Inaugural lecture

Lecture

Psychologist Ellen de Bruijn studies the effects of hormonal fluctuations on behaviour and on the brain over a woman's life course. With an ERC Consolidator grant, she and 3 PhDs and a postdoc will further her EEG research on the different stages at which girls and women experience strong hormonal f…

From a queer art exhibition to a podcast about people with disabilities, the JEDI Fund this year again honored several projects that contribute to diversity and inclusion.

After 2.5 years as defence minister, it is time for Kajsa Ollongen to hand over the baton. In front of a packed audience, she gave her farewell speech at Leiden University in The Hague on Tuesday, which included personal lessons and memories, from sleeping on the ground with the prime minister to the…

Skype a Scientist is an online platform that matches scientists with classrooms and families around the world. At the start of the corona crisis, PhD candidate Maia Casna got involved with this online platform. Now she holds online sessions to talk about science and her research project during the lockdown.…

On March 11, a travelling photo exposition on the Mayan archaeological site El Mirador, in Guatemala, saw its festive opening at the Van Steenis building. For the occasion a special Faculty Lecture was organised, entitled 'Water Legacy: Mayan World Meets the Netherlands'. We were honored to receive…

Annually, approximately 60.000 people in the Netherlands undergo radiation therapy for cancer. Coen Rasch is dedicated to enhancing the precision of proton therapy.

In Indonesië zijn studenten massaal in opstand gekomen tegen de regering, die vlak voordat er straks een nieuw parlement aantreedt, nog snel een aantal nieuwe wetten wil doorvoeren.

‘A Muslim and a Jew in the house of God.’ This is how historian Nadia Bouras introduced her recent conversation with colleague Sara Polak in Leiden’s Hooglandse Kerk. They discussed the rising tensions since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war. ‘Dare to ask each other questions.’

The third edition of the bi-annual Children's Rights Moot Court has come to a spectacular end in the first week of April.

Haar hele leven wilde de geadopteerde Cindy Huijgen terug naar haar geboorteland China. Inmiddels is de alumnus Chinastudies en Journalistiek en Nieuwe Media er correspondent.

This PhD project investigates how automatic sign language recognition technology can be further developed to analyse static images and textual descriptions of signs.

Natalia Sobrino-Saeb, third-year student at LUC, won the competition by the Ignitor Fellowship Program held by the Nobel Peace Center for her essay on the threats to journalism in Mexico. An article about Natalia and her prize appeared in the Mexican newspaper El Heraldo de México.

Associate professor Eric Storm discusses the return of imperial ambitions in global politics on The Conversation. He argues that leaders like Putin, Xi, and Trump challenge the post-WWII international order.

Ann Bessemans, who received her PhD degree from the Academy of Creative and Performing Arts Leiden University in 2012, has set a world record for the biggest number of words on a postage stamp.

How do you write a job advertisement that appeals to both men and women? This question is particularly pressing in French, where every noun has a clearly visible grammatical gender. University researcher Benjamin Storme investigated how employers can best deal with this issue.

In een uitzending van het Politiek Café van - Dit is de Dag (NPO) discussieerden staatsrecht-experts Corne Smit en Wim Voermans over de vraag of een minderheidskabinet in Nederland levensvatbaar is. Hun antwoorden liepen uiteen, maar kwamen op hetzelfde neer: stabiliteit.

In an innovative study, Radboudumc and LUMC jointly tested a candidate vaccine based on a genetically weakened malaria parasite. The results of this clinical trial, published in Science Translational Medicine, show that the vaccine is safe and elicits a defense response against a malaria infection.

The Europa Instituut is pleased to announce that this week a new handbook “EU State Aids” (31 Chapters, 1500 pages) was published.

A more inclusive and diverse society is what Talisha Schilder, Hawra Nissi and Chiraz Hassoumi spend many hours a week working towards. Their hard work led them to being nominated for the ECHO Award.

PhD candidate Sulakhana de Mel discusses the link between geography, trade and food in Sri Lankan newspaper The Examiner.

Joanita Vroom's term as Head of the Department for World Archaeology runs out on March 1, 2023. Quentin Bourgeois will succeed her. In this interview, we look both back on the turbulent last three years and ahead at what the future has in store for the department. ‘I am very proud of the World Archaeology…

Professor Nira Wickramasinghe will research forgotten lineages with an NWO Open Competition grant, in particular the afterlife of Dutch slavery in the Indian Ocean World.

Graduation MIRD Class of 2024: 'The world is better off with students like this'

During the past year online meetings and lectures have become a firm feature of university life. One of the highlights of the Leiden University Centre for Linguistics’ online activities has been the online seminar series ‘Language policy and practices in the Global North and South’ organised by guest…

A dissertation covered in hot pink faux fur, antique prints of PhD ceremonies, a pot encrusted with sealing wax: the Hora est! anniversary exhibition at Oude UB takes you to the ritual yet idiosyncratic world of PhD ceremonies.

