Free cinema tickets or a step tracker paid for by your health insurance. Some insurers offer rewards to promote healthy behaviour. But does the threat of losing something like a deposit work better? And what do patients think? This is what PhD candidate David de Buisonjé researched.

Building more in urban areas is, in most places in the Netherlands, the smartest way to tackle the housing crisis. This is evident from research conducted by Janneke van Oorschot, published in a partner journal of Nature. Remarkably, this does not have to come at the expense of green spaces in cities.…

What do children think about computer science and the profession 'programmer'? Shirley de Wit and her colleagues from the Programming Education Research Lab (PERL) are investigating how children see programmers and whether they have stereotyped images of this profession. Last summer more than 550 children…

More than 30 members of Programme Committees, Faculty Councils and the University Council met online on 27 November with a mission: how can university co-participation work towards a more sustainable university in terms of education, research, and operations? The Leiden University Green Office and the…

For the first time ever, more women than men have been awarded PhDs at Leiden University. In 2019, 226 women defended their dissertations as opposed to 207 men. More women were also awarded a distinction: seven of the thirteen ‘cum laude’ distinctions were awarded to women.

Boys who are bullied develop more fear and shame; boys who bully develop more anger and less guilt, which makes it easier to justify more bullying. Boys with autism respond more angrily to bullying than others, and thus make for an easier target. Developmental psychologist Carolien Rieffe and her colleagues…

Jan Aart Scholte is the first professor on the new Leiden interdisciplinary programme, Global Transformations and Governance Challenges. He researches how to tackle global challenges such as climate change and inequality. Inaugural lecture on 4 February.

Just imagine: you see someone being treated unfairly. Do you find it more rewarding to help the victim or punish the perpetrator? Research by Leiden psychologist Mirre Stallen indicates that punishing is more rewarding. Publication in JNeurosci.

Chemical substances and nanomaterials are processed on a massive scale in diverse products, while their risks have not been properly assessed. Time and again synthesised substances have been shown to pollute the environment more than lab tests predicted. This is the warning given by Professor of Ecotoxicology…

Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC) has spent the past five years coordinating an international study of genetic mutations and breast cancer risks. The results will make it easier to determine which genes increase the risk of breast cancer and to what extent. The researchers published their results…

Rather than finger-wagging, the Netherlands has opted for pragmatism when it comes to human rights. That is what Minister of Foreign Affairs Stef Blok said in a lecture in the Academy Building on Human Rights Day on 10 December 2019.

Afghans who came to the Netherlands in a hurry, refugees who were used as leverage by Belarus and boat refugees who tried to reach Europe in an increasingly desperate manner: the newspapers were once again filled with news about migrants. Today, on International Migrants Day, we talk to professor Marlou…

Scientists have long been puzzled why it is easier to produce hydrogen from water in an acidic environment than in an alkaline environment. Marc Koper comes with an explanation: the reason is the electric field at the surface of the catalyst, which is larger in an alkaline environment, as he writes…

Compared to suspects with the Dutch nationality, foreign nationals face court proceedings more often and are given a prison sentence more often than Dutch suspects. This was the outcome of research conducted by Hilde Wermink, Assistant Professor at Leiden Law School, and American sociologist Michael…

In this paper, Sarah Giest and Bram Klievink highlight the effects of AI implementation on public sector innovation. This is explored by asking how AI-driven technologies in public decision-making in different organizational contexts impacts innovation in the role definition of bureaucrats.

Paul Hudson, a professor at Leiden University College, is organising a symposium on water management in the Netherlands and abroad that will take place on 22 March. We asked him what makes water management so important.

More than 800 universities have called on the European Council to come to be more visionary in its ambitions for European research, innovation and education. They believe the current budget to be insufficient.

Assistant professor Rogier Creemers comments on CNN on the launch of the new artificial intelligence tool Sundance 2.0.

For academic year 2019-2020, an additional 270 housing units will be available for international students in Leiden and The Hague. Around 1,050 extra rooms in total will be available for students in both cities.

The use of the pill, in combination with genetic factors, can influence experimental psychological research in women. More research is needed into the influence of the pill on mood disorders, concludes psychologist Daniëlle Hamstra. PhD defence on 30 September.

The Ministry of Justice and Security and Leiden Law School are planning to collaborate on a more structural basis. This is the outcome of a meeting that took place at the Academy Building in Leiden on 19 October. Those present at the meeting included the Minister for Legal Protection, Franc Weerwind,…

‘Fighting for health’ is the title of Professor of General Practice Hedwig Vos’s inaugural lecture – and for good reason. Public interest is at the heart of everything she does, from advancing knowledge about women’s health to reducing health inequalities.

How long should and may a doctor remain silent if he suspects child abuse? A GP who often sees the whole family, or a paediatrician, fills a crucial role when it comes to picking up signals of child abuse. Mirjam Sombroek-van Doorm examined how tenable professional confidentiality of medical practitioners…

Organisations like the UN and the EU should be given more powers to combat transboundary problems. This is the message of a report published by the Swedish SNS Democracy Council, whose authors include Prof. Jan Aart Scholte of Leiden University. The researchers also wrote the following article.

