During the official opening of the 2018-2019 Academic Year on Monday 3 September, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer will talk about Europe and the future of our continent in a turbulent and unpredictable world. He will do this in the form of a lecture and a discussion with Imane Maghrani, an alumna of World Politics…

On 1 February 2018 Professor Maartje van der Woude (professor of Law and Society at the Van Vollenhoven Institute for Law, Governance and Society) became Associate Director of the Oxford-based Border Criminologies Network.

Dr. Bettina Reitz-Joosse, postdoctoral researcher in the Classics department, has received a Niels Stensen Fellowship.

Cat Paw Tweet Goes Viral

Franc Weerwind studied Public Administration at Leiden University from 1986 to 1992. Right now, mr. Weerwind is the mayor of the municipality of Almere. The editors of Leidraad, the alumni magazine of the university, had a talk with him in context of the recurring ‘workplace’ section in the magazine…

On 22 April the 5th edition of the book Introduction to Dutch Law (edited by Jeroen Chorus, Ewoud Hondius and Wim Voermans) was presented to dr. Geert Corstens, former president of the Dutch Supreme Court.

Only 35 years old and already a research group leader, on his way to tenure. And: numerous papers, grants and fellowships to his name. Leiden physicist Jordi Tura i Brugués receives today the Young Scientist Prize for his outstanding contributions to quantum research.

On Wednesday 19 October 2022, the graduation ceremony for the International Relations MA programme took place. In the Teylerszaal of the Academy Building, the cohort of Master's students received their diploma.

Thousands of Ukrainian children have been transferred to Russia from occupied territories in eastern Ukraine, reports say. Is this, as the government in Kyiv has claimed, an act of genocide? Defined as an intent to destroy a particular group of people, the term genocide was first coined amid the horrors…

From Monday August 22th until Friday August 26th, The Hague Orientation Programme (The HOP) will take place. The first-year students of Leiden University in The Hague will get to know the city, their study and the university, the student life and their fellow students.

Very little is known about the relationship between religion and the digital future. Bart Barendregt, Professor by special appointment Anthropology of Digital Diversity, is about to change that. He receives a Vici grant of 1.5 million euros from the NWO for his research project 'One between the Zeros,…

On 8-9 October 2020, ACES and the T.M.C. Asser Instituut organised an interdisciplinary online conference ‘Migration deals and their damaging effects’ on the implications of the increasing use of informal (non-binding) instruments in the field of migration.

Authorities in Denmark and Sweden are examining whether it is possible to ban Quran burning following recent incidents. These have caused tension in many Islamic countries as well as in the countries where they occurred.

The Language Learning Resource Centre at Leiden University is organizing a one-day conference (June 7th, 2019) on the topic of teaching language and intercultural communicative competence in higher education.

The Leiden Institute of Physics hosted the annual conference of the Dutch Vacuum Society (NEVAC). Experts in the field of vacuum experiments talked about their research. The 2016 NEVAC Prize was awarded to PhD student Martijn Vos from the TU Eindhoven.

Reinforcement learning, agents and classification: these are just some of the topics researchers on Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning discussed at the BNAIC/BeneLearn conference 2020. It was the first time Leiden University hosted the annually held Belgium Netherlands Artificial Intelligence…

Carel Stolker will retire as Rector Magnificus of Leiden University on 8 February. As a retirement gift he is setting up a fund for first-generation students and academics. You too can donate.

Few problems occupy the minds of European policy and lawmakers as much as the impending Brexit. With developments moving fast and insecurity rising, national parliaments are taking on an increasingly assertive role. The Europa Institute therefore organised a Leiden Law Exchange on Brexit, parliaments…

Sixty-four high school students from Slovenia, Czech Republic and The Netherlands have visited Leiden University in the week of 7-11 November, as part of the Talent Education Project. They split in eight groups, of which some went to the science faculty to conduct research projects.

Like every year, the NVIC with the support of the Netherlands Embassy in Cairo, organised a Cleveringa lecture to commemorate the courageous speech by Professor Rudolph Cleveringa on the 26th of November in 1940, in which he protested the 'Berufsverbot' imposed on his Jewish colleagues by the Nazi…

You are warmly invited to join us for the second meeting of the KABK Design / Research Club, a forum for researchers from the KABK and Leiden University who are conducting research in, about, or through design-related disciplines.

Leiden University has taken 18th place in the SustainaBul, the sustainability ranking of universities and universities of applied sciences in the Netherlands. A total of 32 institutions took part in this the tenth edition of SustainaBul. Although Leiden University is two places higher than last year,…

Three researchers of Humanities have been awarded with a VIDI research grant. With a VIDI they can spend five years researching the topic they submitte. The grant amounts to a maxium of eight hundred thousand euros.

The Child Law Department of Leiden University and Defence for Children kindly invites you to the fourth Jaap Doek Children’s Rights Thesis Award Ceremony and the official launch of the book ‘The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. Taking Stock after 25 Years and Looking Ahead’ (Brill…

What should a confederal constitution for the EAC look like? What are the legal challenges for making the African Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) work? And what insights can be drawn in this context from the successes and failures in the EU?

