It is still not easy to ‘come out’ about your sexual orientation or gender identity. On Coming Out Day (11 October), the issue was the focus of global attention. This year, instead of the traditional rainbow flag, the ‘progress pride flag’ flew above University buildings.

VALUE (Videogames and Archaeology at Leiden UnivErsity) is publishing an edited volume on the intersection of archaeology, heritage and video games. In this volume, both scholars and game creators are collaboratively writing to raise academic awareness, address a variety of research opportunities and…

Leiden University is working increasingly closely with Chinese universities. On 22 November the Rector signed a statement of intent to ratify the relationship with Xi’an Jiaotong University. Shanghai International Studies University is to include Leiden University as a strategic partner institution…

United Nations Global Pulse, an initiative of the UN Secretary-General on big data and AI, recently launched the Data Fellows program. Kevin Duisters, PhD in Statistics at the Mathematical Institute, was selected to take part in its first cohort of eight international students.

Biologists Michelle Spierings and Ryan Bogaars will both join the Dutch Final of the FameLab Competition on April 21st in Museum Boerhaave, Leiden.

Charlotte Parree won the Jaap Doek Children's Rights Thesis Prize on Tuesday afternoon, 6 December, with her thesis entitled 'Suffering knows no age; active termination of life does.' The prize was awarded for the tenth time by em. prof. Jaap Doek.

On December 6th, 2024, Rector Hester Bijl welcomed participants at the Leiden Jewish Studies Association’s First Annual Conference “Jews at Home: From Creation to Corona” and also presented two Leiden University students with the inaugural Leiden Jewish Studies Association “Best Thesis in Jewish Studies”…

PhD defence

The annual LION Image award goes to the 30 micrometer long 3D printed microboat image that went viral earlier in October 2020, submitted by Rachel Doherty of the Daniela Kraft lab.

Scientists are asking your help to find the origin of hundreds of thousands of galaxies that have been discovered by the largest radio telescope ever built: LOFAR. Where do these mysterious objects, which extend for thousands of light-years, come from? A new citizen science project called LOFAR Radio…

SRON Netherlands Institute for Space Research is moving. In 2021, the Utrecht branch will settle in South-Holland. Pieter Dieleman is group leader at SRON. He tells why the upcoming move is such a good idea: ‘SRON is a connecting factor between Delft and Leiden.’

Leiden molecular cell biologists in the research group of Annemarie Meijer have discovered novel early macrophage-specific genes in zebrafish, including a signal transducer pivotal for the migration of macrophages in the innate immune response to bacterial infection. Their findings were published on…

In an Advance Online Publication biophysicist John van Noort and others show using magnetic tweezers that DNA is folded in compliant helices of chromatin. This allows enzymes access to the DNA needed for gene expression. Van Noort's research group made the discovery in close partnership with researchers…

Director General of ESO, Tim de Zeeuw received President of the Republic of Chile, Michelle Bachelet Jeria for a ceremony marking the first stone of ESO’s Extremely Large Telescope (ELT).

Five projects with a lead applicant from Leiden will receive an Open Science Fund grant from the Dutch Research Council (NWO).

An international team of astronomers has published the most sensitive images of the Universe ever taken at low radio frequencies, using the International Low Frequency Array (LOFAR). ‘LOFAR is unique in its ability to make high-quality images of the sky at metre-wavelengths’, said Huub Röttgering, Leiden…

During illness, the stiffness or viscosity of cells can change. Tom Evers demonstrated this by measuring such properties of human immune cells for the first time. ‘The stiffness of certain cells could be a way to make a diagnosis,’ Evers said. He defended his thesis on March 26th.

Over a seven year period an international team of scientists has mapped more than a quarter of the northern sky using the Low Frequency Array (LOFAR), a pan-European radio telescope. From Leiden, Astronomer Timothy Shimwell and Huub Röttgering, among others, are involved. It reveals an astonishingly…

On 15 January, the winner of the famed LION Image Award will be announced. Submissions ranged from the famous 3d printed microboat to an eerily abstract graph depicting a Majorana fermion.

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…

The Dick Stufkens Prize 2020 for the best PhD thesis of the Holland Research School of Molecular Chemistry has been awarded to Dr Mark Koenis. Koenis graduated 21 February with the distinction cum laude on his thesis 'Advanced Spectra Analysis to Determine Complex Structure and Chirality'. He describes…

'The kind of knowledge you gain in International Studies can take you anywhere,' says Gaby van de Wal (26, The Hague, The Netherlands), who graduated from the programme in 2018. Her own career path is proof that indeed, an International Studies degree comes with many opportunities.

The Sustainable City Lab The Hague will be a hub that connects organisations in The Hague that work on sustainability with the research and teaching at Leiden University. ‘We’re going to set to work on complex sustainability challenges in our own backyard,’ says project leader Eefje Cuppen.