Patients with incurable breast cancer remember more information about their treatment if their doctor is more empathetic during consultations. These are the results of research by psychologists from Leiden University in collaboration with Nivel research institute. Publication in Patient Education and…

Leiden chemists have created a new ultrathin membrane only one molecule thick. The membrane can produce a hundred times more power from seawater than the best membranes used today. The researchers have published their findings in Nature Nanotechnology.

For justice to be done after a crime, most people feel that retribution alone is not enough. These are the results of research by Leiden University and the University of Mannheim (Germany). Publication in Plos One.

Citizens underestimate their role, but they really can make a difference, says legal specialist Corinne Dettmeijer-Vermeulen. Combatting injustice is still the mission of this former National Rapporteur on Human Trafficking and Sexual Violence against Children. She will deliver the Cleveringa lecture…

Fake news about ‘patient zero’ and hyperbolic headlines warning about the ‘yellow peril.’ Leiden researchers have spotted fake news galore about coronavirus as well as racial stereotypes about the Chinese. How harmful is this?

Europe’s security suddenly looks uncertain now President Trump has started negotiations with Putin. What does this mean for the Netherlands? What do we need to do?

After three years of courses, exercises, debating and reflecting, Honours College students received their certificate during a festive ceremony. Even more than with the certificate as such, attendees were pleased with the way Honours enables students to deal with an increasingly complex world.

Adults are more likely to reoffend after a short prison sentence than comparable adults with a non-custodial sentence, Leiden University research shows. This is true for the likelihood and extent of repeat crime.

What began as a PhD project has grown into a website with 120,000 unique visitors each year. With the platform OpenML, researcher Jan van Rijn is contributing to open science, aiming to make machine learning more transparent, accessible, and fair.

We have to do all we can to stop climate change. But: the Earth is more resilient than we thought. That is the surprising conclusion of an international team of ecologists and mathematicians, which included Leiden mathematician Arjen Doelman. The team discovered that ecosystems can still avoid tipping…

The number of victims of child abuse is estimated to be higher during the first lockdown compared with a period without a lockdown. This is mainly due to an increase in the number of victims of emotional neglect, including educational neglect and witnessing domestic abuse. Families with children about…

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In mid-March 2020, the global coronavirus outbreak changed everything in the Netherlands. Staying at home as much as possible and the 1.5 metre rule became the standard. One year on, we reflect on the past year with four Leiden Law School ‘insiders’. What kind of year did they have? And what are their…

The person who cried out at Dam Square on Remembrance Day in 2010. For Michiel van der Wolf this marked the rise of a new phenomenon: that of ‘confused people’. Because since that Remembrance Day, the number of reports of ‘confused people’ in the Netherlands has increased rapidly in the statistics.…

What is the impact of terrorism? Researchers Jeanine de Roy van Zuijdewijn and Jessica Sciarone looked at ten jihadi attacks and concluded that there are major differences between European countries.

It’s Circular Economy Week, from 1 to 6 February. But what is it that makes an economy circular? And just how circular is our university? René Kleijn, lecturer on the honours class Circular Economy: from challenge to opportunity, explains.

Maaike Kempes believes more attention should be paid to non-congenital brain injuries in suspects. This may partly explain their criminal behaviour.

How tolerant is the Netherlands on the work floor? Jojanneke van der Toorn, Professor of the Workplace Pride Chair, the first in the world dealing exclusively with LGBT inclusion in the workplace, answers questions on the International Day against Racism and Discrimination.

Birds around airports are more aggressive and sing as if they have hearing loss. Collaboration between researchers of Manchester Metropolitan University and the Institute of Biology Leiden has led to surprising new findings about the impact of anthropogenic noise on birds around airports. Publication…

To get important topics such as climate and human rights higher on the agenda of listed companies, stakeholders other than shareholders and employees should officially be given more say. This is what Professor of Business Law Harold Koster said in his inaugural lecture on 18 March. He proposes introducing…

Many organisations have a biased workforce, even though diversity has so many advantages. Australian and Dutch researchers, including Leiden psychologist Romy van der Lee, have developed a solution based on a mathematical model. They published their findings in PLoS One on 28 July.

People who have taken antibiotics in the past three months pay more attention to negative facial expressions, according to research by postdoc Katerina Johnson and assistant professor Laura Steenbergen. This may explain how antibiotics increase the risk of developing depression.

Goldband, Skrillex, Róisín Murphy and... quantum: the latter may not be a band but is part of the Lowlands line-up nonetheless. Scientists from Leiden University are using the festival for research on the very smallest particles.

The coronavirus has the world in its grip. Finding a cure has never been more important. Unfortunately, the development of new drugs for treatment of the COVID-19 disease caused by the virus and development of a vaccine are complex, lengthy, and above all costly processes. With the help of computer…

An increasing amount of research is demonstrating the importance of taking parenting from prison seriously. But the plans of Minister Dekker of Legal Protection do not address this issue.

While studying Indonesian languages and cultures, Rennie Roos started a company. Today he has been working in Indonesia for more than eight years. Where does his love for this country come from? And how does he look back on his studies? ‘I actually wanted to become a pilot.’