A bloody civil war has raged for years in the Central African Republic. PhD candidate Crépin Mouguia points out a tragic pattern: young people have been recruited as fighters or soldiers for generations and thus fuel the conflicts.

The sixth specialisation of the Master Crisis and Security Management (CSM) will start in September 2023: Governance of Violence. Coordinator of this track is Professor Marieke Liem. She talks about the how and why of this new track and the importance of research in and knowledge of the nature and scope…

How do practice and theory reinforce one another in neuroscience? Professor Birte Forstmann’s inaugural lecture on 2 October will be about building interdisciplinary bridges between cognitive neuroscience and cognitive models. Her approach may lead to brain research with fewer side-effects for patie…

Leiden University’s Campus the Hague is soon to expand into the Central Innovation District in the centre of The Hague. Plans are under way for a Campus boulevard with a new University building in the area between the Prins Bernhardviaduct and Schedeldoekshaven.

Last Friday, Leiden University College The Hague (LUC) celebrated the graduation of the Class of 2020 ½ and 2021. The 186 students received their Bachelor of Arts or Bachelor of Science degree’s in LUC’s interdisciplinary honours programme Liberal Arts & Sciences: Global Challenges. Under the silver-…

On Monday, Minister of Education, Culture and Science Robbert Dijkgraaf attended the start of Orientation Week Leiden (OWL), the introduction week for international students at Leiden University. He welcomed the students and spoke with them about their ambitions and the problems they face.

Professor Edwin Bakker, director of the Centre for Terrorism & Counterterrorism, released his new book “Terrorism and Counterterrorism Studies: Comparing Theory and Practice”, published by Leiden University Press.

Why are health problems such as loneliness and obesity so persistent? What causes them to occur more frequently in some neighborhoods than others? And how can we solve them? You will learn about these topics in the new minor 'Co-creating a Healthy Society'.

Americans more often donate funds to a presidential candidate if the campaign is backed by financiers from different, recognised social groups. This is the conclusion of Leiden researcher Vincent Traag in an article in Plos One published on 14 April.

2024 has been an eventful year, and this is reflected in our social media posts. An overview of the most liked, most shared or most impressive posts.

A big performance by André Rieu, food trucks in The Hague and more contact with the Royal Family: grand plans were announced in April to make the State Opening of Parliament (Prinsjesdag) a real ‘crowd puller’. For this year, however, we will just have to make do with slight differences in emphasis.…

They are often little more than a square metre of plants, yet pavement gardens are a source of life. PhD candidate Joeri Morpurgo conducted research in the centre of Amsterdam and The Hague and discovered how important small green spaces are, especially for cities.

The Leiden Institute of Advanced Computer Science (LIACS) is a proud member of the NExt ApplicationS of Quantum Computing (NEASQC) consortium, which recently received an ERC H2020 grant to stimulate the state-of-the-art in industrial quantum computing. LIACS contributes research and development of new…

Goldband, Skrillex, Róisín Murphy and... quantum: the latter may not be a band but is part of the Lowlands line-up nonetheless. Scientists from Leiden University are using the festival for research on the very smallest particles.

Greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere and fertilizers in the groundwater have negative consequences for our environment. With an electrochemical process they can be transformed to more valuable and useful substances like fuel and alcohol. Chemistry PhD candidate Elena Perez Gallent discovered how this…

JUSTREMIT and the Institute of Security and Global Affairs at Leiden University will host a conference on 12 and 13 October on Global Regulatory Regimes and Remittances. invite paper and panel proposals for consideration for the third JUSTREMIT Conference. Academics, practitioners from the regulatory…

Many Humanities scholars keep a blog of their own. This summer, we’re putting these in the spotlight. For this week’s interview, we sat down with dr. Florian Schneider of the Politics East Asia blog.

Mirjam de Baar has been Vice-Dean of the Faculty of Humanities and portfolio holder for education of master’s and research master’s programmes since 2016. As a result of her reappointment, she will continue to fulfil this role for an additional four years. ‘Being asked by the Vice-Rector and the Dean…

Initiatives like the Leiden University Green Office and the Career Service might not sound familiar to every student. If it is up to Bernice, this will change from this academic year.

Dutch retailer Blokker has gone bust. But a restart could be possible depending on the trustee. Research conducted by Jessie Pool and her colleagues has shown that one third of all bankruptcy trustees would prioritise saving the high street.

Leiden University’s Campus The Hague has published its new strategy for the next ten years. Martijn Ridderbos, Vice-Chairman of the Executive Board, and Erwin Muller, Director of Campus The Hague, presented this today to Jan van Zanen, Mayor of The Hague.

For the past 2 years, Dr Letty ten Harkel has been jointly running an excavation project of a suspected Roman villa site on the Balearic island of Mallorca with colleagues Dr Antoni Puig Palerm and Ritchie Kolvers, MA. The project was recently awarded a LUF Chastelain-Nobach fund to explore the extend…

Jelle van Buuren, Assistant Professor at the Institute of Security and Global Affairs, appeared as guest on VICE to discuss the usefulness of recent ban on QAnon.

Marco Romagna is a PhD candidate who is currently researching hacktivism and hacktivists, online activists with hacking skills, a relatively new field of study. Romagna teaches at The Hague University of Applied Sciences working within the Centre of Expertise Cyber Security and is also connected to…

Leiden University will move into the former Ministries in the Wijnhavenkwartier. In this way the Faculty Campus The Hague will eventually grow into a university location for 3500 students.

