On Friday 26 August 2022, the Dutch cabinet presented its new asylum agreement. According to Assistant Professor Mark Klaassen, the new agreement is barely legal.

Education

All of society is having to deal with the effects of staff shortages. Hospitals are unable to fill their duty rosters, primary schools are having to close their doors for one day per week, and trains are being cancelled on a regular basis. But why is that exactly? Professor of Economics Olaf van Vliet…

Carlotta Rigotti and Eduard Fosch-Villaronga launch a call for workshop papers on fairness and AI in the labour market at the 16th JSAI International Symposia on AI as part of the Horizon Europe BIAS project.

Research

The National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden features a small photo exhibition on Mark Driessen's fieldwork research project in Southern Jordan. In this small exhibition you will see a selection of nine photos, made in Udhruh. This ancient Jordanian settlement lies fifteen kilometres east of Petra,…

The Leiden interdisciplinary research programme Global Transformations and Governance Challenges (GTGC) and the Embassy of Ireland are jointly organising a special book launch in The Hague. On 13 November, Gerry Finnegan, author and a former director of the International Labour Organisation (ILO), will…

The Dutch Government recently announced measures to limit the loss of purchasing power. These include, for example, raising the minimum wage and healthcare benefits. Another way for households to maintain purchasing power is to work more. Olaf van Vliet, Professor of Economics, explains the effects…

The human dimension must be brought back to the fore, Prime Minister Mark Rutte said in response to the child benefits scandal. But how? A group of researchers – including Leiden psychologist Sandra van Dijk – have written a book offering practical suggestions. They presented the book to Rutte on 28…

eLaw - Center for Law and Digital Technologies at Leiden University, hosted the first Horizon Europe BIAS Project co-creational workshop geared towards defining the requirements for identifying and mitigating diversity bias in AI systems used for recruitment purposes.

Organisation

As I cycle to work in the morning, along Rapenburg to the Huizinga Building, I sometimes stop and dismount. The early morning silence and the rising sun that casts a spotlight on the Academy Building can be enchanting. On those days, I use the moment to take a photograph. I already have quite a collection.…

Mark Rutte: an exceptional politician whose time was up. What are the consequences of Rutte’s departure. Experts from Leiden University give their view on this political event.

Organisation

The European Commission sees increased labour migration as a solution to the growing personnel shortages, but the Dutch Labour Inspectorate argues that this is not a tenable business model. Professor of Economics Olaf van Vliet discusses the advantages and disadvantages of labour migration for the economy…

For the past year, a steering group has been working hard on the new Faculty Strategic Plan (FSP) for 2022-2027 and the corresponding Implementation Agenda. A number of working groups have also carried out a stakeholder analysis, and several consultation rounds have been held with various bodies, including…

The Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW) has awarded a KNAW Early Career Partnership 2023 to Philippe van Gruisen for interdisciplinary research on (labour) migration from a broad perspective on societal wellbeing.

Behind the relatively stable income inequality in the Netherlands, big changes have been happening. Income inequality has increased over the past 40 years, but less sharply because women in lower income groups have begun working more. In contrast, men’s income has increased very little over the past…

Dr Mark Leiser, Assistant Professor in Law and Digital Technologies at eLaw, is part of a successful €1.5 million bid for a research grant from the acclaimed Volkswagen Institute on “Reclaiming individual autonomy and democratic discourse online: How to rebalance human and algorithmic decision makin…

The terms of two Faculty Board members will soon be coming to an end. In 2025 both Dean Mark Rutgers and Vice-Dean Education MA and ResMA Mirjam de Baar will be stepping down as members of the Humanities Faculty Board. Mark’s term ends on 1 March 2025 and Mirjam’s term ends on 31 December 2024. The…

Many humanities graduates find work in digital heritage, but a good pedagogical model to match education is lacking. University lecturers Karin de Wild and Peter Verhaar want to change this with a Comenius grant.

