A lot has changed for students during the corona crisis: no physical education, exams behind the computer, and lecturers who accidentally mute themselves during an online lecture. How do students experience online education? ‘During one of the lectures in Teams, someone kept on kicking people out of…

For the first time, astronomers have managed to take a photo of a supermassive black hole and its shadow. They used the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT), a worldwide network of eight radio telescopes that together form a virtual telescope the size of the earth. The news was presented in six press conferences…

Leiden University was present for the second time at the second Leiden Pride on Saturday.

Ton Schumacher, professor by special appointment in Immunotechnology at the LUMC and group leader of Molecular Oncology and Immunology at the Netherlands Cancer Institute, has been awarded the NWO Stevin Prize. The Stevin Prize and the Spinoza Prize are the top scientific prizes in the Netherlands and…

China is an important partner of Leiden University. We collaborate with more than 20 Chinese universities and welcome around 400 Chinese Bachelor’s, Master’s and PhD students.

The Leiden Institute of Chemistry (LIC) is to be joined by a further two talented young chemists. Bela Bode and Michele Pavanello have each won a Marie Curie subsidy. Bode will be studying electron transport in photosynthesis and Pavanello will be using computer models to study charge transport in large…

The Ecuadorian Pachakutik party is one of the oldest indigenous political movements in Latin America. Despite not being very successful at the polls and hardly having organisational resources at its disposal, Pachakutik is still part of Ecuador’s political landscape. In her dissertation, Political Scientist…

Observations made with the ALMA telescope in Chile and ESA’s Rosetta mission, have detected the faint molecular fingerprint of methyl chloride in gas, a chemical commonly produced by industrial biological processes on Earth, around both an infant star and a comet. Methyl chloride, also known as Freon-40,…

They might not have had Twitter, but they did have brochures (pamphlets), the Roman Catholics and ‘modern’ Protestants between 1840 and 1870. In these, they launched a passionate attack on each other’s ideas. Ineke Smit has catalogued the brochures from the collection of the University Library and outlined…

Rychard Bouwens from the Leiden Observatory is the first scientist in the Netherlands to be assigned a Large Programme on the state-of-the-art ALMA telescope in Chile. With his team, he wants to use the unique capabilities of the billion-euro facility to investigate the build-up of massive galaxies…

Although smartphones and other consumer cameras are increasingly used for scientific applications like citizen science, it’s still difficult to compare and combine data from different devices. PhD student Olivier Burggraaff developed a new easy-to-use standardised method which makes it possible for…

Last week’s sunny Lowlands festival was not just an occasion for partying and dancing. Visitors were also given a glimpse – as test volunteers – into scientific research. How do you conduct research on fear and silent communication at a festival?

Roderick Bouman is collection manager of the Leiden Hortus botanicus. He keeps track of which plants there are in the garden, where they come from and makes sure visitors can find the right information about them. ‘We are like a regular museum,’ says Bouman. ‘Except that our objects are alive. That…

Deze week sluiten we het academisch jaar af met verschillende FGGA-studenten, waarin zij hun zomer- en toekomstplannen vertellen, maar ook terugblikken op het afgelopen jaar: ‘Ik vond het ontzettend prettig om weer terug te komen naar de fijne sfeer op Wijnhaven.’

When stars are born, large clouds of gas and dust form that are known as circumstellar discs. Research by PhD candidate Francisca Concha-Ramírez shows that strong radiation from neighbouring stars soon evaporates the dust in these discs, which can prevent planet formation at an early stage. PhD defence…

The Tour of Asia, an afternoon filled with science and culture about Asia, attracted many visitors. In spite of the heavy rain, the visitors chose from among dozens of lectures and debates. This knowledge festival marked the opening of the Asian Library earlier in the day.

The 2017 Nobel Prize in Physics has been awarded to Rainer Weiss, Barry Barish and Kip Thorne for their work on the measurement of gravitational waves. Thorne was Lorentz Professor in 2009 in Leiden. Physicist Jan Willem van Holten explains why this is such an important discovery. ‘A new branch of astrophysics…

Over 30.000 pages of new material have been added to the online collection of unofficial poetry publications from China in the Leiden Digital Collections. Produced outside the system, these journals and books are hugely influential yet very hard to find. To address this paradox, Leiden University Libraries…

Legal philosopher Bart Jansen teaches at universities around the world. In an interview two years ago, he spoke about his professional fascination for dictators and wars. Since then, the world has undergone major changes. High time for a follow-up interview.

Our lecturers had just a week to convert their subjects into online formats. It was an enormous challenge because by no means everyone was involved in remote teaching at Leiden University. As well as being Vice-Dean of Leiden Law School, Ton Liefaard is also a lecturer. ‘I especially want to support…

With new algorithms and supercomputers, an incredibly detailed radio map of the universe was created. Now astronomers can look at radio data of galaxies with much more precision. This was published in Nature Astronomy by Leiden PhD student Frits Sweijen and colleagues.

A plant-based diet could improve the resilience of our food system. Moving to such a diet in the European Union (EU) and United Kingdom (UK) alone could replace almost all the production losses from Russia and Ukraine. That’s what an international team of researchers conclude in Nature Food. Leiden…

With its FestivOWL theme, Orientation Week Leiden (OWL) promises to be one big festival for new international students in Leiden.

