What’s new, BAIS alumni? This summer, the BAIS Alumni Association hosted the yearly alumni reunion, organized in virtual format for the second time after the previous reunion also took place online in 2020. Feeling the need to compensate for the lack of in-person interaction, the Alumni Association…

Leiden-Delft-Erasmus is introducing three new minors this year: Space Missions, (Re)imagining Port Cities: Understanding Space, and Living Education Lab. Marja Verstelle, Project Manager for Teaching at Leiden-Delft-Erasmus, talks about the importance of multidisciplinary collaboration for the new generation…

In the online panel discussion of ESOF 2022 ‘The effect of the online world on adolescents’, together with Amy Orben, Professor Eveline Crone, Sterre van Riel, Professor Anne-Laura van Harmelen and Professor Jan Sleutels, Professor Ton Liefaard shared his research on adolescents and the online world…

On Wednesday 11 October 2017 the African Studies Centre Leiden and the Van Vollenhoven Institute for Law, Governance and Society are organizing a workshop.

Children and young people feel the government is not listening to them during the coronavirus pandemic and this is a cause for concern in light of international children’s rights. This is the conclusion of a recent report by a research team from Leiden University on how children and youngsters have…

North Korean labourers are still being forced to work in the European Union. According to researchers, including Professor of Korean Studies Remco Breuker at Leiden University, Dutch companies are buying ships from a dockyard that uses North Korean workers.

Linguist Sara Petrollino has written the first detailed grammar of Hamar, a language spoken in south-west Ethiopia that has some unique characteristics. PhD defence 10 November.

University lecturer in Chinese and Comparative Philosophy Jingjing Li has been awarded a Veni grant for her research on feminist theories within the Buddhist philosophy of consciousness-only. Jingjing Li explains her plans and the importance of her research.

Language can be a time machine: we can learn from ancient texts how our ancestors interacted with the world around them. But can language also teach us something about people whose language has been lost? PhD candidate Anthony Jakob investigated whether the languages of prehistoric populations left…

The pesticide thiacloprid turns out to be more harmful than previously thought. It can disrupt the lives of freshwater invertebrates and their communities, upsetting the balance and functioning of entire freshwater ecosystems. This was shown by ecologist Henrik Barmentlo and colleagues, their research…

Professor Nira Wickramasinghe has won the American Historical Association John F. Richards Prize in South Asian History for her book Slave in a Palanquin. Colonial Servitude and Resistance in Sri Lanka' (Columbia University Press: New York 2020).

Rie Schild-de Groen watched over ‘her’ Gentlemen, the residents of the ‘t Heerenhoeckje (Gentlemen’s Corner) Minerva house at Rapenburg 110, like a mother hen for 70 years. She was moved by the stories of residents who had lost loved ones to cancer. Jaap Koster and a few other former housemates helped…

30 Years of Pale Blue Dot - 14 February 2020, Kaiserzaal, Old Observatory - The Pale Blue Dot Symposium is an event to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the iconic picture showing the Earth as a tiny speck in the vastness of space and to discuss its impact on humankind. At the end of the symposium,…

On 11 October 2019, the 5th CML Rev. on Tour conference took place in Paris, at the beautiful Salle des Conseils in Paris 2 Panthéon-Assas University.

From 9 September onwards, Leiden scientists, citizens and farmers will jointly investigate how to sustainably manage peat meadowland. In ten years' time, they hope to have learned how to promote biodiversity and simultaneously reduce nitrogen and CO2 emissions, among other things. The research will…

The CRITTERS exhibition in Naturalis Biodiversity Center lets artists and researchers look for a connection between technology and natural organisms.

Ancient peoples might have harnessed the power of fire to modify their environment

On Saturday 16 January 2016, the Faculty of Archaeology opened its doors to welcome over 100 archaeology and living archaeology enthusiasts from all over the Netherlands. They were participating in a full-day symposium organised by Céline den Engelsman and Casper van Dijk, BA3-students from the archaeology…

David van Bodegom, Professor of Vitality in an Ageing Population, will give his inaugural lecture on 11 November, also titled Vitality in an Ageing Population. According to Van Bodegom the key to healthy ageing is the lived environment. In the fight against lifestyle-related conditions, he therefore…

Keynote speakers: Jennifer Gaynor (University at Buffalo SUNY) and Sue Peabody (Washington State University)

Biodiversity in the Netherlands is having a tough time. Professor of Natural Capital Koos Biesmeijer combines research with practical advice: from the greening of industrial parks to solutions inspired by hi-tech nature. Inaugural lecture 9 March.

Matilda Siebrecht has found the perfect combination of her interests, namely experimental archaeology, and journalism. She was asked by EXARC, a foundation that aims at connecting experimental archaeology professionals, to host a monthly podcast on this topic. ‘It is called Finally Friday, airing every…

2023 GGJ FELLOWSHIP Philosophy- Leiden University The Institute for Philosophy at Leiden University is offering a fellowship to practical philosophers working on the African continent, of four months. The fellow would be in Leiden during the second semester of the academic year 2022/2023, which…

The more than 290 students who will shortly be starting their studies at Campus The Hague, met at some of the city's hotspots on 11 August to get to know one another and the city. 'The Hague is perfect, it's ideally located and it's very international.'

