Cool Little Kids is a research project that investigates the effectiveness of two programmes on the prevention and reduction of anxiety problems in shy and withdrawn children aged 2-6 years. For more information about the project please visit our Dutch website or contact us via clk@fsw.leidenuniv.n…

Effectiveness of an early intervention program for anxiety-prone toddlers in the Netherlands

This film will be screened on Sunday, 7 December 2025 at 7:00 pm.

On the 3rd of September, Adrian Stenton successfully defended a doctoral thesis. Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Adrian on this achievement!

Neanderthals and modern humans in Belgium, a bone story

The representation of death children in Dutch literature through time

The subject of the research is ‘difference and repetition’, an area which bears a direct relationship to Wjm Kok’s practice, in which the production of work always emerges and passes through series.

In this study, Bibi van den Berg and Sanneke Kuipers from ISGA, explore the ways in which cyber-related incidents may lead to crises

During the week of 15 November, Little Amal, the larger-than-life doll visited The Hague. Naturally she received a warm welcome by Leiden University during her visit. Little Amal (art project The Walk) was invited by Amare.

Natascha van der Zwan, Assistant Professor at Leiden Univeristy, together with two other authors, wrote a book that explored some of the ways coronavirus is impacting the global capitalist system – and how this could change for better and for worse.

Australian cell biologist Melissa Little and Dutch physicist Robbert Dijkgraaf will each be awarded an Honorary doctorate at the Dies Natalis of Leiden University in February 2019. They are receiving these awards for their services to science.

On Tuesday, September 16, 2025, Professor Elisheva Baumgarten (Hebrew University) delivered a Keynote Lecture at the Leiden Jewish Studies Network Conference “Care and the Jewish Experience".

That the new building of the Campus the Hague in the Wijnhaven is literally in the governmental heart of the Netherlands should not be a surprise. But who are our neighbors besides all the ministries and the municipality? Let’s take a little walk around the neighborhood.

The list of substances prohibited by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) is huge. PhD candidate Jules Heuberger looked at many of these, as well as at the methods used to detect them. He concluded that for very few of these substances is there is evidence that they actually do enhance performance. PhD…

No matter how hard Chinese communists tried to control the economy, they could not stop the free market from flourishing. This was the message given by historian Frank Dikötter on 7 February during a lecture on the Cultural Revolution. He will be awarded an Honorary Doctorate on 8 February.

From recurrent oil disasters to the outbreak of contagious diseases or major fires. Public organisations often learn too little from such crises, according to public administration specialist Wout Broekema. Staff frequently fail to communicate information adequately, which means that lessons are often…

More than 200 students completed their Bachelor’s degrees in combination with a three-year Honours programme last year. On 15 November, this resulted in a record number of certificates since the start of the Honours College 9 years ago. While listening to personal speeches, the students received their…

Joni Reef was among those present at the opening of Expertise Centre KIND in 's-Hertogenbosch on Thursday 22 November 2018. She spoke to Dutch newspaper Brabants Dagblad afterwards.

On 19 February 2019, Mirjam Sombroek-van Doorm defended her thesis 'Medisch beroepsgeheim en de zorgplicht van de arts bij kindermishandeling in de rechtsverhouding tussen arts, kind en ouders'. The doctoral research was supervised by Prof. dr. A.G. Castermans en Prof. mr. C.J.J.M. Stolker.

Born in Hungary and moved to Austria, András Bárány grew up bi-lingual. It undoubtedly ignited his interest in languages. In Leiden, he now researches ditransitive constructions in over a hundred languages, this way taking another step in untangling some basics of human language.

Recently more than five hundred workers at metal companies in Dutch cities Zwolle and Kampen went on strike. Their aim is better pay and the workers have now been on strike for twelve weeks. Just how effective is striking in collective bargaining?

The Rutte-III coalition agreement has been presented and the commentary is flooding in. Public administration experts Arco Timmermans and Gerard Breeman examined the new agreement – as they have done for every coalition agreement since 1963 - and made a systematic analysis of it: it is very much about…

Cookware handles, electrical plugs, brake pads. Unlike other plastics, these ‘thermosets’ cannot simply be melted down and reshaped, making them difficult to recycle. Chemist Roxanne Kieltyka and her team are now exploring a way to make these materials recyclable, potentially transforming the way we…

Leiden Asia Centre researcher Anoma van der Veere argues that the Japanese government has failed to respond properly to Covid-19. There were difficulties with implementing government measures aimed at limiting the spread of the virus – in some cases those measures were not even taken seriously. How…

It has already been a huge success in The Hague, and now the Lipsius building has one, too: an Acts of Kindness pillar. The official opening took place on Tuesday 20 September.

The ‘spreidingswet’ (dispersal law) has been passed by Dutch Senate and will take effect on 1 February. In the municipality of Westland, however, a majority in the council is unwilling to create 700 extra reception places.

