Good mental health provides a strong foundation for study and work. It is important to seek help if you are not doing well. There are a range of ways in which you can work on your mental well-being. You can also turn to others for help and guidance. Take a look at the various options available.

Theft, prostitution, fortune-telling or murder. Historian Manon van der Heijden and a group of students are researching court records from The Hague from 1600 to 1800. They are tracing crimes and offenders and shedding new light on The Hague’s Gevangenpoort (or Prison Gate). Among their many discoveries…

Students stream into the lecture hall, handing in their mobile phones at the door. Once everyone’s seated, silence descends and all eyes turn to the large screen at the front of the lecture hall. A live connection has been set up with the prison where Marco is a long-term inmate. Today, the students…

Iraqi-Kurdish student of Middle Eastern Studies Bareez Majid has been nominated for the ECHO Award. ‘She has a strong personality, though she may appear unassuming at first,’ was the comment from one of her lecturers.

Historic and iconic yet expensive and cold. It’s with mixed feelings that the university is leaving the Gravensteen building, which dates back to the 12th century. How was it to work and study in this former Leiden prison?

In the disk surrounding the young star WISPIT 2, not one but two planets are taking shape. Leiden PhD candidate Richelle van Capelleveen played a key role in this discovery, providing a rare glimpse into the early stages of planetary system formation.

Why do innocent people sometimes spend years in prison? EUREX is a registry of miscarriages of justice in Europe that ultimately led to exonerations. The aim is to prevent such mistakes being made in future. One of the initiators is Leiden legal psychologist Linda Geven.

Workshop brings multidisciplinary experts together to debate proposed detection technologies and their impact on fundamental rights.

On 26 November 1940 Professor Cleveringa held his courageous speech protesting against the dismissal of his Jewish colleague, Professor Meijers. Cleveringa was arrested and the university was closed. Every year the university honours Cleveringa with a chair and meetings throughout the world.

Astronomers led by Leiden PhD candidate Richelle van Capelleveen have, for the first time, discovered an exoplanet that has carved a bright gap in the protoplanetary disc around its star. This rare observation provides new insights into how young planets shape their surroundings.

Exploring the largest structures in the universe by looking at the tiniest particles? Lydia Stofanova, PhD candidate at Leiden Observatory and SRON Netherlands Institute for Space Research, dives into this intricate connection. In her PhD research, she explored how elements like oxygen influence the…

‘Space Antenna LISA will open an unprecedented window on the Universe,’ says astronomer Elena Maria Rossi. The mission will be the first one to detect Gravitational Waves from space. These can tell us more about the beginning of our Universe and the formation of black holes. With an NWO grant of twelve…

'The chance of a pandemic is small, but not zero,' according to Nikki Ikani, assistant professor of intelligence and security. She warns in various media outlets about the ignored signals and the facilitated mutations, calling it 'alarming that mammals can also contract it.'

Astronomers have found complex organic ice outside the Milky Way for the first time. The discovery shows that the building blocks of life could arise early in the universe - and under a variety of conditions, said Leiden astronomer Will Rocha.

AI can help in the online detection of hate speech, but whether the technology would always make the right choices is debatable. Students Tofigh Hasen Nezhad Nisi (Tax Law) and Terra Rolfe (Governance, Economics and Development, LUC) published an article on this topic in Leiden Science Magazine. In…

The university bid farewell to its Rector Magnificus, Hester Bijl, on 13 January during the ‘Hester’s Highlights’ symposium.

Dozens of Dutch nationals are being held in detention facilities in Northeast Syria or have been transferred to Iraq, risking torture or the death penalty. PhD candidate Ida Asscher says the Netherlands should repatriate them. 'States must comply with international law, even in difficult situations.…

PhD candidate Julia Wąsala searches for greenhouse gas emissions in satellite data. As a computer scientist, she bridges the gap between computer science and space research. ‘We really can't do this research without collaboration.’

Is it possible to measure subtle oscillations caused by dark matter moving through the earth? A Dutch-American physicist team have discovered a new route toward what could be the first-ever measurement of ultralight dark matter. They suspended a microscopic magnet inside a superconducting enclosure,…

A new graphene-based method could make for faster, cheaper and more accurate DNA sequencing, say a group of Leiden physicists and chemists.

