The European Regional Office of Astronomy for Development (E-ROAD) has held its first conference session at the 2020 virtual Annual Meeting of the European Astronomical Society (EAS), the largest astronomy conference in Europe. The E-ROAD is an initiative of the International Astronomical Union, the…

The development of smart cars, video games that adapt to your gaming behaviour, law enforcement assigning your neighbourhood a risk score, insurance rates determined by your behaviour, finding your perfect match via an app: Artificial Intelligence (AI) is rapidly and radically transforming our interactions…

The development of smart cars, video games that adapt to your gaming behavior, law enforcement assigning your neighborhood a risk score, insurance rates determined by your behavior, finding your perfect match via an app: Artificial Intelligence (AI) is rapidly and radically transforming our interactions…

What inspiration and impact have been generated by the International Covenants on Civil and Political Rights and on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights? And how can their future role in human rights protection be further enhanced? These are some of the questions that will be addressed at a conference…

Within the scope of innovating and connecting – the theme of our new Strategic Plan – I paid a visit to Brussels last week. It is important to give Leiden University a face in Brussels and to show our expertise, on Africa for instance.

EUROTYPES is a research project developed by political scientist Adina Akbik, for which she recently received a European Research Council Starting Grant. Her aim is to examine the impact of cultural stereotypes in European multi-level policy enforcement. One of EUROTYPES' innovations lies in its focus.…

Learning with the City, a partnership between the Municipality of Leiden, Leiden University and University of Applied Sciences Leiden, has a new online platform. Learning with the City aims to use knowledge and expertise from higher education to solve social issues in Leiden. The platform will help…

The Europa Institute has invited Dorjana Bojanovska from Macedonia to visit Leiden Law School to conduct her master thesis research from 6 March - 31 March 2017. Dorjana is a student at the Comparative Constitutional Law program at the Legal Studies Department of the Central European University. The…

The COVID-19 pandemic and associated measures during the first lockdown in the Netherlands in March 2020 caused major changes in daily life. Parents worked from home and children followed school online. Therefore, the families were forced to spend more time together. This is particularly difficult for…

According to Thomson Reuters’ 2014 Journal Citation Reports® (JCR) and the Washington & Lee University School of Law 2014 Journal Rankings, 22 journals published by the University of Chicago Press rank at the top of their subject categories.

This study is important because it seeks to uncover whether clinicians' communication influences neurobiological and physiological outcomes for patients.

Nanodiamonds and charcoal in Dutch soil provide no evidence for the alleged impact of a meteorite at the end of the last Ice Age. This is the conclusion of a research done by Utrecht University in collaboration with Leiden University and the University of Groningen.

This paper investigates possible convergence of issue salience of terrorism among citizens within the European Union for ten jihadist attacks in the period 2015–2017 using Eurobarometer survey data.

Freshwater and brackish water ecosystems are arguably the most vulnerable ecosystems on earth, due to concentrated human developments in and around them. The Pontocaspian (PC) region located at the border of Europe and Asia contains a variety of brackish water ecosystems and unique inhabitants, known…

Mexico is currently facing an unprecedented social and political crisis, with expanding criminal and political violence, rampant impunity and crumbling political institutions. Next to the daily report of anonymous victims of violence, last summer in Central Mexico at least 15 citizens were executed…

PhD candidate Vincent Walstra reflects on alternative social interactions and mutual aid in the city of Rotterdam during the first wave of the Covid-19 pandemic.

On 21 March 2018, the Dutch people will vote for local their municipality board. In preparation for these elections, the local lobbying groups are more than ever present to voice their own local interests. Arco Timmermans, Endowed Professor Public Affairs at Leiden University, discusses these groups…

Neuroscientist Elseline Hoekzema receives a large European grant from the European Research Council (ERC). This ERC starting grant for promising young researchers allows her to investigate the effects of pregnancy on the brain in detail.

Freshwater is an important resource, but at a great risk of species decline due to habitat loss, pollution and over-exploitation, and invasive alien species.

Prof. Marcel Reinders is a data science specialist at Delft University of technology. Using smart algorithms, he searches for links in complex data. For example, he studies patterns in DNA that lead to aberrant cell behaviour. This knowledge will help detect serious diseases such as Alzheimer's and…

Interested in how you can transfer your knowledge from yourself or from a knowledge institute into society at large? Several experts in the fields of grant development, Intellectual property rights and knowledge brokering take you through the various processes within four weeks time in this online c…

The Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW) has appointed 26 new members. Three of them are Leiden professors: Luuk de Ligt, Lisa Cheng and Marc Koper. The new Academy professors will be installed on 8 June.