Nieuwscheckers, a team of journalist fact-checkers from Leiden University, received the Mr. K.J. Cath Prize at the opening of the academic year on 5 September. This biennial prize is awarded to students or staff who have enhanced the University’s good name.

On Monday 23 November, Ms Simonetta Cook, member of the Cabinet of the President of the European Council, Charles Michel, addressed master's students following the LLM European Law Programme. She shared valuable insights on what it is like working for the European Council, in addition to some of her…

Damjan Donev is a PhD student in the ERC granted research project 'An Empire of 2000 Cities: urban networks and economic integration in the Roman empire', directed by Luuk De Ligt and John Bintliff (Archaeology).

On behalf of the interdisciplinary programme Social Resilience & Security, we would like to remind you of the call for proposals for seed funding (up to €4.000) to boost interdisciplinary research.

Professor Hermen Overkleeft has received the esteemed Roy L. Whistler International Award in Carbohydrate Chemistry for 2024 by the International Carbohydrate Organization. The award recognises Overkleeft’s outstanding contributions to the field of carbohydrate chemistry and biochemistry.

Leiden physicist Alexey Boyarsky, together with his colleagues from Lausanne and Copenhagen, has been awarded an ERC Advanced Grant to research an extension of the standard model of particle physics. The leading house of the project is the Technical University of Lausanne. 580.000 euro goes directly…

I’m Laurence Peelen and I am the new intern at the NVIC. I just finished my BA Islam Studies at the Radboud University Nijmegen and I wanted to gain some more experience in the MENA region at the start of my Master’s program.

The new CML minor Sustainable Development started on Monday 7 September 2009 with an official opening by the Vice-Rector Prof. Rietje van Dam.

A new plant species was named after Paul Kessler, prefect of the Leiden Hortus botanicus. Kessler discovered the small tree, which is related to the kiwifruit, himself.

Leiden biophysicist Stefano Coppola has received the prestigious AXA Research Fund postdoctoral fellowship. With this grant he can work for two years on a project to research the role of mechanical factors in the development of pancreatic cancer.

According to Gerrard Boot, Professor of Labour Law, the recommendations of the Committee he chaired on model agreements (Boot Committee) are only partly reflected in the plans of Karien van Gennip, the Dutch Minister of Social Affairs and Employment. The minister is working on a legal presumption of…

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).

On 15 March, the Centre for Digital Scholarship at Leiden University Libraries has started the pilot ‘You share we take care’. In cooperation with Leiden University researchers, the program aims to make publications freely available six months after initial publication. More than 60 researchers from…

On Thursday 21 October 2021, the Europa Institute held a hybrid roundtable on the legal feasibility of financing future EU policies – such as EU Green Deal measures – through debts and of thereby extending the novel funding mechanism introduced by Next Generation EU (NGEU). This roundtable was organised…

Over the past year, the lectorate ‘Music, Education & Society’ has worked on a publication with contributions from students and staff from the KC called 'The promise of music'.

Associate Professor Dr. Ulrike Tanzer from the German Department, University of Salzburg (Austria) is working for a few months at Leiden University. In this short interview she will introduce herself.

On December 16th 23 students of the Institute of Environmental Sciences of Leiden University took part of the first total species inventory to assess the effectiveness of an underwater landscape that was build in March 2003 to restore the biodiversity in an area where the environment was destroyed by…

A week before Christmas, the Deltaplan for Dutch Mathematics was presented to Hans de Groene (director NWO) and Sjoerd Verduyn Lunel (chairman Platform Wiskunde Nederland). Prof. dr. Frank den Hollander was one of the leading researchers in mathematics taking part in the Commission Deltaplan Mathema…

Annemarie Meijer is appointed full Professor of Immunobiology. Meijer’s research focuses on immunobiology and infectious disease. She uses the zebrafish as a model for understanding mechanisms of host immune defense against intracellular bacterial pathogens.

You can't see them with the naked eye, but they are highly likely to pose a threat to our health: microplastics. These tiny plastic particles are present everywhere in the environment, including within our bodies. On science platform The Conversation molecular biologist Meiru Wang offers valuable insights…

Prof. dr. Marcel Cobussen has published a free e-pub: The Field of Musical Improvisation.

From 1 August 2020, smoking on the premises of Leiden University will be prohibited. Dutch law obliges institutions of higher education to enforce a full smoking ban on their premises as of that date.

In the hunt for new particles, physicists look at ever higher energy particle collisions, moving the energy frontier. Some particles however are elusive not due to their high energy, but because they rarely interact. This raises a new barrier: the intensity frontier.

Italian PM Meloni’s election promise to limit the number of boat migrants entering the country looks like being fulfilled with help from Albania. A deal was recently approved that provides for two reception centres for asylum seekers in Albania. Dr Mark Klaassen, an expert in immigration law, questioned…

We are happy to announce that GARDEN VI will be held February 23rd, 2019 at the German Archaeological Institute in Cairo (DAIK). The conference is jointly organised by the DAIK, the Netherlands-Flemish Institute in Cairo and the American University Cairo!