The compulsory reading list is infamous among secondary school students, and for all the wrong reasons. This prompted the Faculty of Humanities and the Onderwijsnetwerk Zuid-Holland (South Holland Education Network) to launch the Alternative Reading List Award, in search of books that motivate young…

Education

On 11 November Professor of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Monique van Leerdam will deliver her inaugural lecture entitled, ‘Aiming for Prevention’. Van Leerdam, who specialises in hereditary tumours, was appointed professor in July 2020. In her inaugural lecture she will discuss the importance of…

Even with state-of-the-art technology, it is almost impossible to see: a cosmic neutrino. Yet scientists have managed to image this particle with a deep-sea telescope. And that could help to better understand our universe. Leiden particle physicists collaborated on this ambitious project, published…

Leiden scientists and companies receive 1.37 million euros to develop technology for the Einstein Telescope. This underground telescope will measure gravitational waves and must therefore be extremely sensitive. To that end, the consortium conducts research on the damping of vibrations at temperatures…

Using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) in Chile, researchers at Leiden Observatory in the Netherlands have for the first time detected dimethyl ether in a planet-forming disc. With nine atoms, this is the largest molecule identified in such a disc to date. It is also a precursor…

As an experiment, student Alicia Cai relied solely on AI tools such as ChatGPT and Claude for supervision while writing her thesis. What lessons were learned?

To look for atmospheres around planets outside our solar system is to look for extraterrestrial life. Astronomist Sebastian Zieba used data from the James Webb Space Telescope to study small rocky exoplanets but found no aliens yet. However, his findings are still very interesting for future observations.…

When we think of unethical medical experiments, we tend to think first of Nazi Germany. What is less well known is that experiments were also carried out in colonised areas without the explicit consent of the test subject. University lecturer Fenneke Sysling has received a European grant to research…

On the university’s birthday, professors teach a class of 10 and 11-year-olds during Meet the Professor. The professors were bombarded with questions.

Just a few years ago, jihadist terrorism was seen as Europe’s most pressing threat. Today, we are facing hybrid warfare and extremist groups that are undermining our safety from within. Bart Schuurman, Professor of Terrorism and Political Violence, calls for a different kind of research.

Three lecturers from Leiden University have been awarded a 100,000-euro Comenius Teaching Fellowship within the scope of the Senior Fellows programme. The grant will enable them and their project teams to carry out their own teaching innovation project.

For many people, five o’clock signals the end of their working day. But not for the motivated students of the Honours College Law. With some drinks and snacks, they keep going well into the evening. This time, they met for the festive conclusion of a course which brought the history of Dutch crime to…

We start the second day of the FLO event with the skills workshops. We have 2 rounds of skills workshops about several skills.

A team of students from Leiden won the iGEM international biology contest in 2020 with their Rapidemic mobile testing kit. The kit makes it easy to detect viruses. The team has now been nominated for the Most Innovative Student in the Netherlands prize. Cast your vote and help them develop their inv…

We need to be quicker and better at discovering side effects. In her inaugural lecture, Agnes Kant, Professor by Special Appointment of Innovation of Pharmacovigilance, calls for more research on these adverse effects.

The annual Amnesty International Masterclass on China took place recently in Leiden. The masterclass, which looked at China’s impact on human rights, was given online to students of Law and Chinese.

LION

Over the past year, many students and staff members of Leiden Law School have been lauded for their extraordinary achievements. For instance: a grant received, an award won, or an appointment by a special committee. We have combined all these achievements in our Honours Gallery 2022:

Professor Ian Lilley, the Faculty of Archaeology’s Willem Willems Chair in Archaeological Heritage, was invited by Her Excellency Mrs. Marion Derckx, Ambassador of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Australia, to present the 2022 commemoration speech for Netherlands Memorial Day on May 4th at the Netherlands-Australia…

Education

Dutch and Flemish partners, including Leiden University, are joining forces as the European Digital Media Observatory (EDMO) in the fight against the spread of fake news, and have received the support of the European Commission.

The night side of exoplanet WASP-43b, to the surprise of astronomers, does not appear to contain methane. It is likely that extreme winds do not allow enough time for methane to form in detectable amounts. This is the conclusion of an international team of scientists, with Leiden and Amsterdam contributions,…

Workshop brings multidisciplinary experts together to produce interdisciplinary outcomes on the EU’s Proposal for a Regulation to prevent and combat child sexual abuse.