Oberon Janszen, alumnus Bestuurskunde, ging na zijn studie als stagiair bij de Inspectie der Rijksfinanciën aan de slag

The Austria Centre Leiden was thrilled to receive an application from our colleague Dr. Jonathan Singerton (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam) to support his participation in the first-ever Central European History Convention in Vienna in July 2025. We asked Dr. Singerton to reflect on the event and how…

Education, ICT

Monica den Boer, who has decades of experience within police and defence and was also active as a Member of Parliament (D66), has been appointed extraordinary professor of Police Studies.

The Rutte IV cabinet will be sworn in soon. A fifth of the prospective ministers and secretaries of state studied in Leiden. Who are they and what did they study?

The MSc Life Science & Technology receives a bronze medal in EW Best Studies 2023. Every year, Elsevier selects the top programmes in higher education. A medal means that students are above-average satisfied with the quality of their programme.

The new cabinet has finally taken office. Six of its members studied in Leiden, once again making the University a key supplier to the cabinet. Who are these alumni?

Panic disorder is associated with changes in the brain, both in children and adolescents and in adults. This is the main outcome of the largest brain study ever conducted on panic disorder. Lead researcher and coordinator of the study, Moji Aghajani (Institute of Education and Child Studies), explains…

It took a while, but the new cabinet has now finally been appointed. Four members of Schoof I studied in Leiden. Who are they?

Studying abroad and going on an exchange is a great way to broaden your horizons and explore new places, cultures, and fields of study. In addition to a full-semester exchange, there are many other possibilities such as a summer school or an internship. For example, Bart Geldermans, Public Administration…

A large group of researchers from Leiden University will convene a panel or present a paper at the 10th European Conference on African Studies (ECAS), which will take place from 25 to 28 June in Prague.

The ‘Kluitersprijs’ is awarded to students who achieve excellent results in the minor Intelligence Studies every year.

Leiden University College The Hague (LUC) has received a bronze medal in Elsevier’s Beste Studies 2022 (Best Study Programmes 2022). This means that both the student satisfaction regarding the quality of the programme and the programme’s performance have scored above average. Each year, Dutch news magazine…

The first results of the National Student Survey (Nationale Studenten Enquête: NSE) reveal that students at Leiden University are satisfied with their study programme.

A discount on textbooks is always welcome. But for these students joining a study association has meant much more than that alone.

Over the centuries painters and photographers have depicted students at study in Leiden. An exhibition at the Hortus botanicus reveals the similarities and differences in 450 years of student life.

In the book 'Slave in a Palanquin: Colonial Servitude and Resistance in Sri Lanka' Nira Wickramasinghe, professor of Modern South Asian Studies, uncovers the traces of slavery in the history and memory of the Indian Ocean world. She was interviewed about the book in the New Books in South East Asian…

The challenge: take three hundred students from vastly varying disciplines and teach them the basics of academic thinking in twelve lessons. Impossible? Professor Ben Arps and his team of tutors succeeded. It resulted in a large amount of positive student evaluations.

A grant from the JEDI Fund allowed university lecturer Jessie Morgan-Owens to design a lecture series on indigenous studies. ‘We filled a gap in the knowledge.’

Leiden researchers have found clues to why a rare pregnancy disorder is mild in some babies but life-threatening in others. Their discovery opens the door to a test that could identify severe cases during pregnancy. Fortunately, a treatment already exists.

In response to the Personnel Monitor light, the Steering Committee on Work-Life Balance has produced a plan to improve work-life balance at our faculty. This interview with Annemiek Hogendorp and Adriaan Rademaker, both members of the Steering Committee, will shed more light on the plan.