Tailoring teaching to students’ learning needs in speaking skills in modern foreign languages is desirable, but difficult to achieve in regular classes in secondary schools. Esther de Vrind, PhD, manager and teacher educator at ICLON, developed a method to make this easier. Defence on 25 November.

On 8-10 July, 2024, public law scholars from around the world gathered in Madrid for the annual conference of the International Society of Public Law – the ICON-S, hosted this year by IE University. The theme of the conference “The Future of Public Law: Resilience, Sustainability, and Artificial Intelligence,”…

Three of our researchers have been awarded a certificate for receiving enough downloads to be in the top 10% of papers in 2022

Jonathan Todres appointed as Rotating Honorary Chair in Enforcement of Children’s Rights 2024/2025

Leiden physicists and chemists have managed to bring two graphene layers so close together that an electric current spontaneously jumps across. In the future this could enable scientists to study the edges of graphene and use them for sequencing DNA with a precision beyond existing technologies. Publication…

Three Humanities lecturers received the Senior Teaching Qualification (SKO) this year. Lecturer Hossam Ahmed is one of them. What does he think makes for good education?

The daisy has been crowned the Netherlands’ national flower. Rogier van Vugt, Head of Horticulture at the Hortus botanicus, explains why the daisy merits its elevation to national symbol.

Mark Klaassen, Assistant Professor of Immigration Law and member of the Dutch Advisory Council on Migration, explains on Dutch radio programme ‘Met het Oog op Morgen’ why it’s a bad idea to use Denmark as a model country for Dutch asylum policy.

Students in the third year of the BA International Studies programme follow the Practicing International Studies (PRINS) consultancy course. They conduct a project put forward by real clients and then present them with their research results. PRINS is so successful that it has now been running for 10…

Over 100 participants joined the first grant matchmaking and working session on the call for the Dutch National Research Agenda, on 25 June in the PLNT building. They explored topics ranging from health care to smart cities.

Museums have long focused on power, wealth and a few famous figures. But that is changing, says Valika Smeulders, head of the history department at the Rijksmuseum. What this change comprises and how it has come about is the subject of her keynote speech at the D&I Symposium on 11 January.

The Casimir Research School is to receive an € 800,000 subsidy from the NWO Graduate Programme to further integrate the master's study and PhD research. Minister Plasterk judged the Leiden-Delft Casimir plan to be one of the best.

Catherine Harwood joined the Grotius Centre in The Hague a few years ago. She received her Advanced Master’s degree in Public International Law in 2012 and continued her PhD studies at Leiden University.

On Wednesday 4 September, Queen Máxima opened the renovated tropical greenhouse complex of the Leiden Hortus Botanicus, an event that attracted wide public interest. Thanks to this renovation, the greenhouses are even better equipped for scientific research.

Physicist Milan Allan will build an instrument that will bring superconductivity research further. He has been awarded an ERC Consolidator Grant of 2 million euros over the next five years. With his PairNoise programme he aims to detect paired electrons as they occur just above the temperature at which…

Stefan Sagel heeft op 10 februari de Gouden Peer arbeidsrecht van het juridische platform Mr. ontvangen. De hoogleraar arbeidsrecht kreeg de onderscheiding op voordracht van twintig juristen uit hetzelfde rechtsgebied.

Andrea Evers is the new Professor of the brand-new unit of Health, Medical and Neuropsychology. She's getting off to a flying start in Leiden with a consolidator grant of the European Research Council (ERC). Her ambition? 'To work together with other disciplines; that way we can arrive at new insigh…

Four years ago, the Institute of Security and Global Affairs (ISGA) first started with an executive master’s programme called Cyber Security. The programme proved to be a huge success and has continued to develop. This academic year, Els de Busser was appointed as Educational Director and Chantal de…

Leiden University and the Municipality of Leiden will develop new plans for an alternative Humanities Campus in the city centre. This means they will not proceed with the compulsory purchase of the De Doelen housing complex to facilitate the construction of the new Humanities Campus. The plans to demolish…

Ecologist Rosaleen March from the Institute of Environmental Sciences (CML) will carry on her research on functional biodiversity: a measure to assign value to ecosystems. Following her previous Marie Curie co-fund, she now receives a full Marie Curie fellowship. March: ‘We need to know how losing biodiversity…

A European project should help reinvigorate Latin teaching in secondary schools. 'By focusing on citizenship, we want to show that Latin is relevant to discussions about citizenship and migration.'

Author Bibi Dumon Tak will be the new writer-in-residence at Leiden University from autumn 2020.

On Saturday 13 October the historical city Leiden was crowded with prospective students visiting the Open Day. They all came to Leiden to orientate themselves towards studying at Leiden University or to ask questions about the content of the bachelor’s programmes. Among them were a lot of international…

Throughout the 17th and 18th centuries, the city of Batavia was supplied with produce by its hinterland, known as the Ommelanden. Bondan Kanumoyoso studied the history of the various ethnic groups that populated this area and in doing so has shed light on the structure of modern-day Indonesian society.…

From 9 September onwards, Leiden scientists, citizens and farmers will jointly investigate how to sustainably manage peat meadowland. In ten years' time, they hope to have learned how to promote biodiversity and simultaneously reduce nitrogen and CO2 emissions, among other things. The research will…