When politicians claim they can make major differences with their migration policies, they’re raising false expectations. The opportunities for the government to restrict migration are in fact very limited. And what about the little room they do have? Mark Klaassen’s advice is to make use of those opportunities…

The Sackler Distinguished Lecture Series on Human Rights was established at Leiden University through an endowment given by Dr. Raymond R. Sackler and his wife, Beverly, international philanthropists with a commitment to supporting scientific research. The lectures mark the annual celebration of International…

When the government introduced its corona measures, the future of EL CID suddenly looked uncertain. But this annual introduction week will start on 5 August after all. How did the EL CID board pull this off? A glimpse behind the scenes through the eyes of chair Mirte Haanappel.

‘Leiden is small, friendly and welcoming,’ says new first-year student Ayla Russel. Strong wind and heavy showers were forecast for the first in-person day of the EL CID on 16 August, which could easily have spoiled this impression. But fortunately the showers – apart from one – fell somewhere else,…

The 2014 Village Law will likely cause a considerable change in the character of village governance and leadership in the coming years.

The previous blog post in this series discussed the role of international diplomacy during the coronavirus crisis. This post focuses on diplomacy and its challenges in post-corona times. Specifically, the blog post argues that diplomats will face a range of challenges following the Covid-19 pandemic…

The world let Rwanda down at the time of the genocide, and that can never be allowed to happen again, Cleveringa Professor Roméo Dallaire declared in his lecture on 26 November. Dallaire, a retired Canadian Lieutenant-General, also called for more attention to be paid to soldiers suffering the effects…

Leiden-Delft-Erasmus Universities will celebrate its tenth anniversary in 2022. In recent years, the alliance has expanded to include centres and new programmes as well as a curriculum of its own. What do the next ten years have in store?

The first of April was the official start of Phase II of the collaborative “PCAD4Cod”-project on the effect of sound on fish populations. Hans Slabbekoorn, associate professor at the IBL, is the principal investigator and collaborates with three PhD-students, Dr. Erwin Winter, (Wageningen Marine Research),…

On 21 January, the Institute of Environmental Sciences (CML) has released two reports on circular economy and urban mining in the Netherlands. In them, together with Statistics Netherlands, they take stock of part of the Dutch ‘urban mine’: how much raw material can we reuse from the electricity grid,…

Ten Leiden social and behavioural scientists have successfully applied for the NWO Open Competition. With this Open Competition, NWO gives researchers the chance to start small, high-risk, innovative or promising research projects.

They existed and were important, but for too long they have remained invisible in historiography: women. Ariadne Schmidt, the Magdalena Moons endowed professor, researches the history of urban culture in Leiden. Women take pride of place in her research. Inaugural lecture on 28 February.

Leiden has a tradition of collaborative ventures with Indonesia that goes back a long time. The country is one of three priority regions for our University. A report by Anette van Sandwijk.

Fake news about ‘patient zero’ and hyperbolic headlines warning about the ‘yellow peril.’ Leiden researchers have spotted fake news galore about coronavirus as well as racial stereotypes about the Chinese. How harmful is this?

What can criminal courts do when the course of justice is obstructed? Countries such as England and Wales apply the instrument contempt of court, which enables the court to act according to criminal law in such a case. Could that work in the Netherlands too? PhD defence on 18 December.

China makes no secret of its ambitions to become the world’s leading nation. What can we expect now that the EU and the rest of the world are in recession? And why did President Donald Trump suspend US funding to the World Health Organization? Rob de Wijk, Professor of International Relations and Security…

In The Best of Times, The Worst of Times, environmental scientist Paul Behrens describes both hopeful and pessimistic scenarios for our future and that of our planet. With the book soon to be published, Behrens talks about its content and the writing process itself.

The need for knowledge among practitioners and the lack of an academic knowledge base for specifically collective arrangements of social work in the Netherlands were the reason for Anouk de Koning, Femke Kaulingfreks and Maartje van der Woude to start working on a Dutch Research Agenda (NWA) application…

Between the 30th of January and the 2nd of February 2020 around 250 people took part in the II Polish Food Sovereignty Forum.

Good, accessible and affordable healthcare is increasingly difficult to provide. Martin Schalij from the LUMC understands that this can keep people awake at night.

With the Liveable Communities – Liveable Planet project, Marja Spierenburg, Professor of Anthropology of Sustainability and Livelihood, is showing that scientists are driven by ambition, hope and faith. She is linking Vrouw Vennepolder, a polder in Zuid-Holland, to the UN climate goals.

