Jihadism and smugglers, gold fever and ethnic strive. It is a toxic mix that makes the Sahel a volatile region in which jihadi's thrive. In the Dutch daily De Volkskant, terrorism expert Liesbeth van de Heide sheds a light on the complex problems that the Sahel is facing. Van der Heide is a researcher…

To support interdisciplinary research on today's world-scale changes and governing challenges, the GTGC programme awards a number of seed grants to scholars at Leiden University collaborating across different faculties and institutes.

Conspiracy theories are of all times, and the government should never dismiss them as a fantasy of fools. Certainly not now, when it turned out that authorities made a conspiracy themselves with a journalist threatened with murder. Which proves that the truth is always more insane than you could have…

As of January 2017, LCDS-director Jaap van den Herik has been appointed member of the Advisory Board of WODC.

After many years, Peter Hamersma will retire and resign as Programme Director for the BSc Molecular Science & Technology. His successor is Volkert van Steijn, who will start this new challenge per September 1st.

Political scientist Cynthia van Vonno’s (Leiden University) 2016 dissertation has been shortlisted for the European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR) Jean Blondel PhD Prize. Her study of party group unity in parliamentary voting was chosen from an exceptionally high number of nominations.

Overtone Singing, written by ACPA alumnus Mark van Tongeren, deals with the hidden harmonies of the human voice.

The Australian parliament passed a law banning social media for youth under sixteen in late November. This solves nothing, argues Simone van der Hof, Professor of Law and Digital Technologies, in NRC. ‘Services should be held to the law.’

Stijn Bussels and Bram van Oostveldt have both contributed with an article in the book of Caroline van Eck: Idols to Museum Pieces. The Nature of Sculpture, its Historiography and Exhibition History, 1640-1880.

On 7 October, the Brussels Institute for Geopolitics was launched on the margins of an informal EU leaders’ summit in Prague. The initiative will provide a hub for high-quality research on Europe’s geopolitics, thus enabling the European Union to develop its strategic capacities.

Simone van der Hof has been awarded funding for a Marie Curie Initial Training (PhD) Network for NETHATE. NETHATE will bring together an interdisciplinary team of world-leading researchers to tackle an ambitious & relevant research project on the nature of hate. The NETHATE Consortium, an international…

We are saddened by the news of the unexpected passing of prof.dr. Pieter Sjoerd van Koningsveld on 28 July 2021.

Alumnus Anoma van der Veere did Japanese studies and talks in this interview about his studies in Leiden and his work as a researcher at the Leiden Asia Centre and as Japanese correspondent in Tokyo.

What exactly do psychedelics do in our brains? To investigate this, NWO has awarded a Vidi grant to Michiel van Elk. The Leiden cognitive psychologist talks about his proposal for serious research into a widespread social phenomenon. 'People describe experiences under the influence of psychedelics that…

Dutch and international students brandishing bows and arrows fire at each other on the fields of the University Sports Centre on 11 May. This is the aim – not the shooting each other, but the act of getting together.

While there are numerous and extremely advanced methods to sequence the genome, only a few methods exist to sequence the proteome. The Vidi project of Grégory Schneider promises to shed light on the most difficult paradigm of proteomics: achieving an error-free determination of the sequence of single…

Her specialist field is molecular astrophysics, and she is the most quoted scholar in her field. In this, the year of astronomy, she is the ideal person to give the Dies lecture at the university with the world's oldest astronomy institute; it goes without saying that the lecture will be on the newest…

Op 17 februari 1983 trad de geheel herziene Nederlandse Grondwet in werking. Het radioprogramma Villa VdB – gepresenteerd door Jurgen van den Berg – besteedde aandacht aan het 42-jarige jubileum van die gebeurtenis. Van den Berg ging daarover in gesprek met hoogleraar staatsrecht. Wim Voermans.

On January 11, 2025, our esteemed colleague and emeritus professor Arne van der Gen passed away. Arne was a professor of Organic Chemistry from 1980 until his retirement in 2000, and was a great advocate of the integration and harmonization of European education in chemistry. Arne was 90 years old.

CML Researcher Merlijn van Weerd wins Parker / Gentry Award 2015 for Conservation Biology at Field Museum Chicago in recognition of his commitment to biodiversity conservation in the Philippines

The monthly ILS Lunch seminars bring together colleagues and students from Leiden Law School, providing an informal setting to hear what researchers from other research programs and institutes are working on. On Thursday 8 November, a new edition of the ILS Lunch Seminars takes place. This month, Philippe…

The Executive Board of Leiden University has distanced itself from the Minister of Education, Culture and Science’s response to the Van Rijn Committee report. According to the University’s calculations, following the advice would have serious financial consequences for the entire University and would…

Zeger van der Wal, Professor by special appointment Ien Dales chair at the Institute of Public Administration wrote an opinion piece in Dutch journal Binnenlands Bestuur on the changing relation between government and society and how this affects integrity.

