Medical research is often exaggerated in the news. Medical journalists are not the only ones guilty of such sloppiness; results are also often exaggerated in academic press releases. This was the conclusion of a study by researchers from Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC) and Leiden University,…

In early 2026, two new programme directors will begin their roles at FWN. Joost Broekens will take charge of the bachelor’s programme in Data Science and Artificial Intelligence (DSAI), while Sander van Kasteren will become programme director of the MSc in Life Science and Technology (LST).

What is the current state of democracy and how do we understand the effects of public support on democracy? The two-day symposium Support for Democracy: Measurement, Explanation, and Effect

Professor of Korean Studies Remco Breuker has been awarded a subsidy from the European Research Council to study the dispute between both Koreas and China on the history of Manchuria. Political scientist Daniela Stockmann will be examining the role of social media and how the Chinese authorities handle…

The Leiden University psychologist Carolien Rieffe will investigate how to create an social climate at high schools, to make young people with autism feel more comfortable and able to engage with their social surroundings and thus develop essential social and emotional skills. Rieffe and collaborators…

PhD candidate Wouter Verschoof-van der Vaart has received the Stichting Elise Mathilde Fonds grant from the Leids Universiteits Fonds (LUF) to work on a research project focusing on the landscapes of the Second World War. ‘We will combine citizen science with deep learning to uncover traces of the c…

On Tuesday 6 September, the faculty year 2022-2023 got off to a great start with Leiden Law Op 1, our yearly talkshow live from the Kamerlingh Onnes Gebouw. Together with the Faculty Board, academic staff and students, we looked ahead to the upcoming academic year.

André Ramcharan has been a familiar face at the Faculty of Archaeology for decades. Joining our faculty without any knowledge on animal bones, he has become an expert on the matter, supervising the organisation and expansion of the faculty’s collection. ‘We expanded to include birds, fish, and shellfish.…

Over the summer, students – and a few members of staff – at Leiden University sent in their best photos to the University’s ‘Summer in Leiden and The Hague’ photo competition. All these summer-inspired photos are now on display in the Summer in the City photo exhibition in the University’s central administration…

In the programme NWO Open Competition Domain Science - GROOT, twenty new consortia will start a large research project. This boost of more than 47 million euros will make new research possible in the science domain. Among the winners is the Nanoscale Regulators of Photosynthesis consortium in which…

He discovered how to determine the rotation and centre of our Milky Way, predicted where comets come from and laid the groundwork for radio astronomy: Leiden Professor of Astronomy Jan Hendrik Oort (1900 – 1992). Piet van der Kruit, whose PhD supervisor was Oort himself, has written a biography about…

The masterstudents who participated in the International Leiden Leadership Programme (ILLP), received their honours certificate at the festive closing seminar on 11 June in the Old Observatory (Sterrewacht). Congratulations to our international students!

Astronomy PhD candidate Emiel Por has been selected by NASA as one of the 24 Hubble fellows in 2020. He will be conducting research at the American Space Telescope Science Institute in the fall within the programme 'Are we alone?'.

Between 16 May and 4 June our first ‘Introduction to Ancient Egypt’ course took place with a group of highly motivated students.

Since 2020, the Krijn Rietveld Memorial Award has been annually presented by dsm-firmenich for the best master's or doctoral research at the Faculty of Science in the field of life sciences combined with data science. As of 2024, this award will be split into three prizes with a broader scope of research…

Not only does she excel at her research, she is also active in outreach and started a collaboration outside her own field during her PhD. Yevheniia Cheipesh has been awarded the first prize in the For Women in Science Rising Talent Prize by L’Oreal, UNESCO and the Royal Holland Society of Sciences and…

Asking the way to the beach in Scheveningen or buying cheese on the market in Leiden. With the new online Dutch & More language course, prospective international students can get to know Dutch in a Leiden setting. The online course is available for international students at Leiden University and starts…

In otherwise energetic desserts at the bottom of the sea, researchers have found oases where microbes can harvest energy. Remarkably, the microbes first have to be buried under starving conditions for 80,000 years. An international group of researchers, amongst them José Mogollón from the Insitute of…

In traditional style, 2025 was ushered in at our faculty with the Meijers Lecture followed by the New Year's Reception. On Thursday 16 January 2025, the Meijers Lecture took place in the Lorentz Lecture Hall where the Meijers Prizes and the Van Wersch Springplank Prize were also awarded. At the New…

Alexander van Oudenhoven has been appointed as the new Director of Education of the Governance of Sustainability master's programme. Van Oudenhoven has been appointed for a four-year period, from 1 October 2022 to 1 October 2026. The programme is taught in The Hague.

Arriving at a new workplace has never been as easy as it was in the Netherlands-Flemish Institute in Cairo. I’m very grateful for the nice colleagues who helped me in the first few days to settle down in Egypt and start to work in the office. Although I spent the last 3 years on site as a field archaeologist…

Esther Philips, grant advisor at the Institute of Environmental Sciences, is the new Chair elect of the European Association for Research Managers and Administrators (EARMA).

