What did plays look like in the seventeenth, eighteenth or nineteenth centuries? With the new OverActing theatre festival, university lecturer Jed Wentz is trying to get closer to an answer to that question.

New research has revealed that one of Europe’s largest prehistoric mass graves records the deliberate killing of women and children, showing how gender- and age-selective violence was used to disrupt communities and assert power in the Early Iron Age. Leiden archaeologist Jason Laffoon was involved…

What began as a PhD project has grown into a website with 120,000 unique visitors each year. With the platform OpenML, researcher Jan van Rijn is contributing to open science, aiming to make machine learning more transparent, accessible, and fair.

Leiden researchers, led by Sebastian Pomplun developed a new method to screen hundreds of thousands of molecules for drug discovery, using mass spectrometry instead of DNA tags. ‘We wanted to make drug discovery faster and more accessible.’

Graig Klein, assistant professor at the Institute of Security of Global Affairs (ISGA), has been awarded a Starting Grant by the European Research Council (ERC) for his project TERGAP. With this 1.500.000 euro grant Klein and his research team will investigate terrorist groups’ decision-making and strategic…

Conference, Second Conference of the Leiden Jewish Studies Network

Conference

This month's flash interview is with alumna Sytske Besemer, Criminologist, who works at a startup called Cradle. Sytske has specifically chosen to work for a company with societal impact. And she is about to move again, this time to Zürich.

Should Leiden University cut its ties with the fossil fuel industry forthwith? This was the main question in a debate between students and staff. The answer was clearer for some than for others.

Symposium

Study support

Eight scientists from Leiden University have been awarded a grant by the Dutch Research Council (NWO). With this Vidi funding, the researchers can set up an innovative line of research and further expand their own research group over the next five years.

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.

The US-Israeli strikes on Iran have been welcomed by critics of the regime but have also prompted intense concern. They’ve triggered a dangerous domino effect across the region and beyond. Leiden experts share their insights on the potential consequences.

Symposium

Conference

Lecture, Seminar

During the panels, alumni from all 4 FSW study programmes (Cultural Anthropology, Education and Child Studies, Political Science and Psycology) will share their experiences in their field of work. Each panel will focus on one field of work and will host 4 alumni, one from each FSW study programme.

Welcome to Leiden University

Conducting research for the municipality: this is a deliberate choice for the master’s students who are taking part in the Resilient Cities Hub, part of Learning with the City. Nina Ruig and Marron Loods are two such students. They are researching sustainability issues for the Municipality of Leiden…

Career and apply for jobs

Conference, Leiden-Birmingham Lectures

Book Launch

Workshop | TEAL series

Not all students spend the holiday season with family or friends. That is why the university is organising the fifth edition of the Winter Weeks this year. The goal remains unchanged: to offer both international and Dutch students who stay in Leiden or The Hague during the Christmas break a warm and…

Researchers have discovered the most distant Milky-Way-like galaxy yet observed. Dubbed REBELS-25, this disc galaxy seems as orderly as present-day galaxies, but we see it as it was when the Universe was only 700 million years old. This is surprising since, according to our current understanding of…

During his PhD research, mathematician Tyron Lardy worked on a new approach to hypothesis testing. Instead of the traditional p-value, he uses so-called e-values. These turn out to be more flexible – especially when you want to look at your results midway through the study.

Afghans who came to the Netherlands in a hurry, refugees who were used as leverage by Belarus and boat refugees who tried to reach Europe in an increasingly desperate manner: the newspapers were once again filled with news about migrants. Today, on International Migrants Day, we talk to professor Marlou…

Confetti, stilt walkers and the new Einstein Fountain. On Monday, 2 September, the Gorlaeus Building of the Faculty of Science was festively opened. Together with Constantijn van Oranje, our students cut the ribbon. Dean Jasper Knoester: ‘The building is ready, now it is up to our students and researchers…

Minority governments only become an option when attempts to form a government collapse. PhD candidate Corné Smit explored why such governments have become rare in the Netherlands and what advantages they might offer. ‘Broad majority coalitions often fail to make substantial progress on key issues.’

