Laughing, crying or even having a moan together: close friends are worth their weight in gold in good and bad times. Researcher Lisa Schreuders explains the effects on body and mind. Can we give that magical click a helping hand? And what advice does she have for first-years in their new city?

On 10 February 2025, Vincent Delhomme attended the official launch of the new EU Health Union Fellowship at the College of Europe (Bruges), where he delivered a two hour lecture on EU health governance.

Globalsmog Seminar Series #7 Morocco

On Friday 16 May Juul Eijk successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated.

On 1 and 2 December 2022, Vincent Delhomme and Carina van Os participated (Europe Institute) in the workshop ‘The European Health Union - Setup, challenges and global outlook’, held at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law in Heidelberg. Vincent had the opportunity…

What determines healthy behavior and how do you promote healthy choices and routines? These are a few questions currently being addressed by Marieke Adriaanse, recently appointed Professor of Behavioral Intervention in Population Health Management at the Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC).

The Europe Hub network currently spans over 60 researchers across 4 faculties at Leiden University. We especially foster thematic interfaculty research collaborations on a wide variety of societal challenges facing Europe. Here, you can read more about the four core thematic areas.

Health conditions and social problems often go hand in hand. To address this complex issue in families in The Hague, researchers, managers, support services, policymakers and residents are joining forces. What are the results of this transdisciplinary approach?

Online teaching has made it much easier for international students to join in our courses. The Leiden minor in Global Health, for instance. Students from Tanzania, Rwanda, Uganda and Malawi logged on and made a valuable contribution with their knowledge, about tropical diseases, for instance.

In memory of Andrea Evers, Professor of Health Psychology, the Prof. Andrea Evers Fund for Health, Behaviour and Society has been established. With this fund, we aim to honour her deepest wish: to continue research that contributes to health, well-being, and a resilient society.

In early medieval England, there was an interest in the history of the Roman Empire and kings adopted such imperial titles as 'imperator' or 'basileus'. How can we explain this interest and what functions did imperial ideas and the reception of the classical world serve in early medieval England?

The number of students suffering from stress and anxiety has decreased slightly compared with 2021. But around half still suffer from mental health problems. This is according to the National Mental Health and Substance Use Monitor.

Bachelor's and master's students and PhD candidates came together from 10 to 13 July at Campus The Hague for the EUniWell Summer School ‘COVID-19: Impact on European health & well-being’. The participants attended lectures and workshops on the impact of the pandemic on public health. They also discussed…

Green spaces boost mental health—especially in busy cities. A new study from Leiden and Stanford University reveals how nature benefits urban well-being and offers low-cost ways to make city life healthier for everyone.

The Faculty Board and the Institute of Private Law have agreed to combine the disciplines of child law, international children’s rights and health law into one Department of Child Law and Health Law.

In July 2022, Leiden hosted the ESOF conference.

Today’s socio-economic challenges aren’t new. In the centuries after the retreat of the Roman state people with different backgrounds and with different ways of life somehow managed to build and maintain a complex economic system in northern Gaul that would produce the ruling dynasties of Europe. By…

The Persian Empire (539-330 BCE) was the first world empire in history. At its height, it united a territory stretching from present-day India to Libya - and it would take 2,000 years before significantly larger empires emerged in early modern Eurasia. This territorial sweep is both a source of fascination…

Face masks and gloves designed to protect us are, in fact, dangerous for the animals around us. Scientists from Leiden warn that throughout the world, on land and in the water, animals are ingesting corona waste, or getting entangled in it. The two biologists are asking for everybody’s help to better…

The project explores the impact of the clash between defenders of a rules-based order and international law on global governance and the future of legal systems.

Is the legitimacy of law and governance of multilevel jurisdictions diminishing? What is the significance of (diminishing) legitimacy for the effectiveness of law? These kinds of questions about the legitimacy of the supranational formation of law, its application, and the policy and governance based…

What is involved in setting up and carrying out clinical research? To give researchers a helping hand, LUMC Campus The Hague has brought together tips and tricks in the new massive open online course (MOOC) Population Health: Study Design.

Medicines can work even if they have no active ingredient. The first international scientific conference on placebos will take place in Leiden from 2 to 4 April. Placebo researcher Andrea Evers, who is also chairing the conference, answers some pressing questions.

