This research project is an integral part of its mother-programme NEXUS1492 ERC Synergy Project directed by Prof. Corinne Hofman. Overarchingly, it aims at understanding and bridging from the archaeological perspective the late pre-colonial and early colonial history of the Southeastern Caribbean macroregion…

Leiden physicists exploit self-assembly of small particles to someday create functional structures such as micro-robots from the bottom up. They have now taken an important step forward by experimentally realizing joints at micrometer scale. Publication in Nanoscale.

Fleur Visser was awarded a Veni grant by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO). She is one of seventeen promising young Leiden scientists, who get the opportunity to develop their own ideas over a period of three years. Veni-funding is part of NWO's Talent Scheme, concerning…

Dr. Ahmad Al-Jallad and Prof.dr. Peter Akkermans have been awarded with the NWO Free Competition Grant for their research project 'Landscapes of Survival: Pastoralist Societies, Rock Art and Literacy in Jordan's Black Desert, c. 1000 BC to 500 AD'. Together, they study settlements, burials and inscr…

On the 1st of October a new project funded by the Joint Industry Programme (JIP) started at the IBL on the potentially negative effects of sound on fish. Behavioural biologist and bioacoustic specialist Dr. Hans Slabbekoorn leads the international research team.

The Mesoamerican research group 'Time in Intercultural Context: the indigenous calendars of Mexico and Guatemala' funded by the ERC and directed by prof. dr. Maarten Jansen, met up in Mexico from the 13th until the 23rd of February for a field seminar in the states of Tlaxcala and Hidalgo.

Katarzyna Cwiertka, Leiden Professor of Modern Japan Studies, was already the recipient of a VENI and a VIDI grant. Now she has also been granted a VICI, worth 1.5 million euro, for her research project Garbage Matters: A Comparative History of Waste in East Asia. ‘I want to do something that hasn’t…

Matteo Consonni, Public Administration graduate at Leiden University won the European Youth Award (EYA) in 2015. In this interview with EYA, he tells what he's been up to since then and discusses entrepreneurship.

On 12 September 2025, Dr. Ben Van Rompuy participated in the conference “Playing by the Rules: the Intersection of Competition Law and Sports”, organised by the University of Lausanne.

How can we understand the drum-set – and thus drummer – as technological? How have technological developments affected change in drum-set performance and drum-set construction? Are the relationships between new technologies and the drummer symbiotic, or one way? To what extent are instruments and (reactive)…

Understanding Late Neolithic Ceramic Containers from Upper Mesopotamia

We investigate the molecular basis underlying health and disease and provide answers to existing and emerging health problems. Within this theme, we study diseases ranging from rare genetic disorders to cancer and infectious diseases. We make use of a wide variety of model systems and pursue diverse…

Apprentices in the art of debate: that is the best description of the group of secondary-school pupils from Pre-University College who battled it out with each other and European parliamentary candidates on 29 March. The fitting location was Huis van Europa in The Hague.

Asteroids, pieces of matter orbiting round the sun, have turned out to be extremely valuable. Asteroid Psyche contains a quantity of metals that together are worth more than the entire global economy. NASA is heading for it.

Event co-sponsored by the IAPDD, Leiden University, and the Australian Research Council project “Digital Death and Immortality”

Students of the Faculty of Science have chosen Dennis Claessen (IBL) as the best teacher of last year.

A team of researchers at the Institute of Biology Leiden, in collaboration with scientists from Utrecht University, has discovered a novel approach to improve the production of antibiotics and enzymes in the soil bacteria Streptomycetes.

On 2 and 3 October 2017, a delegation of the Child Law Department has participated in the 15th European regional conference of the International Society for the Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect in The Hague.

Cristina Grasseni and Adele Arrigoni Ravasio have co-presented the result of Grasseni’s ethnography with Val Taleggio’s cheesemakers.

Essential services risk being taken over by US Big Tech companies, affecting privacy and digital sovereignty in the Netherlands. Reijer Passchier, Assistant Professor of Constitutional Law and Professor of Digitalisation and the Democratic Rule of Law at OU, co-authored an opinion piece in ‘de Volkskrant’…

What would the Dutch cabinet look like if it consisted of academic experts? De Volkskrant explored this by assembling a hypothetical cabinet. Miranda Boone, Professor of Criminology and Comparative Penology, was appointed as the Minister of Justice and Security.

Climate change, depletion of natural resources, loss of natural and cultural landscapes, and many other (ecological) sustainability challenges urge us to (re)evaluate human interaction with the natural world. This renewed environmental consciousness has invigorated not only scientists working on effects…

Thomas Hansen is the recipient of the 2020 KNCV-Backer Prize for best organic chemistry thesis in the Netherlands.

From 20 to 23 June 2024, the prestigious Hugo Sinzheimer Moot Court Competition took place in Vienna. Students from Leiden Law School also participated.

The Jouke de Vries Research Grant is an initiative to mark the important role that its namesake Professor Jouke de Vries has held for many years at Campus The Hague, initially as Scientific Director and later as Dean of the Faculty.

