Social science research helps us understand human behaviour and social structures. These are determined by various factors, which makes the research complex and increases the likelihood of drawing the wrong conclusions. The choice of research method and analysis is therefore extremely important. It…

WORLDING AMERICA researches how ‘play’ has been a key force in the past and present process of creating America as a coherent and hegemonic ‘world,’ from 1503 to the present.

Kim Stroet is examining how the interaction between teachers and pupils influences pupils’ motivation. ‘Children need to have the feeling that they are in control of their own learning process.’

This is an Erasmus+ International Credit Mobility project of the Faculty of Humanities with two partners in Uzbekistan.

In our European and International Business Law Advanced Master programme, you learn to decipher the hierarchy of European & international business law

Quentin Bourgeois, Associate Professor of European Prehistory, will assume the position of Vice-Dean for Education at the Faculty of Archaeology of Leiden University as of 1 February 2026, for a term of four years. Quentin Bourgeois succeeds Alex Geurds, who became Dean of the Faculty on 1 January 2…

The Master Population Health Management will equip you with the necessary competences to play a key role in the constantly changing healthcare landscape in which societal, patient and clinical results are all equally relevant.

To maximise your personal development, we ensure tutorials are small-scale and staff members extremely accessible. In year one, you’ll have an average of 12 contact hours, half of which comprise lectures (in English) and the remainder tutorials (optionally Dutch or English).

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.

This PhD project develops and applies a GIS procedure to use legacy survey data in settlement pattern analysis. As part of the research by the LERC project (NWO, Leiden University, KNIR), legacy data produced by surveys in central and southern Italy are examined in a comparative framework to investigate…

From the largest numbers to the smallest molecules and from the oldest galaxies up to the latest algorithms, explore our standout discoveries and most inspiring collaborations from the past year!

The organisations and people who implement government policy face many different types of change. Academics from Leiden University research how they deal with these and advise them on how best to meet the needs and wishes of society.

The university is making its campuses future-proof with measures for climate adaptation and biodiversity. You can read in the Sustainability Implementation Agenda 2023–2026 how we harvest rainwater, limit heat stress and make more room for greenery.

Plants could be regarded as small chemical factories, which produce chemical substances via photosynthesis. If we can imitate photosynthesis in an artificial system, we can make clean fuels and materials out of sunlight and CO2. Huub de Groot is very close to designing a system of this kind.

A step-by-step approach to building confidence in anxiety-prone young children.

Fieldwork

The radio telescope LOFAR, with a major contribution from Leiden Observatory, has produced the most detailed radio map of the Universe ever made. Never before have so many cosmic radio sources been captured in a single survey: 13.7 million.

On Friday evening 17 September, Leiden astronomer Joe Callingham can be seen in a new series on Discovery channel. Killers of the Cosmos is about different deadly dangers lurking in the depths of space. Asteroids, cosmic debris, electromagnetic weapons… The show takes a film-noir approach to these threats,…

Voters sent a clear signal in the recent Dutch provincial council elections with the 'monster' victory for the Farmer-Citizen Movement (BoerBurgerBeweging, BBB). This sign of ‘social resistance’ has consequences for the policy on nitrogen emissions, according to Geerten Boogaard, Professor of Local…

Ross Gildea has won the Institute of Political Science Research Master Thesis Prize 2016. ‘The Political Psychology of Humanitarian Issue (Non-)Adoption in International Politics’ is the crowning achievement of Gildea’s work as a MSc student. The thesis, according to the jury, stands out as a ‘fine…

A collaboration of physicists and chemists organized the LEELIS conference on new computer chip technology in Amsterdam on 10-11 November. Leiden physicist Joost Frenken is director of the organizing institute ARCNL.

Jorinde van de Vis wins the For Women in Science Rising Talent-prize for women in science, for her PhD thesis in cosmology and particle physics.

Leiden University is extremely concerned about the situation in Turkey and offers all possible support to its Turkish colleagues.

On 1 October 2024, Dr Jiska Engelbert was appointed as professor by special appointment on the Ien Dales Chair ‘Government as an Employment Organisation’. Her focus is on leadership in digital transitions, digital innovations, and the transformation of public services, with particular attention to local…

Science Magazine has published three back-to-back papers on an important discovery in solid state physics. Leiden physicist Jan Zaanen wrote a Perspective article on the subject in the same issue of 4 March.

LCD screens use liquid crystals which have a high degree of order, even though they form a fluid. A new theory maps out the interplay between order, temperature and symmetry. Publication in Physical Review X.

At the beginning of March 2017 the ICCL students visited Brussels for a two-day visit.