It all started with demonstrations protesting about the death of George Floyd from police brutality in Minneapolis, but the Black Lives Matter protest is spreading like wildfire across the whole of the US. Every day, thousands of people are taking to the streets. We asked American Studies expert Sara…

Leiden alumna Tulasi Das moved to England to pursue a career in film, was accepted onto the BBC Trainee Scheme and now works in London as a researcher on historical documentaries. “I still can’t believe I get to do such cool work.”

The students from the Leiden University Green Office have big ambitions and have outlined their recommendations in a new Green Paper. Like being the most sustainable university in the world by 2030. Students Janey Franssen and Job Kemperman are two of the paper’s authors. How do they want to achieve…

The Grotius Centre has been running summer schools for many years now. The International Criminal Law Summer School will run for the 15th time this summer, and new schools are being added to the curriculum each year. Dr. Robert Heinsch, Associate Professor of International Law & Director Kalshoven-Gieskes…

Together with students and local residents, historians Ariadne Schmidt and Alicia Schrikker researched the Leiden Transvaal neighbourhood. They will present their findings on Thursday 20 October, at a specially organised mini-festival in the neighbourhood.

On November 27-28 2025, the congress 'Disability and inclusion in the medieval city: a comparative view between Europe and the Islamic World' will be held at the university of Cantabaria, Spain. The deadline for submissions is 13 October, 2025

Hoe kijken Nederlandse bedrijven naar online prijsdiscriminatie? Kimia Heidary, Bart Custers, Helen Pluut en Jean-Pierre van der Rest schreven hier een artikel over.

On 5 September, spaceEU was launched at the Ars Electronica Festival in Linz, one of the world’s largest science, technology and media art festivals. This 1 million euro European-funded project is coordinated by Leiden Observatory. SpaceEU fosters a young, creative and inclusive European space community…

A workshop (Cairo, Egypt, 14-15 September 2018) organized by the Netherlands-Flemish Institute in Cairo with support from “DICIS” / Digital Cinema Studies https://www.digitalcinemastudies.com/

How did people move and form communities when human societies first shifted from hunting and gathering to farming? A new study of the Neolithic period in southwest Asia, the birthplace of agriculture, offers fresh insights.

No less than 33 project received a Leiden Kiem grant in 2023. How did they fare? Olga Bogolyubova shares experiences from her project ‘Interdisciplinary Approaches to the Study of Safety and Danger in the Digital World’.

Earlier this week, a working group of the United Nations, comprising all 193 of its member states, adopted a consensus report on norms for responsible state behaviour in cyberspace. Dennis Broeders, full professor of Global Security and Technology at the Institute of Security and Global Affairs, Leiden…

Rafaëlle Kwakkel is currently studying Literary Studies: Literature in Society. In addition to her studies, she works at Studium Generale and enjoys being creative.

The new minor in 'Creative strategies for a society in change' will start in September. The Leiden Academy of Creative and Performing Arts (ACPA) has entered into a partnership with the The Hague Film House and will be letting students experience what it is like to work as an artist. ‘We want to teach…

Sara Petrollino, a university lecturer in linguistics, strongly believes that language influences the way we see the world. An NWO Open Competition (XS) grant will enable her to test this hypothesis among the Ethiopian Hamar people. ‘The idea that everyone thinks in geometric shapes is culturally de…

It is the fifth year in a row that the Faculty of Archaeology is placed in the top ten of archaeological institutes worldwide. The QS World University Rankings by Subject looks at criteria like academic reputation and citation ratios. Dean Jan Kolen is pleased with this news: 'In recent years, the Faculty…

Working for a social client during your studies: this is what happens at Urban Studies. For the course Urban Studies in Practice, third-year students carry out projects for public clients, such as the municipality of The Hague.

The Executive Board of Leiden University has appointed Dr Alicia Schrikker as Professor History of The Netherlands in the world, effective 1 January 2026. The chair is based at the Institute for History at the Faculty of Humanities.

A linguistic reconstruction of the migration of the Tocharians from Europe to China

Last week, Dr. Joris Larik, Assistant Professor of Comparative, EU and International Law at Leiden University College and convener of the International Justice major, gave a presentation at the Second World Meeting of Societies for International Law at the Peace Palace in The Hague.

The students of European Union Studies visited Brussels this October, and it was another successful and worthwhile trip for those students in the MA International Relations programme.

On 10 May Maarten Aalbers, PhD-fellow and research staff member at the Europa Institute, participated in the “State Aid Compliance Seminar”, hosted by Europa decentraal, the EU law center for local and regional authorities in the Netherlands. Maarten Aalbers presented on the interaction between EU competition…

The Europa Institute is honoured to announce that a Leiden alumna has received an award from the Nederlandse Vereniging voor Europees Recht (NVER) for her master thesis.