Two years ago, Russian tanks crossed the border into Ukraine. The war seems to be getting closer and closer. Is it time to dust off and reintroduce military service? Our students have their say.

On 28 and 29 October, the first Van Wittel/ Vanvitelli dialogue took place at the Clingendael Institute in The Hague. The Van Wittel/Vanvitelli Dialogue is a high-level roundtable on Italian-Dutch relations, organised by the Clingendael Institute and the Institute for International Affairs in Rome,…

Dr. Van Eijk will teach an advertising technology Masterclass for the Future of Privacy Forum (FPF) next week. It is the fourth session of the FPF & Brussels Privacy Hub's Digital Data Flows series. Van Eijk will be teaching alongside Adam Towvim (Brandeis International Business School) and moderated…

Manon van der Heijden and Leo Lucassen have been awarded funding from the NWO's Free Competition Humanities. They received the grant for their research on conflicts and jurisdiction over migrants and natives between 1600 and 1900.

Between the early thirteenth and early sixteenth centuries CE, the Sultanate of Cairo affected the balances of power elites across and beyond the regions of Egypt, Syria and the Eastern Mediterranean. Modern historiography has for a long time been determined by the idea of this sultanate as a highly…

On 10 March students of the advanced master's in International Children’s Rights and the Dutch Child Law master's watched the documentary Shadow Game with filmmaker Els van Driel.

Former PhD student Gerard van Westen was granted the C.J. Kok Award also known as “Discoverer of the Year”. A festive ceremony took place at the Faculty’s New Year’s reception on January 7, 2014.

Peter Paul van Benthem is not only head of the ENT department at the LUMC but also chair of the Federation of Medical Specialists. ‘The value is in the mix.’

Aad van der Vaart, professor of stochastics at Leiden University, has been awarded the NWO Spinoza Prize for his groundbreaking research in statistics. Van der Vaart conducts fundamental research on models that can help, for instance, to identify genes that play a role in cancer.

On 29 Augustus 2019 there will be a book presentation

Dr. Yannick van den Brink’s PhD thesis, titled ‘Pre-trial detention in the Dutch juvenile justice system’, has been awarded the FJR Prize 2018.

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The Meijers prizes are awarded each year for the best published article from each faculty research programme. Reijer received the prize for his contribution to the programme ‘The Legitimacy and Effectiveness of Law & Governance’ with his article ‘Digitalisering en de (dis)balans binnen de trias politica’…

Dancing in style at the University Sport Centre, and cooking together or visiting the cinema. These two initiatives for bringing Dutch and international students together were the winners of the 2016 Van Bergen Prize. The awards were presented at the annual Diversity Symposium at Leiden University on…

In the series 'Kracht van Sportdata' (Power of Sport data) Rens Meerhoff, postdoc at the Leiden Institute of Advanced Computer Science (LIACS), held a lecture about tactical behaviour based on positional data.

Every day we make use of devices, services and apps which contain algorithms that could be discriminating. These range from Facebook to self-driving cars, from the Tax Authorities to a rotating door.

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

The Middle Ages are becoming increasingly more popular: just look at the popularity of such ‘medievalist’ TV series as Game of Thrones and Vikings, and let’s not forget popular re-enactments of medieval battles. Leiden University is home to many specialists of this fascinating period and this new blog…

Every year, more than three thousand businesses are declared insolvent in the Netherlands. The purpose of bankruptcy is to divide the assets of these companies among the creditors. However, the value of the claims of the creditors often exceed the value of the assets of the company

Migration and crime are in the spotlight in society. Within the Institute for Criminal Law and Criminology, research in this area has strongly developed in recent years. The concept of Crimmigration is central to this.

Paul van Trigt and Anna Derksen, both researchers in the project 'Rethinking Disability', received grants for research abroad.

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.

During a closing exhibition, participants of the Master Honours Class 'Leiden: City of Refugees?' present their invitation to an imaginary group of 'others'. By combining science with art, students learn to look at society in a different manner.

On Wednesday January 25, Hayley Mickleburgh was hosted by the radio show de Kennis van Nu (NPO radio 1). Here she told about her work on a body farm in Texas. She investigates the decomposition processes of human remains.

To improve our teaching and reward excellent teaching assistants, the institute offers a Teaching Assistant Prize to the best teaching assistant of the semester.

The project has been done in the Mechanical Metamaterials group under the supervision of Prof.dr. Martin van Hecke and MSc Anne Meeussen . The title of the presentation is: ''Elastic Moduli of Smooth and Corrugated Thin Silicone Rubber Sheets.

The Belgium Netherlands Artificial Intelligence conference (BNAIC) is an annually organized conference bringing together AI researchers from all over the Benelux. This year it was supposed to be held for the first time in Leiden. Due to the continuing lock-down, it was organized online. A trend started…