Dutch children’s picture books are full of animals, but mainly mammals are portrayed. Especially pets and exotic animals are popular. A large part of the Dutch fauna is less visible, but biologist Michiel Hooykaas of Leiden University sees plenty of opportunities for a more biodiverse book world.

A seemingly huge car factory in Amsterdam turns out to be a financial hub in Tesla’s global empire. Jan van de Streek, Professor of Tax Law, investigated Tesla's annual accounts with ‘Follow the Money’: ‘We'll probably never discover how that works.’

What do I do if Mum or Dad gets the virus? Could the slide at the playground have coronavirus on it? Can children die of the virus too? On 15 April, the National Science Agenda organised an hour-long session on Facebook to give children the chance to ask their questions about coronavirus. Leiden psychologist…

My name is Eliza Steinbock, I’m 38 years old and I was born and raised in Louisville, Kentucky in the United States. I started teaching and researching at Leiden University in 2014. I research and teach gender representation, mostly of transgender people, in media and culture.

White girls receive significantly more positive comments from their teachers in their primary school reports than white boys and children from migrant backgrounds. PhD candidate Antoinette Kroes researched subtle biases in different contexts and saw how harmful these can be.

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.’

Acute stress seems to have a surprisingly positive effect on our health. Researcher Erin Faught received an NWO veni grant to find out why that is and how we can use that knowledge to our advantage. For her lab research, she uses a remarkable small animal to learn more about our own stress levels.

The rights of children born through international commercial surrogacy are at risk of being overlooked or even violated. Lawmakers, judges and commissioning parents should be more aware of this and take protective action throughout the surrogacy procedure. This is the conclusion reached by lawyer and…

The idea that modern humans displaced Neanderthals because they were better protected against toxic smoke components is now under fire. An earlier study that put forward this suggestion has now been refuted by genetic research by scientists from Leiden and Wageningen. This new research was published…

Professor Felix Ameka and university lecturer Maria del Carmen Parafita Couta have received an NWO Open Competition grant together with Enoch Aboh (University of Amsterdam) to do research on ‘code-switching’: switching languages by multilinguals.

Neanderthals were able to make fire on a large scale with the aid of pyrite and hand-axes. This means they could decide when and where they wanted fire and were not dependent on natural fire, as was thought earlier. Archaeologist Andrew Sorensen has discovered the first material evidence for this. Publication…

A controversial video in which PowNed asks Taylor Swift fans how far they would go for a meet-and-greet with the singer violates portrait rights according to Jeroen ten Voorde in Dutch newspaper ‘NRC’.

The Dutch Government would like to allow QR checks at work. Legal experts expect that employees who refuse could be dismissed.

Election Day is over, but it's by no means clear who the new President of the United States will be. On the morning after Election Day, US expert Sara Polak relects on the results that are in so far, and looks ahead to the coming days.

Financial support that wealthy countries provide to poorer countries in order to help them combat climate change and the associated emissions was the central topic of this year's UN Climate Change Conference in Baku. Annemarie Drahmann, Associate Professor of Constitutional and Administrative Law, discussed…

If a forged Vermeer or Rembrandt is discovered, it is world news. Yet tracing fakes has long been a low priority in art history. University lecturer Anna Tummers will receive an ERC grant of almost two million euros to change that.

Leiden archaeologists appealed for help from volunteers to search for archaeological remains on satellite images of Utrechtse Heuvelrug, a national park close to Utrecht. The outbreak of the corona virus made the project a resounding success: in a single month, all 300,971 maps had been examined. 'That's…

On 11 January 2022, the Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences opened the new year during a livestreamed reception. Dean Paul Wouters and Executive Director of Studies Kristiaan van der Heijden were the hosts. After several faculty prizes were awarded, our Dean expressed a new year’s resolution…

We already know a lot about genetics and the risk of breast cancer. But much still needs to be done in breast cancer genetics to improve the prognosis and make sure women at high risk aren’t missed. This is what Professor by Special Appointment Marjanka Schmidt will say in her inaugural lecture on 4…

Antibiotic resistance is an economic problem. Pharmaceutical companies cannot earn much from antibiotic research, so they do not invest in it. This makes it important that universities do so, says Ned Buijs.

A special relationship between plants and fungi, which plays an important role in carbon storage in soil, has the potential to slow down climate change. However, the amount of carbon stored in soil is decreasing as a result of human activity. This is what researchers say in a publication in Nature Communications.…

Sugar excipients, needed to stabilize medicines, can be unsafe for patients due to an impurity discovered recently by Daniel Weinbuch. ‘The biopharmaceutical industry should now consider new excipient quality criteria for safer drug development,’ he says. PhD defence on 13 December.