Japanese newspapers, photo archives from the Dutch East Indies or information on gender and sexuality: all these can be found in the University Library's 621 humanities databases. A flyer campaign to raise awareness of them begins this week.

The Netherlands Public Prosecution Service has demanded that Gideon van Meijeren, Dutch Member of Parliament in the Forum for Democracy (FvD) party, be handed 200 hours of community service for inciting violence. Marloes van Noorloos, Associate Professor of Criminal Law, discusses when a comment turns…

Er dreigen onmenselijke toestanden als gedetineerden niet twee weken eerder vrijgelaten mogen worden, stelt Miranda Boone, hoogleraar criminologie en vergelijkende penologie, in een opiniestuk in Trouw. ‘Waar de grens naar overbevolkte gevangenissen wordt overschreden, is er geen weg terug.’

Until September 2016, Hannah Plug was Research Assistant for the Consolidating Empire Research Project under the direction of Dr. Bleda Düring. Now, she has just begun her new appointment at Liverpool University, UK. Here she tells all about it.

The students of iGEM Leiden 2021 have scored well in the eponymous biology competition: they won a Gold Medal and the Best Safety & Security Award. The student team received the awards for their project DOPL LOCK, in which the team tries to make genetic modification safer.

In a recent article for the magazine Public Seminar, Santino Regilme argues that democracy across continents is being quietly usurped by a transnational billionaire class.

The Dutch Health and Youth Care Inspectorate (IGJ) has found that foster care at stitching Enver is not up to scratch. Mariëlle Bruning, Professor of Children and the Law, spoke to public broadcaster NOS about these new findings.

The master’s programme 'Jeugdrecht' (Child Law) at Leiden Law School has been awarded the gold medal by EW Beste Studies. It is the only degree programme at Leiden University to have earned this top award. Professor Mariëlle Bruning says, 'it’s the best compliment you could ever get in your career'.

The King’s Speech delivered by King Willem-Alexander on the third Tuesday of September in 2017 will be written by an outgoing cabinet. What effect will this have on its content? Professor Arco Timmermans (Public Affairs) and public administration expert Gerard Breeman analysed other King’s Speeches…

MA student African Studies Eline Sleurink is currently on an internship in Accra, the capital of Ghana. She’s sharing her adventures on The Leidener, a blog that is run by international students of Leiden University.

As part of his guest professorship in Leiden, famous theoretical physicist Prof. Andrei Linde (Stanford University) gave a public lecture on June 23 at the prestigious Leidse Schouwburg in the historic city center. Linde is world-renowned for being one of the inventors of the theory of inflation, which…

Erik van der Zanden and Donna de Weijer, both MA African Studies students, traveled all the way to Uganda’s capital Kampala in order to start their internship. They share their adventures at The Leidener, a blog that is run by international students of Leiden University.

Very little is known about the relationship between religion and the digital future. Bart Barendregt, Professor by special appointment Anthropology of Digital Diversity, is about to change that. He receives a Vici grant of 1.5 million euros from the NWO for his research project 'One between the Zeros,…

Only 35 years old and already a research group leader, on his way to tenure. And: numerous papers, grants and fellowships to his name. Leiden physicist Jordi Tura i Brugués receives today the Young Scientist Prize for his outstanding contributions to quantum research.

Prof. Suzan Stoter will be the Dean of Leiden Law School at Leiden University as of 1 January 2024. The Leiden University Executive Board has appointed her for a period of four years. Stoter succeeds Joanne van der Leun, who, together with the other members of the Faculty Board, brought great verve…

In opvanggezinnen voor alleenstaande minderjarige vluchtelingen komen veelvuldig misstanden voor, blijkt uit onderzoek van Zembla. Hoogleraar jeugdrecht Mariëlle Bruning reageert geschrokken tegenover BNN VARA: ‘We moeten zorgen dat we die kinderen in veiligheid brengen.’

A team of researchers at the Institute of Biology Leiden, in collaboration with scientists from Utrecht University, has discovered a novel approach to improve the production of antibiotics and enzymes in the soil bacteria Streptomycetes.

Upon invitation by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, a large group of academics submitted a third party intervention in a case against France. On 2 November, the Committee decided to follow the intervention’s main conclusion.

What do you build with when trees are scarce and winters are brutal? For hunter-gatherers living in current-day Ukraine some 18,000 years ago, the answer was simple: mammoth bones.

On Friday 24 June 2022, the Department of Constitutional and Administrative Law of Leiden University welcomed more than forty administrative law scholars to the first Young Administrative Law Researchers Day.