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.

Leiden Public Administration alumnus Jeffrey Jonkers negotiates in Syria with the Assad government, civilians and even with IS. The UN peace talks are due to start shortly in Geneva. Jonkers negotiates behind the scenes.

Fourteen of the candidates for the European parliamentary elections on 23 May studied at Leiden University. We ask four of them about their motivation and ambitions. In this article: Conny van Stralen, who studied German, and Maurice Hoogeveen, who studied history.

Professor of Health Psychology Andrea Evers is one of the coordinators of the national Health and Wellbeing programme and of the Leiden-Delft-Erasmus (LDE) programme that goes by the same name. The aim is to use technology to promote our health. LDE has already been working on this topic for some ti…

Sense Jan van der Molen and Ivo van Vulpen have been awarded the first ENW Communication Award by funding agency NWO for their Wall Formula project. The award aims to encourage scientists to communicate about their research. It consists of a sculpture and a 10 thousand euro sum for science communica…

After two years of corona restrictions, it was ‘back to normal’ in 2022. Migration, elections, the history of slavery, Russia, and Ukraine were much-discussed topics. We compiled an overview of the most-read news items and other events of the past year.

When we talk about the Kingdom of the Netherlands, it is not just about the Netherlands. On the contrary: our Kingdom consists of no less than four countries, three of which are Caribbean islands. This structure is complex, to say the least. Although all countries are officially equivalent, in practice…

Rector Magnificus Carel Stolker will retire on 8 February. If there’s one theme running through his career, it’s the links between the University and society. In this series of pre-retirement discussions, Stolker will talk one last time to people from within and without the University. This time he…

How do people vote? How rational are voting choices? How much do external factor weigh in? In this article social scientis provide some background.

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) came into force in 2018. It was intended to protect the rights and freedoms of individual citizens from the risks of personal data processing. Meanwhile, the phenomenon known as big data has continued to advance at a fast pace. PhD defence on 12 Septembe…

Russia’s premeditated attack on Ukraine in February 2022 changed not only the security landscape of Europe. It also altered – at least for now – the structures of leadership and influence within the West.

In this blog post, Paweł Surowiec and Ilan Manor draw on insights from their edited volume Public Diplomacy and the Politics of Uncertainty.

Having flirted with Egyptology and Italian, Dieuwertje Kuijpers found her true calling in the Master’s in European Union Studies. She is now a freelance journalist specialising in politics, security and defence. But she is also at home writing columns for ThePostOnline and hard-hitting articles for…

‘Teaching is not merely a profession; it’s a calling.’ These were the words of Ayo Adedokun on winning the LUS Teaching Prize at the opening of the academic year on 6 September. The prize is for the best lecturer of the year.

In 2017, in an ordinary field, two brothers from Brabant discovered more than 100 ancient coins. The Leiden historian who examined the coins concluded that they constituted a genuine Roman treasure. Here follows a reconstruction in three acts.

Leiden University celebrated its 444th anniversary with a historical procession on 8 February. It celebrated this year’s Dies Natalis in time-honoured fashion with a ceremony in the Pieterskerk, but broke with tradition by sending professors out to primary schools.

How did the Arabs manage to maintain an empire based on Islamic principles for three hundred years? Arab expert Petra Sijpesteijn and her team will be examining this question over the coming five years, focusing on the correspondence of ordinary people. The research is being funded by an ERC Consolidator…

Professor Leo Lucassen often adds his voice to the public debate on his specialist field. If there is talk of a 'flood of migration', he feels compelled to give the issue some historical perspective. 'Concerned? Yes, I am.'

As schools in the U.S., students have to enter through security gates; schools in Belgium were forced to remain closed for several days after the attacks there; and even in the Netherlands various bomb scares have led to children having to stay at home. And yet fear of terrorism remains a difficult…

‘What if we switch off all the lights one evening? That idea crossed my mind from time to time. And when I mentioned it to a taxi driver one day, he said: “Oh, you mean: lights out, stars on!” That’s not completely true, of course, because the stars are always on, but his phrase summed up the idea n…

What do I do if Mum or Dad gets the virus? Could the slide at the playground have coronavirus on it? Can children die of the virus too? On 15 April, the National Science Agenda organised an hour-long session on Facebook to give children the chance to ask their questions about coronavirus. Leiden psychologist…

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