A hack at Ajax let season tickets be stolen and stadium bans viewed and changed. Bart Schermer, Professor of Privacy & Cybercrime, spoke to RTL News about the impact. ‘This information can be used against you.’

Everyone benefits when cooperation runs smoothly However, people often act obstructively. Why do they do that? Professor of Social Psychology Carsten de Dreu researches this issue using a wide variety of methods, from brain scans to the role of religion. Inaugural lecture 7 October.

Reuse everything and stop producing waste. By 2050, the Netherlands should have a circular economy. However, the new Integral Circular Economy Report by the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency (PBL) shows that there is still a long way to go. For the report, the Institute of Environmental Sciences…

Who holds rights to Greenland’s surrounding waters and natural resources? Which interests are at stake and for whose benefit? We put these questions to Hilde Woker, who specialises in the law of the sea in the Arctic.

To what extent are the rights of children in the Netherlands guaranteed? On 13 December 2016 the Dutch Children’s Ombudsman has published the Children’s Rights Monitor 2016, a jubilee edition.

Companies in Poland employ North Korean forced labourers on a large scale. Some of these companies are supported by the European Union. These are the findings of a research team headed by Leiden Professor of Korean Studies Remco Breuker and employment lawyer Imke van Gardingen. The study is still ongoing…

In June and July 2012 a Leiden Fieldschool was conducted at the late pre-Columbian site of Anse Trabaud in southeastern Martinique. High levels of preservation and waterlogged contexts revealed spectacular finds.

Daniel Rozen (45), at the IBL since September 2012, uses bacteria in laboratory tests on experimental evolution to study the ecology and genetics of adaptation. His research has applied importance, as it reveals how bacteria may be induced to produce new antibiotics. Last January, Rozen received the…

Between 18 and 20 October, CEPS (Centre for European Policy Studies) and the Migration Policy Centre of the European University Institute organized the ASILE training school for PhD researchers. The training focused on the concepts of responsibility attribution and accountability for fundamental rights…

On Friday May 3rd 2013 NWO has announced that Dr. Mario van der Stelt, Division of Bio-Organic Synthesis (LIC) and Dr. Laura Heitman, Division of Medicinal Chemistry (LACDR), have been awarded with an ECHO-STIP grant for their project, entitled: “Novel target engagement biomarkers for better drug ca…

The national dietary guidelines in Australia, Brazil, Ireland, Japan, Portugal, and Slovenia benefit nutrition, environment and animal welfare, Leiden environmental scientists write in the journal One Earth. However, the national guidelines of other countries face trade-offs, negatively impacting at…

Annemarie Meijer is appointed full Professor of Immunobiology. Meijer’s research focuses on immunobiology and infectious disease. She uses the zebrafish as a model for understanding mechanisms of host immune defense against intracellular bacterial pathogens.

This month, a paper was published in Nanoscale by scientists from Dr. Alireza Mashaghi group at the Systems Biomedicine and Pharmacology Division in collaboration with the group of Dr. Sander Tans from TU Delft/AMOLF. In this paper, the authors studied how nanoscale spatial confinement affects the fold…

With defending his thesis ‘Applications of topology to Weyl semimetals and quantum computing’, the Leiden theoretical physicist Tom O'Brien has gained the rare 'cum laude' qualification. The freshly minted PhD has started a five year research programme on quantum algorithms for quantum chemistry, funded…

Germany wants to ‘modernise’ the law of the sea to tackle Russian ships that evade sanctions as part of the so-called ‘shadow fleet.’ The current legal framework is not adequate enough to confront the shadowfleet benefiting from states with open ship registries. Hilde Woker, expert in the law of the…

Publication in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Five promising researchers at Leiden's Faculty of Science have received a Veni award from NWO. They can use the award - of up to 250,000 euros - to carry out research over a three-year period. Of the total of seventeen Leiden Venis, four went to Leiden Observatory and one to Institute for Biology Le…

Today, 13 students at Leiden University have started a crowdfunding campaign to collect money for research into the possibilities of growing crops on Mars. Their research will contribute to the knowledge of our galaxy. The project is in the context of the iGEM competition.

Michiel van der Vaart with a team from Leiden University and the LUMC, led by IBL-researcher Annemarie Meijer, discovered that DRAM1 is a protein that regulates anti-bacterial autophagy, a defense mechanism against infections such as tuberculosis.

In their third year, students of International Studies get their teeth into difficult issues put forward by government and businesses such as Unilever and the World Food Programme. Students who take part gain valuable experience.

How can we organize the food system in the Amsterdam Metropolitan Region in a more sustainable and democratic way? Prof. Cristina Grasseni gave a presentation of her work at the Food Council Metropolitan Region Amsterdam.

While outer space has been explored peacefully for decades, clear rules on lunar mining are lacking. Space law expert Tanja Masson-Zwaan told the BBC that international cooperation is urgently needed to prevent conflict and legal uncertainty.

Neanderthals in cold regions probably ate a lot more vegetable food than was previously thought. This is what archaeologist Robert Power has discovered based on new research on ancient Neanderthal dental plaque. PhD defence 1 November.

Did your grandfather or grandmother also study in Leiden? And your parents, uncles, aunts, brothers, sisters...?