The interplay between literature and law is what Frans-Willem Korsten wants to address as a brand-new professor of Literature, Culture and Law. That means doing research, but certainly also teaching. 'The Hague is of crucial importance for the humanities.'

If you want easy answers to governance questions, you might as well abolish democracy, says Dr. Carola Schoor. A democracy should challenge and raise questions. For a balanced and just rule of law, a 'rule of law compass' is needed.

‘Be yourself. Be as gay, queer, trans as you can and show the world you exist.’ These rousing words from Looi van Kessel marked the start of the third Pride Leiden for the university boat, with the theme: ‘450 years of being yourself’.

At the beginning of the corona pandemic, our Faculty appointed student mentors to guide first-year and international students. What drives these mentors, and what is it like to be back at the Faculty again? Mireia and Marten tell us all about it.

With the retirement of Wil Roebroeks, Gerrit Dusseldorp will take his place as the archaeological representative in the Liveable Planet Interdisciplinary Programme as an Associate Professor. An expert on the behaviour of early human hunter-gatherers, he will look at the interaction between humans and…

Political scientist Claire Vergerio (Leiden University) has made it to the final stage of the selection process for Central European University’s annual European Award for Excellence in Teaching in the Social Sciences and Humanities. As the 2019 Casimir Prize winner, Vergerio was nominated by the Faculty…

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…

The university's CO2 footprint - a visual representation of Leiden University's environmental impact - is calculated every year. The CO2 footprint for 2020 shows a striking break in the trend in terms of energy use, mobility and waste.

How can we improve the treatment of thrombosis, reduce the disease’s impact and spend less money while we’re at it? This is what Erik Klok, Professor of Internal Medicine and an internist, is researching. He will discuss it in depth in his inaugural lecture on 10 March.

When the tokay gecko loses its tail, a new one grows from resident stem cells at the stump. Each tissue type - muscle, bone, blood vessels and skin - develops from specific stem cells. This discovery by Luthfi Nurhidayat holds potential implications for advancing regenerative medicine in humans. Nurhidayat…

‘Een goed gesprek begint met iemand écht zien.’ (A good conversation starts with truly seeing someone). That text is written on a plaque that was screwed onto a IK Z1E J3 (I see you) bench on the Wijnhaven Rooftop Garden on Monday morning. The bench acts as a symbol to create room for discussions about…

'It gave our team a big boost to hear that our work was valuable,' says medical chemist Elmer Maurits about the moment they won the Venture Challenge. With their company Iprotics, they want to develop a drug that can better treat patients with autoimmune diseases and blood cancers. 25,000 euros of prize…

The housing crisis is affecting a substantial group of Dutch citizens and is one of the main election themes this year. How did things get this far and what should the new cabinet do in the coming four years to address the problems? Three Leiden researchers give their answer.

Last Saturday, the Turfmarkt in The Hague, where during the week thousands of commuters make their way to the many ministries in the city centre, was seething with future young students. It was the Bachelor's Open Day at Leiden University, which took place physically both in Leiden and The Hague. A…

Although the official start of the academic year has to wait for another fortnight, Leiden University College The Hague (LUC) welcomed the Class of 2024 to the Anna van Bueren campus this week. The new cohort of 204 incoming students will spend the next three years studying different majors and minors…

Jasper Knoester is the dean of the Faculty of Science. How is he doing, what exactly does he do and what does his day look like? In each newsletter, Jasper gives an insight into his life.

In the Netherlands, when we talk about the United Nations, the conversation is almost always about the member states from the northern hemisphere. But the most interesting players come from the ‘Global South’, Professor Alanna O'Malley and her team argue in a podcast.

During the summer break, three lecture halls at Wijnhaven were equipped with advanced equipment and an education system in order to provide the best hybrid teaching possible during the upcoming academic year. The Learn Anywhere pilot will take place within the FGGA, which Koen Caminada is very happy…