Professor of Ecotoxicology Martina Vijver had planned an eight-week field work course for her students, but the corona virus threw a spanner in the works and Vijver had to come up with a new plan at short notice. ‘Without the help of my own network and that of my colleagues this would have been very…

For most school students, writing their extended essay (or profielwerkstuk) is the first time they really come into contact with what it means to do research. But where do you start? This is a question that is nonetheless relevant in contexts where the extended essay is written in English, such as bilingual…

What are the key issues in conducting LCA of bioenergy systems? What is the environmental sustainability status of second generation bioethanol? How much would the final results of biogenic carbon neutrality assumptions deviate from the true values based on a complete inventory? How to assess the impact…

What is the influence of non-hereditary factors on our health, such as lifestyle, diet and exposure to harmful substances? The Exposome-Scan project, led by Leiden professor Thomas Hankemeier, has been awarded 3.2 million euros from the NWO Investment Grant Large programme to answer this question. With…

Benieuwd naar het Groot Auditorium of het Zweetkamertje? Tussen 25 juli en 10 augustus kan je gratis het Academiegebouw bekijken bij een rondleiding.

Theo van den Doel received his PhD in January for his research on veteran support. This showed that for long the government learned little from past missions. He has since presented his dissertation to the Lower House of Representatives, and the Minister for Defence, Kajsa Ollongren, has responded to…

Fourteen of the candidates for the European parliamentary elections on 23 May studied at Leiden University. We ask four of them about their motivation and ambitions. In this article: Conny van Stralen, who studied German, and Maurice Hoogeveen, who studied history.

Leiden has an international reputation as a stronghold of knowledge about cultures worldwide. Under the umbrella name of LeidenGlobal, Leiden University, the National Museum of Antiquities, the Natioial Museum of Ethnology and five research institutes are working together to disseminate this knowledge…

At the Annie Romein-Verschoor Lecture on 8 March, former Minister of Education Jet Bussemaker expressed her surprise at the commotion again raised by the theme of the economic independence of women, within and outside politics.

Lack of money impacts how a person takes financial decisions: now or preferably later. Procrastination and avoidance behaviours in turn have an effect on lack of money, which can result in a sense of loss of control. These are the findings of psychologist Leon Hilbert in his PhD research, although the…

Birds sing to be heard, but how do they cope with increasing noise levels? Which species persist in cities and why? And do they thrive or suffer in the urban soundscape?

Leiden biotech company In Ovo, a spin-off of Leiden University, has received a European Innovation Council Accelerator Pilot Grant. In Ovo will use this 2.5-million-euro grant in its mission to stop the culling of male chicks.

The title of European City of Science was officially handed over to a delegation from Leiden in the Italian city of Trieste on 6 September. Leiden will be the science capital of Europe for the year 2022. The EuroScience Open Forum (ESOF), the largest interdisciplinary science conference in Europe, will…

Symposium | Leiden2022

An international and interdisciplinary collaborative effort, the Honours Class ‘Sustainability Beyond Frustration: Saving the Planet as an Academic Skill’ aims to present students’ ideas to sustainability experts that know how to bring them to fruition.

What are the main factors associated with the stranding of the two seal species? What are the factors influencing the prevalence of disease in the two species? Which human-related factors influence the populations of the two seal species?

In 2016, the 23 members of the League of European Research Universities (LERU) generated a collective economic value of €99.8 billion in Gross Value Added and 1.3 million jobs. These and other figures, which appear in a just published report by LERU, demonstrate the impressive contribution that LERU…

How can business strategies help us solve social problems? This was researched by students of the Master Honours Class 'Social Innovation in Action' over the past twenty weeks. During the final seminar of the class they presented their creative enterprises to tackle child poverty in Leiden. ‘It’s not…

In the research project ‘Furthering public leadership’ the Leiden Leadership Centre collaborates with several public organisations in order to obtain academic insights on public leadership and to develop leadership in practice. This allows for evidence-based development of public leadership and direct…

‘It's right and proper that we have policies to prevent terrorism,' says Francesco Ragazzi, university lecturer in International Relations at Leiden's Institute of Political Science. 'But the way the policies are designed and implemented can have unintended consequences. For example, when teachers are…

For medical research, researchers often recreate tissue in the lab. Organ-on-a-chip technology emulates organs, right down to the blood that flows through them, thus creating a realistic test model for drugs or research into disease processes. Researchers from the LUMC are coordinating an NWO Gravitation…

In the National Think Tank, 20 young academics spend four months mulling over a solution to a societal problem. Two Leiden alumni tell us more.

Minou van der Werf advocates applying insights from social psychology to financial behaviour. Even small practical interventions can help people to make sensible financial choices, Van der Werf discovered as a result of her field studies. PhD defence 10 December.

Auke-Florian Hiemstra is the Leidsch Dagblad Person of the Year 2022.

Leiden University opened its doors on Leiden Museum Night, with a whole host of things to see and do at the Academy Building, Hortus botanicus and Old Observatory. Take a look at the photos and see.

The Etymology Calendar for 2020, which was compiled by five linguistics students from Leiden University, has now hit the shops. After the resounding success of the first Etymology Calendar last year, this year’s version is being published by big-name publishing house Brill.