On 23 February 2022, Cale Davis defended the thesis 'Prosecutorial Discretion in International Criminal Justice'. The doctoral research was supervised by Prof. C. Stahn en Dr. J.C. Powderly.

The Khoesan were the first people in Africa to undergo the full rigours of European colonisation. By the early nineteenth century, they had largely been brought under colonial rule, dispossessed of their land and stock, and forced to work as labourers for farmers of European descent.

An Introduction and Field Guide, Second and Revised Edition (15 December 2014)

The thesis addresses the long-term dynamical evolution of hierarchical multiple systems.

This dissertation aims to provide insight in ethnic prejudice in Chinese-Dutch children and the ethnic socialization context they are exposed to through three social-contextual factors, i.e., parents, children’s books, and the COVID pandemic.

Promotor: J.W. van Holten

Cutting-edge technological innovation for businesses and consumers, enabled by top-tier research on space and the quantum world.

We explore the particle physics and quantum world at the time of the big bang.

During the bachelor’s programme Astronomy you will immerse yourself in questions about our universe. Questions such as: ‘what happens in a black hole?’ and ‘what is dark matter?’ In doing so you will learn to apply mathematics and physics to astronomical problems and you will work with computer simulations…

Categories of gender and sexuality are the subject of heated debates in our everyday lives. To understand how systems of gender and sexuality operate, and why these are such contested areas we need to study these categories came about historically.

This is an Erasmus+ International Credit Mobility project of the Faculty of Humanities with the Anton de Kom University in Paramaribo.

Arts and culture, Q&A

December 2020 saw the crowning publication of the Landscapes of Survival project by Professor Peter Akkermans. Its main topic is human habitation in marginal environments like the deserts of the Arabian Peninsula. ‘The people living here built their own society, and they would not have viewed it as…

Frits van der Meer and Gerrit Dijkstra of the Institute of Public Administration reflect on the increasing power of political assistants in the magazine “De Hofvijver”.

Biologist, artist, activist and Leiden alumnus Merijn Tinga supped the river Rijn in 28 days, to gain attention for plastic waste. His journey of more than 1000 kilometers has been captured in the documentary ‘From Source to Sea’, that can be seen on 4 June at 20:50 on National Geographic Channel.

Relevant publications of the CIGR participants.

New book on Dutch mayors governing local order and public safety.

How do you ensure that research is performed, evaluated and managed in a responsible way? This question is also of the utmost important to the University itself. The Centre for Science and Technology Studies (CWTS) studies scientific research and its relationship with technology, innovation and soci…

Microbes influence and respond to other organisms. This theme explores the dynamic relationships within plant and animal microbiomes, and the immune responses that govern host defense. Using model systems such as zebrafish, insects, and plants, we investigate fundamental processes and engineer microbes…

The Leiden Science Young Talent Award is awarded yearly to a student who completed their bachelor’s degree with an excellent thesis.

Do you want to know the best reasons to study at Leiden University or want to know what's it like to live in the student cities Leiden or The Hague? Our students tell you why they chose Leiden University to study their master's programme.

Do you want to know the best reasons to study at Leiden University or want to know what's it like to live in the student cities Leiden or The Hague? Our students tell you why they chose Leiden University to study their master's programme.

By working together with external social partners, the knowledge of our scientists finds its way into society.

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.

Bordering Up: Regulating Mobility Through Passes, Walls and Guards

Managing Diversity: Supervising Functions in Managing Colonial Workplaces

Is there extra-terrestrial life out there? It now looks as though we can sketch out an answer to this enduring question. Leiden Observatory is helping to build new instruments to find the most promising exoplanets.

best phd theses of the faculty of science Leiden - physics, chemistry, computer science, biopharmaceutical sciences, biology, industrial ecology, environmental sciences, astronomy, mathematics

With his photo of a fish trapped in a rubber glove, external PhD candidate Auke-Florian Hiemstra has made it to the shortlist for the People’s Choice Award in the prestigious Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition. The photo shows the impact of Covid litter on wildlife.

