Within 20 years, intelligent machines will play a major role in society. ‘Selfdriving cars will be 90% safer than human-driven cars and will change transportation globally,’ says artificial intelligence scientist Bart Selman of Cornell University. He gave the first Ada Lovelace lecture of the Leiden…

In 2020, many of our staff and students have again won prestigious prizes and been awarded important research subsidies.

After a turbulent Covid year, the well-being of our students and staff has the highest priority. How can we prevent physical and mental health problems? This was the key question at the Opening of the Academic Year in Pieterskerk in Leiden on 6 September.

A marathon session took place in Brussels from Sunday 30 June to Monday 1 July to decide who would become the new President of the European Commission. Arco Timmermans, Professor by special appointment Public Affairs at the Institute of Public Administration at Leiden University, appeared as a guest…

‘We can see further than the end of our noses.’ This is what the presidents of the three Zuid-Holland universities in the LDE Alliance say in ScienceGuide. Leiden University, Delft University of Technology and Erasmus University Rotterdam have been working together within the LDE Alliance for seven…

On 29 and 30 April 2015 the Leiden Centre for East African Law (LEAC) hosted its first Annual Conference in Kigali, Rwanda. The conference was organized in cooperation with the East African Court of Justice (EACJ) and compared integration through law in the EU and the EAC.

On April 19, Pax Initiative, a youth led NGO, held its first ever event at the Museon in the Hague. The event, “International Court of Justice Idealab: The Future of the ICJ” was a productive and inspiring discussion among students and young professionals on how the Court can reach the 16th Sustainable…

Associate Professor Erik Bähre talks about the upcoming elections in Brazil on the Dutch Radio channel BNR Radio.

In collaboration with the University of Amsterdam, the Europa Institute hosted a roundtable on Thursday 30 May on the theme of the upcoming European elections. The consequences of these elections extend far beyond the European Parliament's political composition: they affect how the European Union is…

In the context of urban challenges, multidisciplinary knowledge adds value. The idea is that urban planners, sociologists, economists, and historians can collectively provide a deeper understanding of what has worked and what hasn't so far. Since 2022, scientists from the University of Indonesia and…

CTC researchers Bart Schuurman and Quirine Eijkman conducted a 2-year study for the Dutch National Police on the pre-attack behavior of several homegrown jihadist groups and individuals.

In November, Springer published a book on The Future of Drone Use, edited by dr. Bart Custers, associate professor at eLaw, the Center for Law and Digital Technologies of Leiden University.

How should we address our colonial heritage? And how digital and accessible are our collections? Outgoing State Secretary Fleur Gräper spoke with researchers and heritage specialists about this on 25 January.

At our regular panel discussions we bring together scholars and other experts to discuss a current topic that captures the interest of the general public as well as academics.

This interdisciplinary project applies data science techniques to qualitatively and quantitatively visualize the interaction between the University and the city of Leiden (Town&Gown) from 1575 onwards. One of the possible angles for follow-up research is diversity, especially from the international…

Although official law generally conceives of personal injury victims as individual rights holders, the actual experience of physical injury and its consequences is relational. Indeed, many researchers in the global North as well as the global South have contended that the very concept of the Self should…

The Austrian Studies Fund awards a prize and a stipend for talented students of Dutch and Flemish universities: the Hugo Weiland Prize and the Austrian Studies Fund Stipend.

Over the recent period there have been a number of protests and demonstrations at universities by people who oppose the universities’ collaboration with the fossil fuel industry. Students and staff in Leiden are also expressing their concerns about this issue. We are now publishing a list giving an…

Building on the recent initiative to truly globalize the field of international relations, this book provides an innovative interrogation of regionalism.

On this page you will find a collection of presentations and videos of the Florence Nightingale Colloquia, seminars at the faculty and other event recordings hosted by the Data Science Research Programme.

The refurbished P.J. Veth Building - the first completed sub-project in the Humanities Campus project - was officially opened in the summer of 2017. The Faculty of Humanities moved in straight away. . The building was meticulously transformed into a modern teaching building with attractive areas for…

From 2 to 5 September 2015, Leiden served as the stage for one of the world’s largest linguistics conferences: the Societas Linguistica Europaea (SLE) 2015 Annual Meeting. Marianne Mithun, a professor at University of California, Santa Barbara and outgoing president of the SLE, is not surprised that…

Do you want to know the best reasons to study at Leiden University or want to know what's it like to live in the student cities Leiden or The Hague? Our students tell you why they chose Leiden University to study their master's programme.

On 27 January 1900 thirteen female students gathered and established the Leesgezelschap van Vrouwelijke Studenten te Leiden (reading association for female students in Leiden).

Do you want to know the best reasons to study at Leiden University or want to know what's it like to live in the student cities Leiden or The Hague? Our students tell you why they chose Leiden University to study their master's programme.

LUC is located in The Hague and offers a three-year English Bachelor of Arts and a Bachelor of Science in Liberal Arts and Sciences with a focus on today's Global Challenges: Peace & Justice, Sustainability, Prosperity and Diversity.