Astronomers have discovered seven Earth-like planets around a dwarf star in our galaxy. Three of these planets are located in the habitable zone of this star, and may contain liquid water. ‘The next step is to study the atmospheres for signs of life. In Leiden we are experts in that area,‘ says planetary…

2020 will go down in the history books as an eventful year. The traces left by the coronavirus this year will remain, for students as well as staff at Leiden Law School. A review of the year in photos and videos.

Now that the Herta Mohr building is fully operational, construction work is moving to the other side of the University Library. Over the coming years, the former Matthias de Vrieshof will be transformed into the Aleida Nijland building. Architect Bart van Kampen tells us more about the plans.

‘Yamila Miguel brings along immense enthusiasm that sparks over to the students in the lectures,’ her students say about her. ‘She inspires us as scientists-to-be.’ The astronomer teaches master’s students with great passion and interactivity about exoplanets. She has been nominated for the faculty…

A group of astronomers led by Leiden PhD student Sebastian Zieba has discovered using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) that the rocky exoplanet TRAPPIST-1 c has a thin atmosphere. Although the planet is nearly identical to Venus in size and temperature, and was expected to have a thick atmosphere,…

The nominees for the IRO Thesis Prize 2025 and the Prof. Dr. J.Th.J. van den Berg-prijs 2025. Who authored the best thesis in Leiden University’s bachelor’s programme in Political Science?

How did you get to where you are now? This is a key question in the Academic Life Course board game, developed by and for academics. ‘In a normal working week we hardly ever talk about the career choices we make, but with this game, we do.’

Over 160 years ago, the Hague-based photography pioneer and traveler Alexine Tinne (1835-1869) captured current South Sudan and its inhabitants on film. These photographs represent some of the earliest images taken in the heart of the African continent.

From research on stellar winds to sign language: an impressive seven researchers from Leiden University will receive a prestigious Vici grant from the Dutch Research Council (NWO).

Astronomer Ignas Snellen studies exoplanets using telescope observations. But how is that possible when all the big telescopes are more or less at a standstill? Luckily, he has contact from home with a robot telescope in Mexico and his WIFI is finally working well.

Kitesurfing, colonising the Binnenhof and most important of all - meeting fellow students. More then 700 students of Leiden University in The Hague get to know the city and one another during the HOPweek.

A group of astronomers was actually examining the dust disc around the young double star CS Cha, when they saw a small dot on the edge of their images. It turned out to be a small planet of only a few million years young, which moves along with the double star. Whether it is a super-Jupiter in the making…

It does not happen very often that a research project for a second-year bachelor's course gets turned into a proper academic paper. But International Studies students Pia Kurz, Coleen Gonner and Monika Bartnicka did just that. How did they manage it?

During the first weekend of October, a group of fourteen Master of Arts in European Union Studies alumni returned to the place it all began, 15 years after graduating from Leiden University. The international group, representing the Netherlands, Norway, Slovenia, Bulgaria, Hungary, Latvia, Belgium and…

From a meaningless block of plastic to an advanced component that contributes to the energy transition. The technicians and scientists of our faculty think it out in detail and make it a reality. This special project shows that they need each other.

An international team of astronomers led by scientists from Leiden Observatory has for the first time characterised a dust disk surrounding a young super-Jupiter, which is either a giant planet or brown dwarf. They detected infrared emission from the disk which might indicate that moons may have formed.…

Seger Kersbergen studied the Cabo Verdean nightlife in Rotterdam. He explains how their music describes their nightlife and daily lives.

European Commissioner for Competition, Margrethe Vestager, gave a warning in the Europa Lecture on 14 June about large companies that abuse their power. 'An honest society begins with honest markets.'

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,…

A new way to decipher the light from distant worlds could give us unmistakable evidence of extraterrestrial photosynthesis, and maybe alien plants, finds astronomy author Colin Stuart in the New Scientist. In his article, he describes the work of the group led by Leiden astronomer Rob van Holstein.…

Many protoplanetary discs in which new planets are formed are much smaller than thought. Using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) scientists of the Leiden Observatory looked at 73 protoplanetary discs in the Lupus region.

What once began as an assignment for a master’s course and continued as a master’s thesis, has now culminated in a substantial book. Or has it finished? Actually, for Hendrikx, this is just the beginning: ‘I can finally reap the rewards of my research.’

One unravels the origin of the largest black holes in the universe, the other investigates the influence of stellar wind on the atmosphere of exoplanets. Both Elena Maria Rossi and Aline Vidotto receive a Vici grant for their research into the mysteries of the universe. ‘I have no idea yet how we can…

How can you see something that’s invisible? Well, with Euclid! This future ESA telescope will map the structure of the Universe and teach us more about invisible dark matter and dark energy. Scientific coordinator of Euclid and Leiden astronomer Henk Hoekstra explains how this works.

In a new series we talk to past and present students who were the first in their family to go to university. In this first instalment: novelist and columnist Christiaan Weijts (1976). ‘I always felt as though someone would tap me on my shoulder once they’d discovered my clandestine presence.’

With the red flag flying proudly on the Academy Building (Leiden University was on strike for the first time in its history!), the farewell event for former dean Mark Rutgers was held in the Telders Auditorium. After eight years, he has passed the baton to the interim dean, Henk te Velde.

Almost a thousand students started HOPweek in The Hague on Monday morning. During this introduction week students get to know the city, the university and each other.