The Netherlands has gained a third commentary on the Constitution – with Leiden as its home base. The first copy of Een nieuw commentaar op de Grondwet (A new commentary on the Constitution) (published by Boom Amsterdam) was presented to Prime Minister Mark Rutte in the Torentje last week.

After the new government announced its plans to cut expenditure on academic education, the Faculty of Humanities launched the flash campaign ‘Stop the Catastrophic Cuts to Universities!’. Now academics across the university have been explaining why their discipline is needed.

The conference of the European Association of Labour Court Judges (EALCJ) took place in Leiden from 8 to 10 June 2023. The EALCJ is an association of judges from all EU countries, which provides its members with a forum to exchange knowledge on (European) labour law and its application in the different…

On Wednesday 7 June 2023, Dr Yvonne Erkens, Kate Verhoeff, Emma Snel, and Fleur Walravens of the Department of Labour Law in Leiden, gave a presentation on The Database of Business Ethics for the Oxford Business and Human Rights Network (OxBHR) at the University of Oxford.

'Echoes of the Silent Roots' by Mark Lindenberg wins the Multimodal Incentive Grant for Alumni of the Metje Postma Awards. His film is a touching auto-ethnographic project about family estrangement and repair. Ieke van Dam won the Excellence in Visual & Multimodal Ethnography Thesis Prize for her film…

The Dutch Government would like to allow QR checks at work. Legal experts expect that employees who refuse could be dismissed.

Three directors of PostNL have been arrested in Belgium, suspected of human trafficking among other things. Abuses also exist in the Dutch parcel delivery sector. Why does the Netherlands act less firmly?

On Tuesday 6 September, the faculty year 2022-2023 got off to a great start with Leiden Law Op 1, our yearly talkshow live from the Kamerlingh Onnes Gebouw. Together with the Faculty Board, academic staff and students, we looked ahead to the upcoming academic year.

How do we prepare our students for a future labour market in which flexibility, resilience and adaptability are essential?

Self-employed workers’ hours have significantly decreased during the coronavirus crisis. Their average hours worked decreased most at the start of the crisis, by more than five hours per week. And it was difficult to return to their pre-crisis hours in the quarters that followed. This is the conclusion…

Last week, third-year students of the Bachelor Security Studies concluded a seven-week intensive programme with a two-day conference. They presented their findings in front of a full lecture hall and in the presence of the client for whom they worked on a complex security issue. Tutor Saskia Postema:…

Due to an exception in the law, domestic workers employed by private persons cannot automatially benefit from social security schemes. Home help Carol Kollmann did not agree with this and took her case to court.

Opportunities and challenges of digitalisation, the platform economy, and flexibilisation of European labour markets.

Seksueel grensoverschrijdend gedrag op de werkvloer moet strenger worden aangepakt. Zo stelde regeringscommissaris seksueel grensoverschrijdend gedrag Mariëtte Hamer na haar benoeming begin 2022. Een jaar later verschijnt haar ‘Handreiking meldingen van seksueel grensoverschrijdend gedrag op de werkvloer’.…

Arbeidsuitbuiting van migranten wordt als een vorm van het strafrechtelijke delict mensenhandel beschouwd. De rechtspositie van de slachtoffers is mede daardoor ondergeschikt aan de strafrechtelijke procedure. Dat kan en moet anders, stelt Gerrie Lodder in haar proefschrift. Promotie op 21 april 202…

The Executive Board has appointed Olaf van Vliet as Professor of Economics at Leiden University, specialising in social security and labour market policy from an international perspective. The chair is affiliated to both the Department of Economics (Leiden Law School) and the Institute of Public Administration…

On 26 September 2023, Carlotta Rigotti was invited to give a talk on the regulatory impact of the AI Act on AI applications for recruitment and selection, during the AI Lund Fika-to-Fika Workshop on Regulating High Risk AI in the EU.