pioneering work on the panchromatic emission of some of the most luminous galaxies in the early Universe: star forming galaxies and active galactic nuclei.

‘I would never want to be treated by a computer,’ says Boudewijn Lelieveldt, Head of Radiology at the Laboratory for Clinical and Experimental Image Processing and Medical Delta professor in the Bioinformatics group at Delft University of Technology. No matter how intelligent a system, we have to continue…

Through the clever use of two types of telescopes, a team of researchers has produced stunning images of clusters of galaxies. This not only produces beautiful images, but also provides more information about the enormous amounts of energy released around supermassive black holes in clusters. The astronomers,…

‘Walking around in a new environment activates our brain’s learning centre. This allows us to learn better, even once we’ve returned to a familiar environment.’ This is the conclusion drawn by neuroscientist Judith Schomaker in her recent publication in Neurobiology of Learning and Memory.

On 13 June, Jorrit Rijpma spoke on migration and border control at sea at the Summer School “Open Sea on Migrations, Sea Border Control and Human Rights” organized by the Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence on Migrants’ Rights in the Mediterranean based at the University of Naples (“Orientale”).

When galaxies collide, do the black holes at their centre form a supersized black hole? This is what we think happens, but it's not as simple as that, according to Simon Portegies Zwart. Zwart, computer scientist and astronomer, has been awarded a VICI grant to research this phenomenon.

This thesis is a (biased) journey through very different topics in astrophysics: quasars and new populations of active galactic nuclei, gravitational waves from merging black holes, and protoplanetary discs around young stars.

For optimization problems, it is often unclear how to choose the most appropriate optimization algorithm. As such, rigorous benchmarking practices are critical to ensure we can gain as much insight into the strengths and weaknesses of these types of algorithms.

The project examines the political conflict in the Red River Valley of Louisiana between the majority-black Republican Party and the overwhelmingly white Democratic Party by studying the composition and actions of each party.

The first photo of a black hole and measuring anxiety in the brain... From 13 until 22 May we're serving a free slice of science with your pizza.

Serge Rombouts is a physicist whose PhD thesis was about functional MRI (fMRI). This visualises activity in regions of the brain. The appealing images of glowing brain regions that emerge from the computer are the result of calculations. According to Rombouts, this isn’t proper artificial intelligence.…

What causes depression in a child and how can they get over it? Leiden Professor of Psychology Bernet Elzinga and behavioural scientist Carine Kielstra recently hosted a webinar on the subject of depression in teenagers. The level of interest was overwhelming.

Arts and culture

This is an Erasmus+ International Credit Mobility project of Leiden University’s Faculty of Humanities with Anton de Kom University in Suriname.

In the South African context, certain iconic images have been a dominant source for public understandings of historical events. The emphasis given these images tends to overshadow the historical value of other more personal photographic sources – like studio or amateur photography. This project looks…

Modern optimization algorithms offer solutions for architectural decisions like spatial, structural and energy efficiency. A young computer scientist from Leiden University co-authored a paper that won the Best Paper Award at a leading conference in Krakow during the summer.

Truth is stranger than fiction. In 1997 Juan Maldaceña discovered a remarkable dictionary that translates equation for equation the physics of black holes in string theory into the more conventional physics of quantum mechanics of interacting particles. The remarkable possibility exists that…

What is the effectiveness of (booklet or online) self-help programmes for people with somatic stressors and depressive symptoms? What works best for whom? How to improve motivation and adherence?

Researchers at Leiden Observatory study the fundamental physics that creates structure in the Universe. These processes collect matter into galaxies and gas into stars. With the use of powerful telescopes and advanced calculations and computer simulations, Leiden astronomers seek to understand the origin,…

The Dutch PVV party has proposed a legislative amendment that would make helping illegal immigrants a criminal offence. Joanne van der Leun, Professor of Criminology, spoke to NRC newspaper about the criminalisation of illegality: ‘It’s absurd.’

The Summer School in Languages and Linguistics at Leiden University has been a yearly highlight since 2006.

Smart algorithms and powerful processors are just as essential for astronomy as big telescopes. Astronomers at Leiden University therefore constantly operate at the interface between astronomy and data science.

The origin and evolution of galaxies are closely linked to many different physical phenomena.

Rossi

Research

Leiden University has student exchange and scholarships agreements with various Chinese universities, varying from long-term exchange programmes to two-week Summer Courses.

Piercing through the skull with an ice pick, administering electric shocks without an anaesthetic, or applying leeches to the uterus: these may seem like medieval methods of torture, but they are in fact therapies used in medicine. Willem van der Does writes about all of them in his new book. ‘Physicians…

The Leiden astronomer Huib van Langevelde) has been selected as the new director of the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT). The EHT is a collaboration involving about 350 scientists from 18 countries. It combines the ALMA array in Chile with sub-millimeter telescopes around the world and published the first…

Conference, Summer School

Researchers at Leiden Observatory study the fundamental physics that creates structure in the Universe. These processes collect matter into galaxies and gas into stars. With the use of powerful telescopes and advanced calculations and computer simulations, Leiden astronomers seek to understand the origin,…

These are the proposed research projects for LEAPS 2019. Please note that not all projects will go ahead and some may still be added in the near future. Final funding decisions lie with the Faculty sponsors. And please make a note that if you are interested in an ESA project, to check if your state…

Subproject of the ERC project 'Challenging the Liberal World Order from Within: The Invisible History of the United Nations and the Global South'.

Arts and leisure, Arts and leisure

Expand your knowledge, gain international experience, and explore global challenges. From summer schools and online courses to virtual exchanges, Leiden University students at all levels (bachelor’s and master’s students, and PhD candidates) can participate in a range of learning opportunities.

The Summer School ‘The European Union, the United Nations and Global Governance’ will focus on a range of topics relevant to interactions between the European Union (EU) and the United Nations (UN) and the EU’s role within current patterns of global governance.