Honorary doctorates for Eliot Higgins, Kelly Chibale and Bonnie Honig
Leiden University will be conferring three honorary doctorates in its special anniversary year. They will be awarded to Eliot Higgins, truth finder and founder of Bellingcat, Bonnie Honig, expert in feminist theory and legal theory, and Kelly Chibale, professor of organic chemistry, who works on prevention of endemic diseases such as malaria.
The honorary doctorates will be conferred on 7 February 2025, during the 450th Dies Natalis of Leiden University. Chibale, Honig and Higgins will receive the honorary doctorates in recognition of their exceptional contributions to the fields of science, education and society.
Eliot Higgins
Eliot Higgins is a British citizen journalist, blogger and founder of the investigative journalism collective Bellingcat, which identifies abuses in conflicts and human rights violations on the basis of open data, such as videos, satellite images, photographs and social media. Eliot Higgins has conducted extensive investigations of the Syrian civil war, the downing of flight MH17 and the poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal.
Higgins will receive an honorary doctorate in the society field, for his contributions to the use of open source intelligence – gathering and analysing information from publicly available sources – to guarantee historical accuracy and fair judicial process: data that can also be used as evidence in international criminal cases. With its presence in The Hague, Leiden University contributes to knowledge development in the areas of peace, justice and security.
Kelly Chibale
Kelly Chibale is Professor of Organic Chemistry at the University of Cape Town (South Africa). His research focuses on development of new drugs, in particular for malaria and tuberculosis. Chibale is the first to have brought an antimalaria drug of African origin to the clinical development stage. He now has two antimalaria drugs in a far-advanced development stage. One of these is already showing highly promising results in patients.
Chibale will receive an honorary doctorate in the science field, for his groundbreaking work on developing new drugs to combat endemic diseases in Africa. He displayed exceptional leadership in establishing the H3D Foundation in 2019. H3D is one of the few drug development centres on the continent and it also aims to train and retain talented African scientists. Chibale’s work is a great source of inspiration for the next generation of African scientists.
Bonnie Honig
Bonnie Honig is a renowned Canadian-American political philosopher, who combines political, legal and humanities perspectives in her research on democracy. Conflicts take place incessantly in a democracy, and there can be friction between public and private interests. Honig’s view is that ‘public things’, such as education and healthcare, are a precondition for democracy. She sees an important role for citizens in disputing about public things and thus arriving at common political action. This dispute is also not something that should be hidden, no matter how strenuously political philosophy might try to do this. Another central theme in Honig’s work is criticism of inequality and exclusion. She is also a great expert on the work of Hannah Arendt, who is an important inspiration for her. Among Honig’s well-known works are the classic Political Theory and the Displacement of Politics (1993), Emergency Politics: Paradox, Law, Democracy (2009) and Public Things: Democracy in Disrepair (2017).
Honig will receive an honorary doctorate from Leiden University in the science field, for her exceptional contributions to democratic theory over the past thirty years. She has given further interdisciplinary impetus to research on law and politics by combining disciplines such as philosophy, law, political science and cultural studies. She is the Nancy Duke Lewis Professor of Modern Culture and Media (MCM) and Political Science at Brown University (United States).
Conferral
Bonnie Honig was nominated to receive the honorary doctorate by Leiden Law School. The honorary supervisor is Bastiaan Rijpkema, Professor of Jurisprudence, Professor by Special Appointment of Tolerance and Scientific Director of the Institute for the Interdisciplinary Study of Law.
Kelly Chibale was nominated to receive the honorary doctorate by the Faculty of Science, the Faculty of Social & Behavioural Sciences and the LUMC. He will be presented with the honorary doctorate by Gilles van Wezel, Professor of Molecular Biotechnology.
Eliot Higgins was nominated for an honorary doctorate in the society field by the Faculty of Governance & Global Affairs. He will be presented with the honorary doctorate by Bas Rietjens, Professor by Special Appointment of Intelligence in War and Conflict.