Throughout the 17th and 18th centuries, the city of Batavia was supplied with produce by its hinterland, known as the Ommelanden. Bondan Kanumoyoso studied the history of the various ethnic groups that populated this area and in doing so has shed light on the structure of modern-day Indonesian society.…

From November 4 to 10, the exposition CRITTERS will be exhibited in Naturalis Biodiversity Center during Beyond Human Festival. In CRITTERS artists and researchers are looking for a connection between technology and natural organisms. When does technology become a natural being? And when we examine…

After an intensive tender procedure, Leiden University and the Municipality of Oegstgeest have chosen Dura Vermeer for a new housing development with plenty of affordable homes in Nieuw Rhijngeest-Zuid. Dura Vermeer seeks to create a green and playful neighbourhood with welcoming public spaces as its…

A bloody civil war has raged for years in the Central African Republic. PhD candidate Crépin Mouguia points out a tragic pattern: young people have been recruited as fighters or soldiers for generations and thus fuel the conflicts.

Two Stolpersteine (stumbling stones) have been placed in front of the University Library in memory of the Jewish Cosman family. At the time of the Second World War, they lived in one of the houses where the library is now located.

Every year a photographer portrays Leiden as Stadsfotograaf (City Photographer) of the Leidsch Dagblad. This year it is the honor to Leonie van der Helm, an alumna of cultural anthropology. Over the next 52 weeks, Van der Helm will visualize the meaning of 'home'.

If you know a crime is about to occur, should you be able to prevent it before it has even happened? This was one of the questions that was posed in light of predictive policing as a form of mass surveillance during the debate in the elective Governance of Crime and Social Disorder class of the Crisis…

Climate interventions do not lead to more climate action among Dutch, but they do raise awareness about climate change.

In the Gorlaeus Building, there will be a brand new faculty bar for students and staff. From hundreds of entries, a faculty jury chose the name for this bar. The new bar will be called 'The Fusie'. 'This name exudes togetherness and cosiness,' says FWN assessor Nalani Verwoord. 'And it has an additional…

How do galaxies form? Thanks to major technological advances, astronomers are gaining ever-deeper insights, says astrophysicist Mariska Kriek in her inaugural lecture. ‘It’s almost unbelievable how many significant discoveries the James Webb Space Telescope has already yielded in such a short time.…

It was a remarkable trend in 19th-century London: middle-class bourgeois bohemians falling in love with anarchism and its assassins. University lecturer Michael Newton has been awarded a NIAS subsidy to reconstruct the lives of three of these families.

Tech giants such as Google, Apple, and Microsoft are increasingly shaping the digital world we live in. Reijer Passchier cautions: 'Urgent measures are needed to curb this influence.'

‘She is an example to young researchers who are beginning to find their career path’, wrote the jury of the NWO Athena Award about Professor of Ecotoxicology Martina Vijver. It was the main reason for presenting her with one of the two awards for outstanding female scientists. Both Vijver and Nijmegen…

The ancient Egyptians knew about marks as well as script. The New Empire (ca. 1550-1070 BC) in particular provides a rich harvest. The script has now been deciphered, but the same does not apply to the system of marks used at the time. Egyptologist Ben Haring has been awarded a subsidy by NWO from the…

An organized overview of the current global fungal diversity, that is what Irene Martorelli and colleagues try to achieve with the new MycoDiversity Database (MDDB) she builds in collaboration with Naturalis Biodiversity Center. The new database will make it easier and quicker to observe which fungi…

Why are we unable to address health-care inequality? This was the topic of the inaugural speech of Professor Jet Bussemaker on Friday 15 February 2019. She analysed why current policy does not suffice when it comes to protecting vulnerable groups and fighting inequality. She proposed an agenda that…

Three students in Elpine de Boer’s class “Practicing Religious Studies” have been working together on a “Leren met de Stad” (“Learning with the City”) project with community centre Morschwijck, located in Leiden. The students were asked by the organization Incluzio to investigate to which extent cultural…

Chemical substances and nanomaterials are processed on a massive scale in diverse products, while their risks have not been properly assessed. Time and again synthesised substances have been shown to pollute the environment more than lab tests predicted. This is the warning given by Professor of Ecotoxicology…

On 11 November, neuropsychologist Liza Cornet competed in the semi-final of the FameLab international science communication competition. Her adventure ended there but she’s still ‘delighted’ to have taken part. What did she learn? ‘FameLab forced me to explain my research in everyday language.’

World War II is never over for those who have lived through it. This is the conclusion of Cleveringa Professor Carol Gluck and her students after reading The Assault (De Aanslag) by Harry Mulisch. The book played a central role in Gluck’s honours course.

Tropical butterflies adapt to their environment to improve their chances of survival. The changes are triggered by hormone signals that transmit information about temperature to the butterflies' tissues. Biologist Ana Rita Mateus shows how a complex combination of environment, physiology and genetics…

How do people living in a remote part of Northern Mongolia experience the post-socialist transition that occurred twenty years ago? Based on extensive fieldwork, cultural anthropologist Richard Fraser argues that this is not at all clear. In his PhD dissertation, he developed a new framework based on…

Master's students Adam El Amraoui, Eesha Sheel, Frieda Chen and Lawrence Kurowski are organising a graduate conference. On March 26, students will gather to ponder definitions of belonging both within Asia and among Asian diasporic communities.

How do you know if a drug will actually work? The Leiden-based spin-off Omivera is developing a new technology that could provide clearer answers. The young company received a seed investment from the investment fund UNIIQ to support its development.

The state should prepare 'lifers' better for returning to society, for example by giving them some control over their own lives. This is the finding of Marieke Liem in her book 'After Life Imprisonment', published on 19 August.

Kersti Börjars studied English language and literature in Leiden. She became a professor and now she is Master of the largest college at the University of Oxford: St Catherine’s College. What impact is coronavirus having on St Catherine’s and how has she benefited from her studies in Leiden.