Directing soil life and thereby influencing what grows above ground: that is the expertise of Leiden biologist Martijn Bezemer and his colleague Wim van der Putten (NIOO-KNAW). Their research on soil transplants has been nominated for the Huibregtsen Prize 2023. This prize goes to innovative research…

European dependence on Russian gas, earthquake damage in Groningen and the changing climate: the call for an energy transition is getting louder. This transition will be accompanied by an increasing demand for 'new' raw materials. The Geo-Resources for the Future minor looks at exactly that developm…

For the first time in the Netherlands, an exotic insect species is released into the wild to combat a harmful plant species. The Japanese knotweed psyllid should offer relief against the rampant Asian knotweed. Suzanne Lommen of the Institute of Biology Leiden coordinates the field trials.

Restoring a natural plant environment on exhausted agricultural lands and in nature areas is difficult. We can speed this up by steering the soils towards the desired situation. This is what Martijn Bezemer, newly appointed Professor of Ecology of Plant-Microbe-Insect interactions at Leiden University’s…

Strengthening nature and at the same time investing in future-proof agriculture. That is the task of the Minister for Nature and Nitrogen, Christianne van der Wal. It is also the lifework of Leiden professor Jan Willem Erisman. He has been researching nitrogen for his entire career and has shown that…

In our globalised economy, goods and services are frequently produced abroad. Is it the producer or the consumer that should be held responsible for greenhouse gas emissions associated with production? Together with colleagues from Berlin, Hauke Ward of the Institute of Environmental Sciences (CML)…

What if we start taxing carbon-intensive products such as electricity and gasoline, and at the same time compensate low-income households? Hauke Ward and colleagues did just that in a computer simulation for Peru, with a remarkable outcome. Not only does the approach tackle climate change, but it could…

Cotton is the most widely used natural fibre for clothes. But how polluting are our jeans and shirts actually? Environmental scientist Laura Scherer coordinated an international research project on the impacts of cotton. ‘The purchases of consumers in Europe can contribute to water scarcity in China…

Math girls Jeanine Daems and Ionica Smeets have received the Mr. K.J. Cath prize during the opening of the academic year in Leiden.

ACPA alumnus Kevin Toksöz Fairbairn has just published a new book at Punctum Books - dis/cord: Thinking Sound through Agential Realism.

In the Leiden Tutor programme, Leiden students support junior school pupils from lower socio-economic backgrounds. This is a difficult task so the department has now launched a website offering tips and tricks. These tips and tricks can also be useful for other tutors in the Netherlands.

For a new special issue of The Hague Journal of Diplomacy, we are inviting you to submit a proposal for a research article on space diplomacy (deadline: 24 July 2021).

Coming spring, Professor Tom Lubensky from the University of Pennsylvania will be the 64th Lorentz Professor at the department of Theoretical Physics. He is a pioneer in the field of theoretical soft matter physics and winner of the prestigious Buckley Condensed Matter Prize. During his stay in Leiden…

On July 3rd the Leiden University Dialogue in Education Network (LUDIEN) has officially been launched. The network welcomes all who are interested in dialogue as a tool for connection and improved student wellbeing in higher education. The dialogue method is moreover useful to talk about sensitive issues…

Peter Burger is a university lecturer at the master in Journalism and New Media and co-founder of Nieuwscheckers. He now teaches the course Factchecken at Leiden University. He also supervises theses and internships and conducts research into the trustworthiness of news and messages on social media.

Salvador Regilme recently joined the Institute for History as a lecturer in International Relations.

On Friday 30 November 2018 more than 70 students became acquainted with the large range of companies that Leiden Bio Science Park has to offer. In addition to the companies with eye-catching façade names along the cycling route to the faculty, like CHDR, BaseClear and Astellas, there is much more to…

Every year The Young Academy (a sub-group of KNAW) nominates ten talented researchers to join their ranks. This year two of the nominees are from Leiden University: Quentin Bourgeois and Frans Snik.

Dr Bela Bode receives a Feodor Lynen research fellowship for postdoctoral researchers by the Alexander von Humboldt-Foundation for development of new methods for signal enhancement in solid state NMR. He aims to create a specific analytical tool for surface studies and research on membranes and membrane…

The Netherlands eScience Center has announced to fund a new Path-Finding Project led by Dr. Dorothea Samtleben from the Leiden Institute of Physics (LION). This project aims to make the processing of detection signals more efficient for the KM3NeT neutrino telescope, which is currently under construction…

A new computer simulation shows the promising possibilities of the booming field of topology. Smartly designed mechanical structures carry sound exclusively one way and are immune to fabrication errors. Publication on 17 July in Nature Physics.

An international team of astronomers, including Leiden's Maciej Bilicki, has discovered an enormous supercluster of galaxies. The supercluster had previously been overlooked because it was obscured by our own Milky Way. The researchers are publishing their findings in the Monthly Notices of the Royal…

Finding housing is your own responsibility therefore it is important to plan ahead. Find out how and when to start your search and read other important tips and advice.

The Around the Rapenburg walk takes you along the canal where Leiden University was founded 450 years ago.

Lecture

The European Project SUNRISE, ‘Solar energy for a circular economy’, has been selected as one of the six Coordination and Support Actions (CSA) within the Horizon 2020 programme of the European Commission. Funded with 1 million euros, it will set the base for a large scale European research project.…