Various Leiden researchers have been awarded a European grant to explore the commercial or societal potential of previous research.

How do surgeons avoid causing nerve damage or leaving cancerous cells behind? An interdisciplinary research group at the LUMC hopes to improve operations and make them less invasive with the aid imaging techniques. They are working with medical companies to make these techniques widely available.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is often portrayed as a technological saviour for addressing climate change. But there are risks associated with its use, observes Barrie Sander.

Recent studies have shown that Dutch secondary school pupils experience a great deal of stress from school work, and between 2001 and 2007 the number of adolescents experiencing school stress even doubled. The study carried out by Simone Vogelaar focuses on stress factors and the effectiveness of the…

Is Europe skilling for sustainable food?

In FameLab contestants explain their research to the public in a three-minute presentation – without using PowerPoint or other presentation tools. The Leiden heats of this international communications competition will be held on 7 March. Anyone is welcome to come and watch!

Anti-litter activist Dirk Groot photographed, tagged, and collected more than 400,000 pieces of litter in the Netherlands. Now, he and his data are included in a study on urban litter by researchers from Leiden University and Andrea Ballatore from Birkbeck, University of London.

About 90 per cent of Austronesian and Papuan languages are under threat of soon becoming extinct. Marian Klamer is the only professor in the world who researches both these language groups. She records languages before they disappear and sheds new light on the history of Indonesia. Inaugural lecture…

Delft, Nov. 15th, 2022 – Today, eight professors were simultaneously inaugurated as ‘Medical Delta professors’ at Leiden University, LUMC, TU Delft, Erasmus University and/or Erasmus MC. With an appointment of two or more of these five academic institutions, they combine technology and healthcare in…

On Thursday 16 November, Dirk Broekhuijsen will defend his doctoral thesis entitled ‘A multilateral tax treaty: designing an instrument to modernise international tax law’. The defence will take place at 15.00 hrs at the Academy Building of Leiden University. The supervisors are Professor F.A. Engelen…

How can you learn about women’s history if they are under-represented in historical sources? Look at news coverage of crime, says Clare Wilkinson, PhD candidate in gender and history. ‘Historical crime reporting offers a glimpse into forgotten groups.’ The doctoral defence will take place on 23 Apri…

On 29 August 2025, the Advanced Studies in International Children’s Rights programme celebrated its 10th anniversary with alumni, partners, and friends, marking the milestone with reflection, dialogue, and the launch of a new Education Fund.

You win the Leiden Teaching Prize and suddenly all eyes are on you. Three past recipients reflect on how this student-awarded prize has changed how they work and improved their teaching – and how they chose to spend the money.

After receiving positive feedback from peers, socially anxious young people feel as confident about themselves as their non-anxious counterparts. 'These young people are then able to handle new social situations more confidently,’ says Leiden psychologist Anne Miers. Her research is published in the…

A team of researchers has managed to recreate the most natural skin cream in existence. Using the DUBBLE beamline (Dutch Belgian Beamline) at the European Synchrotron Radiation produced on the basis of the information identified, has the same properties as vernix caseosa. This cream may have a therapeutic…

Dutch researchers are joining forces to conduct research together with a series of societal partners to keep the biological clock healthy in our modern 24-hour society. The BioClock consortium will receive a research grant of no less than 9.7 million euros for this. It is one of the projects that receive…

Willem van der Muur worked at the Van Vollenhoven Institute as a PhD candidate from 2013 to 2019. After completing his doctorate he left for Indonesia to work for the World Bank. There, he is leading a project to register land rights.

Kajsa Ollongren, Minister of the Interior and Kingdom Relations, opened a complex of 467 student flats in Leiden on 26 August. This is the (Y)ours development on the sustainable ‘Leidse Schans’ campus at Lammenschans train station.

Discovering while still studying whether work in science might be for you. That is what students get during the faculty Research Traineeship Programme. On Friday 1 September, they presented their results to each other and their supervisors.

The war in Ukraine is leading not only to human suffering. Ukraine's cultural heritage is also experiencing the consequences of the war: museums are being bombed and 'Russification' in the occupied territories means children no longer learn Ukrainian. Researcher Evelien Campfens was commissioned by…

Eleven ambitious Leiden students hope to heal burns with a special substance from squid teeth. They are taking part in the international iGEM competition. They need to raise almost 10,000 euros to fund their project this summer.

Hydrogen can help to solve the climate problem. At least, if we start producing it in the right, clean way. Leiden researchers mapped out the global environmental impact of hydrogen production and looked ahead to 2050. They published their work in Energy & Environmental Science.

How can we use Population Health Management to help the citizens of The Hague get and stay healthier? This was the key question during the 5th Working Conference of LUMC-Campus The Hague on 15 January in The Hague. The issue was debated by more than 150 doctors, researchers, lecturers, healthcare professionals,…

PhD student Janine Westendorp and her colleagues conducted literature research on what patients with cancer and their loved ones perceive as harmful communication from healthcare providers. The results were published in the journal Psycho-Oncology and are released as a poster to distribute to healthcare…

Yousef Yousef (39), a successful entrepreneur in the water-quality industry, recently joined the Advisory Board at Leiden Law School. Read the interview about his career.