What started as an idea during a social gathering led to an unexpected breakthrough in research on resistant bacteria. Biologists and chemists from Leiden developed a new substance that proves to be effective against bacteria resistant to antibiotics. They published their discovery in Nature Chemist…

Nathaniel Martin, Professor of Biological chemistry, wondered what would happen if you take an antibiotic that has been known for 70 years and try to improve it with the latest tools of modern chemistry. Turns out it can become up to a hundred times more potent and prevent the growth of some drug-resistant…

For the first time, it was shown in living cells how the bacterium E. coli regulates genes that help it survive in a new environment. Biochemist Fatema Zahra Rashid managed to do this using a technique she fine-tuned. Her research into changes in 3-dimensional chromosome structure offers clues for ways…

It has only recently been discovered that single-celled organisms (bacteria and archaea) also have histones—proteins that structure DNA. Now, Leiden PhD candidate Samuel Schwab has found that the histones in these organisms are much more diverse than previously thought. Schwab and his colleagues describe…

Not experiments and lab coats, but computers and artificial intelligence: this year's Nobel Prize in Chemistry went to the inventors of the groundbreaking AI model, AlphaFold. This programme accurately predicts protein structures based on their genetic code—a crucial step in understanding biological…

A clear majority in the UN confirmed that states are obliged to combat climate change. 141 countries voted in favour, 8 against, including the US, Russia and Saudi Arabia. Associate Professor Jason Rudall explains the implications.

Leiden University offers one full Leiden University Excellence Scholarship (LExS) to an African candidate interested in the two-year Research Master African Studies programme (ResMA AS); thus non-EEA/non-EFTA* applicants. LExS is a prestigious scholarship and includes a fee waiver up until the statutory…

Associate professor Rens Tacoma has won the 2021 Research Prize for Historical Sciences. The prize is awarded annually by the Italy Studies Working Group for the best scholarly publication in the field of Italy Studies in Dutch or Flemish academia.

Two researchers from the Faculty of Archaeology have received a grant from the Museums, Collections and Society (MSC) interdisciplinary programme. This grant is for collection-based research. Jason Laffoon is using his grant for research into the origins of Central American turquoise, while Dr Marike…

During the coronavirus pandemic, scientists were in a hurry to find drugs that would help fight the disease. To combine the research that was being carried out around the world, PhD candidate Judith ter Schure developed a new statistical method: ALL-IN meta-analysis. This helps determine sooner whether…

Archaeologist Tuna Kalayci investigates roads in a recent edited book. What happens if we think of roads not only as containers of action but also as dynamic and complex phenomena, as the action itself? This question inspired Dr Tuna Kalayci to bring together various studies across a wide range of epochs…

Dr. Joris Larik, Assistant Professor at LUC The Hague, has been selected for a fellowship at the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study (NIAS) in Amsterdam. During his fellowship, Larik will conduct research on a fundamental question: Was Brexit worth it when it comes to striking trade deals around…

The English taught interdisciplinary minor Violence Studies looks into various facets of interpersonal violence. Is this minor for all Leiden students? These two 'colleagues' are certain of it.

“Europe must look […] southward, where the global majority resides. The BRICS countries alone represent almost 50% of the world economy and a quarter of the world trade, it is where the youngest populations lives, with an enormous amount of creative energy, something that is often lacking in the northern…

What role did inequality play in the past? On Friday 5 December, Master's students in history presented their answers at a conference they organised themselves.

Security

Despite considerable progress in the design of multifunctionalized nanoparticles (NPs) that selectively target specific cell types, their systemic application often results in unwanted liver accumulation. The exact mechanisms for this general observation are still unclear.

On Tuesday 12 January 2021, the Leiden Law School thesis prizes were awarded at the New Year’s event.

Chronic pain, nausea or vomiting due to chemotherapy. If you suffer from such ailments, medicinal cannabis can be a godsend. Though a downside is that it can make patients high. Therefore, Leiden researchers from the Oncode Institute are investigating alternatives that do not make you high. In Nature…

The more than 370 sensors that have been hung up in Leiden University buildings to count the people present will not be switched on again. The equipment will eventually be removed from the buildings.

In the early modern period, it was perfectly normal to find recipes, legal documents or medical writings in a book of poems. Holly Riach studied the underlying principles of these ‘miscellanies’ during her PhD.

Four researchers from Leiden University will receive funding from arthritis foundation ReumaNederland over the next five years. This should facilitate long-term research into arthritis.

PhD defence