Deadline: 26 June 2026.

This collection of essays explores processes of innovation in Greco-Roman technology and science.

What was the stringed instrument known in medieval and early Renaissance Italy as “cetra”?

Until the 1990s, the only known planets were those in our Solar System. Three decades later, several thousand exoplanets have been discovered orbiting stars other than the Sun, and substantial efforts have been made to explore these strange new worlds through spectroscopic analyses of their atmosphe…

Until recently, the role of external information processing in intelligence has rarely been investigated quantitatively or experimentally. A group of researchers from Erasmus University Rotterdam, Leiden University, GGZ Rivierduinen, and University of Edinburgh measured in a new way how and when people…

Sarah Giest and Annemarie Samuels, both Assistant Professors at Leiden University, researched the quality and coverage of the data being collected for policiymakers to be used, specifically pertaining to minority groups.

Does hegemony—legitimated rule by dominant power—have a role in ordering world politics of the twenty-first century? If so, what form does that hegemony take: does it lie with a leading state or with some other force? How does contemporary world hegemony operate: what tools does it use and what outcomes…

International trade has played a major role in defining the modern global economy. Trade, however, entangles the environmental pressures of economic sectors, giving the illusion of environmental improvements, while the opposite may be occurring.

What was the stringed instrument known in medieval and early Renaissance Italy as “cetra”?

The Faculty of Archaeology's own home-grown journal Inter-Section has released a new volume. Inter-Section offers students and PhD candidates the unique chance to publish in a peer-reviewed journal. The new volume focuses on the materials that shape our world.

Exchanges between different cultures and institutions of learning have taken place for centuries, but it was only in the twentieth century that such efforts evolved into formal programs that received focused attention from nation-states, empires and international organizations.

On 1 March, Lennart Schada von Borzyskowski will start on a tenure track position at the Institute of Biology Leiden (IBL). With a focus on the natural and synthetic biochemistry of environmental bacteria, he wants to apply their features to health and sustainability issues.

On 13 April, an expert meeting to discuss the doctoral thesis of Eduardo Arenas Catalán was held at Leiden Law School. The discussion, chaired by Aart Hendriks, Professor of Health Law at Leiden Law School, included the contributions from Javier Couso Salas, Professor at Universidad Diego Portales and…

Leiden University continues to do well in the Times Higher Education World University Rankings. For the subject area Politics and International Relations, the 2018 edition ranks Leiden 67th in the world. This is not that far behind the ‘usual suspects’ (Cambridge, Stanford, MIT and the like). Among…

The Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW) has granted health psychologist Andrea Evers a visiting professorship funding for Luana Colloca. This funding is linked to the KNAW’s Visiting Professors Programme which enables outstanding foreign researchers to spend time working in the Netherlands.…

People already diagnosed with a mental disorder before the COVID-19 pandemic did not show a disproportionate increase in symptoms afterwards. This is one result from the first systematic review of longitudinal studies following their study population from before to during the first eighteen months of…

Five of the new Medical Delta professors who now hold an appointment at multiple institutions are affiliated with Leiden University/LUMC. They are psychologist Andrea Evers and four LUMC professors.

Eduard Fosch-Villaronga and Hadassah Drukarch from eLaw - Center for Law and Digital Technologies, recently published the book ‘AI for Healthcare Robotics’, published by CRC Press from Taylor and Francis Group in their AI for Everything Series.

Having a chronic somatic condition can result in a variety of impairments in patients’ daily lives, including not only physical complaints such as pain, itch, and fatigue, but also problems of negative mood and impairments in social relationships. Next to disease characteristics, individual difference…

The starting point of Hermans' research is how both children's physical play and dance improvisation by professionals can be considered somatic practices where sense-making manifests itself in and between bodies, and through movement.

Hermen Overkleeft and his colleagues Gideon Davies (University of York) and Carme Rovira (University of Barcelona) will receive a 9.1 million euros Synergy Grant from the European Research Council. Together, they will form the Carbocentre Synergy team for research into enzymes that work on glycans:…

Who will be affected by certain chronic diseases, and who will not? For 30 percent that depends on heredity factors, whereas no less than seventy percent is explained by external factors. A Dutch research consortium receives 18 million euros from the prestigious Zwaartekrachtsubsidies to study these…