Hieratic Papyrology

The project GRADIENTS investigates what it meant to be European in colonial Africa where identification as European often did not depend on skin colour and was understood on a spectrum with many gradients.

We have examined sequences from the ligand-binding domain of the nicotinic acetyl choline receptor (nAChR) in 148 vertebrate species. We are in interested in this receptor because the α-neurotoxins of many venomous snakes binds to this receptor in its location at the neuromuscular junction in all ve…

A mere day after setting foot ashore in the Bahamas on October 13th 1492, Christopher Columbus notes the broad foreheads of the inhabitants of the Americas. These permanently altered cranial shapes are deliberately created through the application of pressure to the head of the infant in the first years…

How did slaves in the eighteenth century manage to empower themselves and their kin, and why did this become all the more difficult in the nineteenth century?

How did free agents in the Dutch Republic react to the creation of colonial monopolies (VOC and WIC) by the States-General? This project answers this question by looking at the role individuals played in the construction of an informal global empire parallel to the institutional empire devised by the…

Resilient Diversity: the Governance of Racial and Religious Plurality in the Dutch Empire, 1600-1800

Marten Soolmans (1613-1641) studied law in Leiden at the same time that Rembrandt lived in the city. Rembrandt painted Soolmans and his wife Oopjen in 1634, after all three had moved to Amsterdam. This remarkable portrait of the sumptuously dressed Soolmans can be seen at the Kamerlingh Onnes Building,…

In the spirit of 'unity in diversity', our objective is to promote insight into and appreciation for the wonder that the same physical laws and mathematical concepts apply to the whole of nature, from the largest to the smallest energy and length scales. We strive for the application of abstract theoretical…

Legal proceedings are often time-consuming, costly and stressful. Accessible out-of-court dispute resolution can sometimes offer a good alternative, but having access to reliable and efficient judicial proceedings remains equally important.

Michel Orrit was awarded the Physica prize 2016 for his groundbreaking work on single molecule spectroscopy.

Many protoplanetary discs in which new planets are formed are much smaller than thought. Using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) scientists of the Leiden Observatory looked at 73 protoplanetary discs in the Lupus region.

The map application includes information from old and new buildings archaeological projects. This makes it possible to investigate whether water facilities (wells, cisterns) and waste facilities (cesspits, sewers) were the privilege of Leiden’s wealthy elite in the late 16th and 17th centuries or whether…

As Director-General of the ESO for the past ten years, Leiden University astronomer Tim de Zeeuw had ‘the best astronomy job in the world’. Back at the Leiden Observatory, he is focusing on the first 3D map of the Milky Way.

Leiden astronomer Tim de Zeeuw has been appointed Knight in the Order of the Dutch Lion. He received the distinction on 14 May to mark his departure as Director General of the ESO European Astronomy organisation. The celebration took place during the 2018 Dutch Astronomers Conference in Groningen.

The SRON space research institute, Leiden University and the TU Delft are appointing six researchers to jointly carry out space research. The research will focus on exoplanets, the evolution of structure in the Universe and technology for developing new pioneering space instruments.

It is theoretically possible that habitable planets exist around pulsars, rotating neutron stars. Such planets must have an enormous atmosphere that convert the deadly X-rays and high energy particles of the pulsar into heat. That is stated in a scientific paper by astronomers Alessandro Patruno and…

Leiden University, together with Utrecht University, the LUMC and 10 other Dutch universities and institutes, has been awarded a grant of more than €30 million in the NWO call Roadmap Large-scale Scientific Infrastructure (GWI).

The European Physical Society has awarded the prestigieus Edison Volta Prize to Leiden physicist Michel Orrit. The prize is handed out every two years to an individual or a group of at most three scientists as an acknowledgment of an outstanding achievement in physics research.