Eveline Crone: 'Many thanks to my amazing Brain and Development Research Center colleagues. I am so thankful for the 15 fantastic years. It is also extremely exciting and energizing to start at Erasmus University Rotterdam with the Society, Youth and Neuroscience Connected SYNClab.'

Dutch astronomers have measured a superstorm for the first time in the atmosphere of an exoplanet, the well-studied “hot Jupiter” HD209458b. The very high-precision observations of carbon monoxide gas show that it is streaming at enormous speed from the extremely hot day side to the cooler night side…

The University's childcare centre, de Kattekop, has been awarded the 2017 Regional Award by South Holland. In an independent survey, parents gave the centre an exceptional score of 9.4,.

We are extremely proud of our alumni Nandini Paliwal (LLM 2016) and Valentina Vecchio (LLM 2017) for winning first and second place, respectively, for their essays in the EALA Prize this year.

The Executive Board appointed Sanneke Kuipers as full professor effective January 1, 2022. Her chair is Crisis Governance. She combines this chair with her position as education director of ISGA, the Institute of Security and Global Affairs. A conversation about working 24/7 in crisis management, her…

In a recent mega-analysis, researchers from Leiden University aimed to clarify the contradictory findings of research into social anxiety disorder. They found that to obtain reliable research results having the largest possible sample size is important. Publication in NeuroImage:Clinical.

Buying chocolates as a sign of love, getting the best deals on Black Friday and putting on a spooky costume for Halloween. In recent years, these holidays and traditions have taken off in the Netherlands, even though they originated on the other side of the ocean. Why are we so excited about American…

Not everything that comes close to a black hole is swallowed by it. Black holes can also hurl material away, and that chance turns out to be considerably bigger than previously thought. Martijn Oei's accidental discovery and his subsequent research on it earned him a cum laude promotion on 12 Decemb…

Imagine no one in the Netherlands would eat animal products anymore, what would happen? And would it contribute to more climate justice? That is the theoretical exercise that environmental scientist Jan Willem Erisman and landscape architect Berno Strootman are taking up. 'Sometimes you have to think…

The Hofstad group is known mainly because of Mohammed B., the murderer of Theo van Gogh. PhD candidate Bart Schuurman examined this Dutch jihadist group based on interviews and confidential police files. How and why did the group come about? What drove some of the group members to commit terrorist…

A group of single-celled organisms organises its DNA in a similar way to higher organisms such as plants, animals, and fungi. However, the way packaged DNA is read out differs between the two related groups, Bram Henneman discovered. PhD defence on 5 December.

For only the second time ever, astronomers have linked a neutrino to an object outside our Milky Way. These observations were made using telescopes both on Earth and in space. The researchers, including Leiden astronomer Sjoert van Velzen, were able to trace the neutrino to a black hole that is devouring…

Psychedelic drugs like magic mushrooms and LSD are embraced by some and seen as lethal by others. Cognitive psychologist Michiel van Elk delved into the world of psychedelic drugs and wrote a surprisingly sober book about them. ‘Without first-hand experience my story wouldn’t be complete.’

Five consortia within the Perspectief programme that include Leiden researchers have received funding to start their research projects. These projects focus on (further) developing technological innovations, with societal and economic impact at their core.

As a student, Thijs Brocades Zaalberg was primarily interested in diplomacy surrounding conflicts. Through research on peace operations and subsequently the fight against guerrillas, he became increasingly involved with the most violent aspects of colonial warfare. Per 1 September 2024 he is appointed…

There are currently two projects in Coptic Studies that are supported by the NVIC. Both are directed by Dr. Karel Innemee and both take place in the Wadi Natrun.

Korea specialist Koen De Ceuster has combined 1200 posters from North Korea in one database. He believes the posters are extremely valuable for researchers who want to make a more in-depth study of this closed country. The database will be launched on 15 June in Leiden.

Using a clever experiment, PhD candidate Shengxiang Yang discovered how gold electrodes convert water into oxygen. He is the first to unravel the mechanism of this reaction. Yang published his results in the journal ACS Catalysis.

There is greater variety in the size of men’s brains than of women’s. This could help explain why some psychiatric disorders such as ADHD and autism are more prevalent in boys. Leiden brain researcher Lara Wierenga has published an article about this in the international journal Cerebral Cortex.

Astronomers led by Pieter van Dokkum have discovered a galaxy that barely contains any dark matter, which actually proves that dark matter does indeed exist. The research results will be published this week in Nature.

All supermassive black holes in the centres of galaxies appear to have periods when they swallow matter from their close surroundings. But that is about as far as the similarities go. That's the conclusion reached by British and Dutch astronomers from their research with ultra-sensitive radio telescopes…