In cooperation with Cyber Security Academie (CSA) and The Hague University of Applied Sciences the new Master Cyber Security Engineering is established and starts in September 2018.

TEXTS FROM ANCIENT EGYPT. Highlights from the Collection of the Leiden Papyrological Institute. Online exhibition on the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the foundation ‘Het Leids Papyrologisch Instituut’ in 2015.

Four female computer scientists share a common goal: to showcase the significant contributions of women in computer science and inspire their students. Together, they are organising this year’s Alice & Eve event, a one-day symposium dedicated to celebrating women in computer science. The event, scheduled…

Research using the ALMA telescope by scientists including Leiden's John Tobin and Steven Bos has produced the first images of the water snow line within a protoplanetary disc. Publication in Nature on 14 July.

An international team of astronomers including Leiden scientists publishes the image of a young star with a surrounding dust disk that is still being fed from its surroundings. The phenomenon around the star SU Aur may explain why so many exoplanets are not neatly aligned with their star. The European…

Patients and healthcare providers use Remote Patient Management platforms to exchange information with each other. New methods like this are desperately needed to future-proof our healthcare systems. Professor Maaike Kleinsmann is working to scale up these systems and implement them nationwide.

How were Spanish commanders fighting in the Low Countries between 1567 and 1577 portrayed in Spanish and Dutch narrative sources during the Eighty Years War?

As a student of the Master's in Comparative Criminal Justice you develop academic, theoretical and research insight in all aspects of crime control. Student actively work on current, concrete problems and are challenged to independently find solutions. Students not only learn about the organization…

English Language and Culture is a multi-faceted programme in which you’ll study the language in all its varieties, from Old English to the many different pronunciations currently in use. You’ll also study British, American and Canadian literature in their cultural-historical context.

Every student who wants to apply for the bachelor’s programme Arts, Media and Society at Leiden University will need to start at Studielink. The application procedure consists of three steps.

As part of your application procedure for the bachelor’s programme Linguistics, you are asked to complete an Online Matching module. By watching a number of video lectures and answering questions about them, you will discover whether the programme fits your expectations. You will also answer a number…

The specialisation Global Order in Historical Perspective of the master’s in International Relations at Leiden University focuses on examining the historical processes and practices in the making of global order.

An international team of astronomers have become the first in the world to detect isotopes in the atmosphere of an exoplanet. It concerns different forms of carbon in the gaseous giant planet TYC 8998-760-1 b. The research will be published in the scientific journal Nature on Thursday.

A pop-up exhibition ‘All the Einsteins’ will open at Rijsmuseum Boerhaave on 29 May 2019. This is the first time that the museum will present its entire collection of handwritten letters and documents by Einstein. The exhibition marks, among others, the publication of the first photo of a black hole…

Astronomer Alexander Mushtukov, currently working at the University of Amsterdam, received a Veni grant of 250,000 euro’s which he will execute in Leiden. Supervised by Simon Portegies Zwart, Mushtukov will use advanced simulations to understand the unknown physics in extremely bright neutron stars.

Two Leiden scientists - Ignas Snellen and Bernhard Hommel - have been awarded an ERC Advanced Grant. The grant will fund their research over the coming five years on exoplanets and free will.

Under a sunny sky 44 teams completed the Leiden Science Run this weekend. They raised as much as 3450 euros for refugee-students’ association UAF.

Astronomer Frans Snik searches for extraterrestrial life. He doesn’t so much look at stars as at the ‘exoplanets’ alongside them.

All the planets in our solar system orbit around the Sun in an ecliptical plane. This is to be expected because our solar system was formed from a so-called protoplanetary disc. PhD candidate Anna Miotello has studied these kinds of discs and how they influence the formation of stars and planets. PhD…

Northern lights, stellar winds and exoplanets. This is what astronomer's PhD research revolved around. PhD candidate astronomer Rob Kavanagh developed mathematical models to better understand the interactions between exoplanets and stellar winds and to define features of exoplanets. He will receive…

Something that a year ago would have been unthinkable has become a reality on 12 June: Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un sat down together to talk about nuclear disarmament. Can these two hardliners reach agreement in the negotiations? Professor of Korea Studies Remco Breuker is doubtful. 'As it looks now,…

Tjerk Oosterkamp of the Leiden Institute of Physics managed to do the first-ever measurement of gravity on a tiny particle - just 0.43 milligrams - where the quantum regime starts. He explains in Physics World why this is so challenging.

The prestigious American Journal of Comparative Law (2016, pp. 790-4) just published a book review of Sofia Ranchordas monograph ‘Constitutional Sunsets and Experimental Legislation’ (Edward Elgar). The book is partially based on her PhD dissertation for which she was awarded a cum laude doctorate degree…

Leiden University will confer an honorary doctorate on astrophysicist Sara Seager for her work on exoplanets.

On Saturday November 16 Alice Twemlow was awarded the Simon Mari Pruys prize for design criticism for her essay ‘Conflicting Definitions of Key Terms’.