Just like scientific articles, patents cite scientific literature to support their findings. These references provide valuable information on how science is used to develop practical applications. However, extracting this information from patents is not that simple.

Combining geometry and number theory. That is what Dr Jan Vonk of the Institute of Mathematics receives a Vidi grant for today. ‘By fusing these two disciplines we may be able to solve a century-old mathematical problem.’

Bacteria whirl around in the mouths of most people, forming dental plaques and sometimes causing nasty gum infections. Treponema denticola might be a dangerous pathogen, but not much is known about this bacterium. It was up to Ariane Briegel and her research group to change that.

On 5 November 2021, Professor Michiel van de Sande of the Department of Orthopedics in the Leiden University Medical Centre (LUMC) delivered his inaugural lecture ‘The Art of Doing and Doing Nothing’. Van de Sande used the opportunity to explore both physical and philosophical aspects of co-decision…

Better health for all the residents of The Hague region. This is the mission of Health Campus The Hague – formerly LUMC Campus The Hague. Eight partners – the LUMC, Leiden University, the municipality of The Hague and five healthcare institutions (see box) – are collaborating intensively in healthcare…

Recently, the Dutch Health and Youth Care Inspectorate sounded the alarm about the state of the Dutch youth care. What is going wrong and what needs to be done? In a special broadcast from youth care institution Via Jeugd, Op1 talks to adolescents, staff, State Secretary Maarten van Ooijen, and Professor…

Collaborating and learning from other fields – that is what bioinformatician Hannah Augustijn enjoys most about doing research. During her PhD at Leiden University, she developed new ways to search within bacteria for the antibiotics of the future.

What happens in our bodies when we care for children? And why are some people more caring than others?

Youth care in the Netherlands needs to change. A new alarming inspection report says that children’s safety is not guaranteed. Mariëlle Bruning, Professor of Child Law, warns in an Argos podcast: ‘We have a duty to protect children.’

Cancer represents a formidable current and future global health challenge. The LUMC medical research profile Cancer Pathogenesis and Therapy charges this challenge by developing and implementing innovative patient-tailored, multimodal diagnostic methods and treatment modalities.

GroenLinks member of the Dutch House of Representatives Lisa Westerveld has put forward parliamentary questions in response to the dissertation by Maria de Jong-de Kruif, who was awarded a doctorate degree on 7 March 2019 following her research on secure youth care institutions.

The Nietzsche-Wörterbuch (NWB) has evolved into a long-term, multi-volume work on a global scale with around 30 contributors from a range of disciplines located all over the world

This programme examines cultural space, national identity and the politics of tangible and intangible heritage in Islamic Central Asia.

Leiden University works close with Indonesian and Dutch scholarship providers in order to expand the opportunities for Indonesian students to study in Leiden.

With the necessary measures, researchers restart their work in various laboratories. The Leiden Cell Observatory is one of the places where scientists resume their lab work.

More and more people worldwide have infections caused by bacteria that are resistant to many types of antibiotic. Why is this and how big of a problem is it?

On 1 January 2021, a major youth care centre in the Dutch province Zeeland will close its doors. It is responsible for implementing child protection measures. As a result, it is likely that the care for around 1100 children will come under threat. Vulnerable children will face changes to the authorities…

How unique is the human capacity for learning and adapting to an environment? In field research – in the rainforest and Artis Zoo – primatologist Karline Janmaat is studying how humans and other primates adapt to their environment in their search for food. She will give her inaugural lecture as Professor…

After a turbulent Covid year, the well-being of our students and staff has the highest priority. How can we prevent physical and mental health problems? This was the key question at the Opening of the Academic Year in Pieterskerk in Leiden on 6 September.

Suzan Verberne has been appointed professor of Natural Language Processing at the Leiden Institute of Advanced Computer Science (LIACS) from 1 October. Verberne has been at LIACS since 2017 as group leader of the Text Mining and Retrieval group.

Does medicine make patients feel better or worse? We are getting better at predicting this from people’s DNA profiles, says Professor Jesse Swen. ‘It never fails to fascinate me how one DNA base pair can have such a huge effect on treatment with medication and the outcome.’