The specialisation in European Union Studies offers students an opportunity to study the processes of European integration from a multi-disciplinary perspective and combines academic excellence with practical insights into the processes of policymaking in Europe.

How can we deal with today’s global challenges in sustainable, peaceful, fair, democratic, and effective ways? How can global events such as geopolitical shifts, ecological changes, technological innovations, and pandemics be better governed? Addressing these complex questions requires innovative, multidisciplinary…

There are several committees within the IBL that are crucial for organizing and coordinating research, education and finances. Among the lesser-known of these committees is the IBL Institute Council (IC or Instituutsraad, IR). The purpose of the IC is to serve as a link between IBL members and management…

Alumni event

The Urban Studies bachelor’s programme is taught at Leiden University's location in The Hague, a vibrant city offering many cultural activities and sporting opportunities, and close to the beach at Scheveningen. The Hague was also awarded the title ‘greenest city in The Netherlands’ in 2017.

The war between Ukraine and Russia is playing out not just on the battlefield but also on the geopolitical playing field of gas. Conflicts at the start of this century about this energy source were, says PhD candidate Ilia Barboutev, a precursor to today’s war.

Mexico will be electing a new president on 1 July. No matter who wins, there will be little change in the deep political crisis affecting the country. This is the message given by José Carlos G. Aguiar, university lecturer in Latin American studies.

The president of South Korea, Yoon Suk-yeol, has chosen not to use his presidential compound. Professor Remco Breuker states in Time that this marks a change in South Korea’s approach to the compound.

Doing a PhD on the side? External PhD candidates, like Joost Van der Helm, just get on and ‘do it’. Besides his hectic job as a justice at the Court of Appeal in The Hague, Van der Helm managed to still find time to write a PhD dissertation.

This year The Netherlands once again chairs the EU Council. In the book ‘Fit for the Future’ Leiden researchers reflect on the priorities that the Dutch presidency has put forward for 2016 and raise the question: is the EU fit for the future?

On 12 September 2019, Judge Chile Eboe-Osuji, President of the International Criminal Court (ICC), delivered a lecture on Customary International Criminal Law and Head of State Immunity to open the academic year for the Advanced LL.M. Programmes in Public International Law & International Dispute Settlement…

The ICC Moot Court Competition, organised by the Grotius Centre for International Legal Studies, in partnership with the International Bar Association and sponsored by the Planethood Foundation, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands and The Hague Municipality, welcomed top students of 64…

Het Amerikaanse hooggerechtshof oordeelde op 1 juli dat een president tijdens hun ambtsperiode een zekere immuniteit heeft. Zij zijn onschendbaar in geval van ‘officiële handelingen’. Tessa van Buchem uit haar zorgen en kritiek in het FD.

A high-ranking delegation from China visited Leiden on 6 November. The party of some 25 officials from the CPPCC – a Chinese advisory body comparable with the Dutch Senate - visited the Leiden Observatory, the Hortus Botanicus and the Asian Library.

Data science offers great opportunities for legal research, according to Simone van der Hof and Bart Custers (eLaw). But at the same time, we have to keep an eye on the unwanted side effects of big data - such as ethnic profiling.

What will the future be like? This is something that every student wonders about as graduation approaches. What will I do? How can I find a good job? And even more importantly: How do I land that job once I have found it? If a student has a disability, additional questions may also arise. A symposium…

The theme of the opening of this year’s academic year was peace and justice. With the climate crisis and the war in Ukraine, these are turbulent times. During the ceremony those present reflected on what the academic community and universities can mean in times of crisis and conflict.

The European Union can only remain in existence if all Member States continue to be inspired by the spirit of compromise. Those words comprised the core message of Herman van Rompuy, President of the European Council, who delivered the third Europa Lecture on 10 October at Leiden University.

The announcement by US President Donald Trump on 9 March in response to the invitation for a summit meeting with the North Korean supreme leader Kim Jong Un came as a big surprise. Media analyses vary from being very positive to almost cynically negative. However, according to researcher on Korea Koen…

Former PhD student of the Leiden Institute of Advanced Computer Science (LIACS) Bart Thomee has received this year’s Rising Star Award from the Multimedia group of ACM, the worldwide computer science association. Today, Thomee is a successful researcher at Yahoo Labs.

In healthcare, gender and sex considerations are crucial because they affect individuals' health and disease differences. Yet, most algorithms deployed in the healthcare context lack close consideration of these aspects and do not account for bias detection. In their latest paper, Eduard Fosch-Villaronga,…

With his master thesis ‘Passion for Sustainable Fashion’ Public Administration student Wouter Kuin has won the SER thesis award 2018 of the Social Economic Council. He was awarded the prize because of the great relevance for the SER-work, the thorough research, the high analytical level and the good…

A flood of news reports, push notifications and even extra news broadcasts: on Wednesday, the world was shocked by the storming of the Capitol in Washington. Americanist Sara Polak discusses the events.