Many students, staff and alumni of Leiden University are politically active. In the run-up to the local elections on 21 March, candidates in The Hague and Leiden explain why you should vote for them, and what they want to do if they are elected. In this article, it is the turn of the candidates in The…

Leiden University’s Committee on External Collaborations – Human Rights and Conflict Zones advises the Executive Board to suspend student exchange programmes with Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv University until further notice.

Streptomycetes are similar to moulds, but these bacteria live in the soil. They are very popular in biotechnology because they produce a great many antibiotics and enzymes. Gilles van Wezel will be using his Vici subsidy to study ways of increasing their production.

In the Faculty of Archaeology depots, many artefacts, accumulated after decades of fieldwork across the world are stored. The Leiden Inventory of the Depot (LID) project aims to unlock the door to this wealth of information. Elizabeth Hicks, a Research Master’s student at the Faculty, will be re-evaluating…

Young Academy Leiden (YAL) will change its board this month and welcome six new members. Outgoing chair Rachel Plak and incoming chair Ahmed Mahfouz talk about what the platform has achieved for young academics over the past year and what the plans are for the future.

In late May 2019, the Food citizens? team traveled to Poland for a project meeting and team outing. This was made possible by the European Research Council’s support and facilitated networks and knowledge-generation.

The Leiden University Centre for Linguistics has been badly affected by the corona crisis: the research in the four labs and the fieldwork has come to a standstill. What are the implications?

Operating on tsunami victims, coordinating emergency aid during a civil war and the croaking of frogs in the surgery: Menno Swier worked as a doctor of tropical medicine in Papua New Guinea and Indonesia. He is now a GP on Terschelling and here too there is never a dull moment.

In line with tradition, at the opening of the academic year the LUS Teaching Prize will be presented to the University’s best teacher. Get to know the nominees. This week: Thijs Porck.

How do local, non-institutional ideas about end-of-life care influence professional palliative care and vice versa? These questions will be answered by medical anthropologists Annemarie Samuels and Natashe Lemos Dekker in the coming years.

In the middle of doing research for her master’s thesis, Sara Kalf (24) was hit by a car and got seriously injured. After a long period of rehabilitation and hard work, this week she can finally add her signature to the wall of the Academy Building’s ‘Sweat Room’.

A team of Leiden astronomers used the latest set of data from ESA’s Gaia mission to look for high-velocity stars being kicked out of the Milky Way, but were surprised to find stars instead sprinting inwards – perhaps from another galaxy.

In a creative assignment as a part of the bachelor's course Visual Culture, students explored the impact and complexity of visual culture by means of visual culture. The resulting artworks were of such a high quality that it was decided to present these in an exhibition.

On Monday, 4 July 2022, the graduation of the two-year Advanced MSc International Relations and Diplomacy (MIRD) programme was commemorated in the iconic Academy Building in Leiden. Students and guests were welcomed by the Program Director, Professor Madeleine Hosli.

Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro called the COVID-19 disease “a minor illness”. With more than 200.000 confirmed corona cases today (May 18) however, Brazil is quickly becoming one of the world’s emerging coronavirus hot spots. How long can Bolsonaro continue to downplay the corona crisis? We asked…

Sociologist Aya Ezawa is the new Diversity Officer at Leiden University. What is the University doing well and what could it do better? ‘It’s taken much more for granted that universities should be a reflection of society. But this is also an area where we can still make progress.’

How do you co-create with researchers in other parts of the world? LDE wants to gather and share knowledge on the grand challenges and to do so across national borders. A delegation of 27 researchers will therefore travel to Indonesia at the end of October to take part in the LDE-BRIN Academy.

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

On Tuesday, September 16, Professor Elisheva Baumgarten (Hebrew University) delivered the keynote speech entitled 'The Kindness of Others: Jews, Christians and Early Childhood Care in Medieval Europe' at the 'Care and the Jewish Experience' Conference at the Faculty Club in Leiden.

The coronavirus outbreak raises fundamental questions about the politics and narratives of crisis, as well as about our “ordinary” everyday lives and sociality. Irene Moretti and Annemarie Samuels introduce a collection of blogposts of Leiden Anthropologists reflecting on the pandemic and offer a set…

This year, the Netherlands and China reflect on fifty years of diplomatic relations at ambassadorial level. How has the relationship between the countries developed over the past half century? An interview with university lecturer Vincent Chang.

The world is becoming increasingly digitised, and the information one has easy access to is often rather overwhelming. In particular, the accumulative nature of the archaeological practice has resulted in huge quantities of data being produced. But how to prevent these from becoming dust-collectors…

Permission was recently given for all members of the examining committee and co-supervisors at PhD ceremonies to wear academic dress, even if they’re not full professors. How historic is this change?

Leiden students are producing ‘College Tour, the podcast!’ with TV presenter Twan Huys. In next to no time, they have to find top journalists and prepare hard-hitting interviews. We take a look behind the scenes.

To read Chekhov in the ‘original’. That was what motivated Arie van der Ent to study Slavic languages and literature with Karel van het Reve at Leiden University. ‘My love for Chekhov hasn’t faded,’ says Van der Ent from his home 60 kilometres south of Kyiv. ‘But it has for the rest of Russia.’

With the new academic year just around the corner, many more students and lecturers will soon be coming to the University. What are we doing to keep our campus safe? We spoke to Martijn Ridderbos, Vice-Chairman of the Executive Board, about the new Campus Protocol, which enters into force on 31 August.…

Mike Field has been at the Faculty of Archaeology since 2008. As a driven archaeobotanist, he is consistantly contributing to the study of plant fossils encountered in many faculty as well as external projects. ‘Flexibility, spontaneity, creativity, these are all parts of being an academic.’

Alumnus Peter Burger – along with his colleague Alexander Pleijter – is the face of fact-checking in the Netherlands. ‘My degree led straight to this.’

Immigration and naturalisation policies are an important theme in the upcoming Dutch elections. The Netherlands should be mindful of its immigration narrative, says PhD candidate Hannah Bliersbach, as this greatly influences the relationship between ‘new’ citizens and their new home country.

Every year, an outstanding lecturer receives the Faculty Teaching Prize from the teaching committee. The prize is awarded during the official opening of the academic year on 7 September. This year, students nominated eight candidates.

What do I do if Mum or Dad gets the virus? Could the slide at the playground have coronavirus on it? Can children die of the virus too? On 15 April, the National Science Agenda organised an hour-long session on Facebook to give children the chance to ask their questions about coronavirus. Leiden psychologist…

It is exactly one year ago that the university had to close, bang in the middle of the academic year. Suddenly, on that third Monday in March, we found ourselves at home, working and studying online – many of us from that cramped attic or student room. The momentous coronavirus year in pictures.

Conference

From 1 August 2018, Alanna O'Malley was appointed as Chair of United Nations Studies in Peace and Justice, focusing on the ‘lesser-known actors’ of the UN: women, the youth, the agents of informal diplomatic networks within the UN and actors from the Global South. This Special Chair has been created…

Debate

Lecture

Lecture, Lunch Research Seminar

Lecture, Lunch Research Seminar

Lecture, LIAS After-Lunch Talk Series

Lecture, Research Seminar Medieval and Early Modern History

Lecture, Ancient History Research Seminar

Conference