Antoaneta Dimitrova, Professor Comparative Governance at Leiden University, Honorata Mazepus, Assistant professor at Leiden University and Dimiter Toshkov, Associate Professor at Leiden University, together with three other authors researched which aspects of state capacity might contribute to opening…

The 16-year-old girl was staying in a closed juvenile care institution where, among other things, she was administered 'pain stimuli'. The charges are the first of their kind, says Mariëlle Bruning, Professor of Children and the Law, to Dutch newspaper the Volkskrant.

The DASPO-group for data analysis and survival in personalized sarcoma at the Mathematical Institute has developed an app that provides personalised predictions for patients suffering from soft tissue sarcomas. Due to the aggressive nature of such tumors, the prognosis for such patients is poor, even…

PhD defence

Leiden University actively seeks to prepare students for the labour market and wants to help young alumni at the start of their careers. For this we like to use the knowledge and experience of Leiden alumni. To bring these students and young alumni who have questions about their career in contact with…

Would you like to take a walk with a fellow student who you don’t know? That is the idea behind Walk & Talk. With this new initiative, International Studies aims to provide more opportunities for social contact.

Doctors should work with patients with bone and soft-tissue tumours to find the best personal treatment strategy says Prof. Michiel den de Sande. He has developed an app that helps choose the right treatment. Van de Sande was appointed Professor of Orthopaedics with a particular focus on paediatric…

Maria de Jong-de Kruijf was awarded a doctorate degree on 7 March for her research on children in secure residential youth care. The Dutch website for legal professionals, Mr. Online, interviewed her for their ‘lawyer of the week’ column.

Lecture

In September 2025 Leiden University hosted a greatly successful academic conference

Bubble baths and face masks: that’s what we often see on social media when discussing self-love. However, is this a true reflection of what self-love and self-care entail? In this episode, psychotherapist Kelly Ziemer teaches us more about what true self-love and self-care are, and their importance.

Care conferences for long-term residents (15+ years) in forensic mental health care are widely appreciated by all parties involved. Research by Leiden University shows that the demand for these meetings is so great that the supply cannot be met within the desired time frame.

The

To apply for an exchange or study abroad programme at Leiden University, you must first select the individual courses or projects you want to follow. Each of your course requests will then be evaluated by the relevant faculty. Once you receive faculty approval for at least 15 EC worth of courses or…

Over the past five years, medical anthropologist Annemarie Samuels has studied palliative care in different parts of the world. Over the next five years, she will focus on end-of-life care in the Netherlands. 'Everyone has the right to good care at the end of their life, but what that means differs…

What role do the soil and soil organisms play in the restoration of nature quality? This is what researchers at Leiden University are going to find out, together with water company and nature manager Dunea. They will do this by inoculating soil, whether or not sterilized, with soil and seeds. On Friday…

How does ICT affect society? Mirjam van Reisen, professor Computing for Society at the Leiden Centre of Data Science, is intrigued by this question. We speak with her about innovation, changes in health care, and mobile human trafficking. ‘Innovation has many benefits, but it can also be very disrup…

In August-September 2016 three CML students are doing an exciting field work in sub-arctic tundra in Sweden in collaboration with Ümea University.

Comparison between babies and song-birds when they are learning a non-existent language—a study of this kind has never been tried before. But this is what Claartje Levelt, Carel ten Cate (Leiden University) and Jelle Zuidema (University of Amsterdam) are attempting.

In the discs of dust and gasses around young stars, mysterious structures occur. Together with professor Ewine van Dishoeck, PhD student Paolo Cazzoletti investigate how we can explain these forms, such as rings, spirals and holes. On 12 December, he will defend his thesis.

Meticulous analysis of hundreds of photographic plates from the star J1407 between 1890 and 2007 show no stellar eclipses. Robin Mentel, a master student at Leiden University, could not detect eclipses of the star J1407 by a planet hypothesized to have giant rings, called J1407b. However, an eclipse…

In the period between the First and the Second World War, many Muslim intellectuals came to Europe. What impact did they have on each other’s, as well as on European thinking, and how were they in turn influenced? Leiden Islam expert Dr Umar Ryad has been awarded an ERC Starting Grant to investigate…