Pharmacologist Liesbeth de Lange has won the Lewis B. Sheiner Lecturer Award from the International Society of Pharmacometrics (ISoP). As Professor of Predictive Pharmacology she is working, among other things, on a mathematical model that can predict drug concentrations in the brain. On the occasion…

The Dutch National Research Agenda announced today that it will provide 17 research projects with a total of 61 million euros in funding. Researchers from Leiden University or the Leiden University Medical Center are involved in five of the projects. All of the projects are interdisciplinary partnerships…

Climate change is affecting all areas of human life. 2024 has been the hottest year on record and natural disasters are becoming increasingly frequent around the globe. Every year since 1995, national delegations come together to address the climate crisis through the Conference of the Parties to the…

For a long time, Thijs Bosker was an average student, until he discovered how exciting learning becomes when there are no ready-made answers. To his students, he passes on one key message: hope is the driving force that keeps us moving forward. They nominated him as Lecturer of the Year.

Attention to the colonial past may be increasing, but many aspects of it are still underexposed. Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant, in collaboration with, among others, Leiden researchers Anne-Marieke van der Wal-Rémy and Alicia Schrikker, therefore created a 'Canon of the Dutch Underexposed Past', which…

Herman Spaink knows of many substances that may help combat tuberculosis. Lab space to study them safely is very limited in Leiden. A brand-new lab at Universitas Gadjah Mada in Indonesia will soon provide a solution. About time, says Spaink, ‘The disease is on the rise and is becoming less sensitive…

With a combination of incidental sunshine, torrential rain, and wind chills, weather conditions were not ideal for a hiking excursion. Even so, last Saturday, honours students braved a trek across an estate and a golf club in Wassenaar to learn about the relationship between gardens and nature. From…

The ERC has awarded a Starting Grant to five promising researchers from Leiden. Two are from the Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences, one is from the Faculty of Humanities/Governance and Global Affairs, one from the LUMC and one from the Faculty of Science.

For medical research, researchers often recreate tissue in the lab. Organ-on-a-chip technology emulates organs, right down to the blood that flows through them, thus creating a realistic test model for drugs or research into disease processes. Researchers from the LUMC are coordinating an NWO Gravitation…

Researchers from the LUMC and the Universities of Granada and Almería have found a gut bacterium that is associated with stronger muscles in people and mice. Their findings, published in the journal Gut, hint at the potential for new probiotics to support muscle strength and healthy ageing.

Training students to become medical professionals is an important task of a university medical centre. But teaching does not always receive the space and recognition it deserves. This needs to change, says Professor Alexandra Langers. Medical education is a profession in its own right.

Violence such as assault or head-butting causes pain, shock and distress. It is often seen as savage or senseless. But for those who commit it, violence has meaning, argues violence researcher Don Weenink in his inaugural lecture.

One in two people will be diagnosed with cancer. World Cancer Day on 4 February raises awareness of the impact of this devastating disease. Leiden University is conducting various studies aimed at preventing and controlling cancer. Below are just a few examples.

Sociale veiligheid in promotietrajecten staat nationaal en ook bij de Universiteit Leiden hoog op de agenda. Toch blijkt het in de praktijk lastig om structureel ruimte te maken voor dit thema, juist vanwege de complexe en hiërarchische verhoudingen binnen de academische wereld. Tijd om daar wat aan…

Quantum technology has the potential to transform society. But how can you effectively inform the public about such complex and enigmatic science and technology? PhD candidate Aletta Meinsma explored this.

What makes peace missions succeed or fail? Which new technologies will determine the outcome of wars? In recent decades, insufficient use has been made of knowledge of modern warfare, when this is crucial to European security. This is what Frans Osinga, Professor by Special Appointment of War Studies,…

Are international courts effective? Dr Fatou Bensouda, a former Lead Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court in The Hague (ICC), will discuss this issue during her lecture at the Owada Symposium 2025. The ICC’s efficacy depends on the actions of its member states, she says.

In nearly every Dutch primary and secondary school classroom, at least one child is bullied. The common perception is that the most popular child in the class is often the bully, while less popular children are more likely to be bullied. Is this image accurate? Bullying researcher Mitch van Geel knows…

Child development expert Marga Sikkema-de Jong explains how the online world affects children and how to talk to them about what they see.

During an inspiring meeting at the Health Campus The Hague on 2 April, Jan Anthonie Bruijn and Jet Bussemaker reflected on their experiences in politics and looked ahead to the future of Dutch healthcare.

From 1967 to 1982, the United Nations undertook several peacekeeping operations in the Middle East. In his thesis from the Institute for History, Diego Salama examines how these operations were connected and their impact on the region.

Magnets for electric cars and wind turbines contain only a small amount of the rare earth metal dysprosium. Yet, this metal is responsible for a large share of the environmental impact and costs, according to research by environmental scientists Stellina Samuel, Robert Istrate and René Kleijn.

Technology holds so much promise – from self-driving cars to enhanced physical performance from smart implants under the skin. But we should not let ourselves be caught off guard. That is the message of Bart Custers, Professor of Law and Data Science in his inaugural lecture on 21 May. ‘We don’t talk…

At work and in love, shame follows us everywhere. Yet it is precisely by embracing your shame that you can free yourself from it. But how do you do that? You can learn in the new theatre lecture Shamelessly Shame-Free by Professor of Organisational Psychology Aukje Nauta.

Climate action is often framed as urgent and necessary. But on the ground, it can also unsettle lives in unexpected ways. LUC researcher Bernardo Almeida explores in his VENI research, sponsored by NWO, what happens on land rights of vulnerable groups when climate responses meet fragile governance s…