Leiden University College The Hague again receives the 'Top rated Programme' seal from the Keuzegids Universiteiten 2019 (Dutch University Guide).

On Thursday 11 November, Women in International Security Netherlands (WIIS-NL) held its inaugural webinar event on 11 November with four speakers in conjunction with the International Centre for Terrorism (ICCT) and the Chair UN Studies in Peace and Justice at Leiden University.

Jiemiao Chen is running a study on eye-contact with a virtual audience. The study involves introducing oneself to the audience while wearing eye-tracking glasses and filling out some questionnaires. Participation is possible until mid-June.

New technological applications which the government wants to use need to be thoroughly examined to prevent them causing problems for citizens. Currently, things often go wrong – the childcare benefit affair being an extreme example – says Anne Meuwese, Professor of Public Law and Governance of AI, in…

In the early morning of Wednesday 7 October, a 21-year-old man from Valkenburg (South Holland) was arrested on suspicion of issuing threats against Leiden University.

‘Nederland is verworden tot een digitale kolonie en dit is ondermijnend voor onze democratie’ stelt Reijer Passchier, universitair docent staatsrecht en hoogleraar digitalisering en democratische rechtsstaat aan de OU, in een uitzending van NPO-radio1.

The English edition of Rijpkema’s Weerbare democratie is published in Routledge’s Extremism and Democracy series, one of the leading series in the field, edited by Roger Eatwell and Matthew Goodwin.

New research report and policy brief by Carolien Jacobs (VVI) and Bernardo Almeida (VVI)

Columnist Folkert Jensma spreekt in zijn recente NRC column over een monumentaal NJB themanummer over de Gaza-oorlog. Larissa van den Herik, hoogleraar internationaal recht, droeg hieraan bij met een NJB-artikel over de vraag of de situatie in Gaza kan worden gekwalificeerd als genocide en wat verplichtingen…

Europe is expected to experience a greater frequency of severe floods. Paul Hudson discusses the challenges of flood management The Conversation.

Het faculteitsbestuur heeft prof. Van den Bogaert benoemd tot wetenschappelijk directeur van het Instituut voor Publiekrecht. Van den Bogaert is hoogleraar Europees recht en al meer dan 10 jaar hoofd van de afdeling Europees recht. Hij is tevens directeur van de Stichting Europa Instituut.

Leiden students organised a Model United Nations (MUN) from 3 to 6 May in The Hague. An MUN simulates the working of the United Nations and is intended to allow students to learn about the practice of international relations. View the photo series.

The new book of Professor of Character evolution and biodiversity Menno Schilthuizen gained a lot of media attention. ‘Darwin comes to town – how the urban jungles drives evolution’ was published in English in February and will be available in Dutch soon.

Associate professor Rens Tacoma has won the 2021 Research Prize for Historical Sciences. The prize is awarded annually by the Italy Studies Working Group for the best scholarly publication in the field of Italy Studies in Dutch or Flemish academia.

Astronomer Koen Kuijken and physicist Tjerk Oosterkamp have each been awarded a major subsidy by NWO. The funding will allow them to construct new research facilities.

Due to a major telephone disruption, 112 was unavailable for hours on Monday 24 June. At Albert Heijn, Tuesday 25 June, cash registers refused service. Bibi van den Berg, professor in Cyber Security Governance at the Institute of Security and Global Affairs, looks back on aspects of the disasters of…

From 20 to 23 June 2024, the prestigious Hugo Sinzheimer Moot Court Competition took place in Vienna. Students from Leiden Law School also participated.

Geert Wilders zaait twijfel door de verkiezingsuitslag in twijfel te trekken, wat volgens critici herinnert aan de tactiek van Donald Trump. Hoogleraar staatsrecht, Wim Voermans, noemt het in het Nederlands Dagblad een ‘trumpiaans soort hetze.’

At the request of the Dutch Parliament, Professor Marielle Bruning, Dr Kartica van der Zon (Dept. of Child Law), Professor Lenneke Alink and Dr Sabine van der Asdonk (Education and Child Studies) have produced a fact sheet on the placement of children in care in the Netherlands.

In a recent EUobserver opinion article, Salvador Santino Regilme, warns that Europe faces a crisis of legitimacy if it continues to ignore the structural influence of billionaires and oligarchic interests within its institutions.

Anthropologist Rodrigo Ochigame studies how AI is changing the practice of scientific research. From astrophysics to mathematics to climate science, they find that the adoption of new AI models is raising questions about what counts as reliable scientific evidence.

The fight against insurgents, guerrillas and resistance movements is an ‘incredibly unpopular’ topic with experts and military personnel, says Professor by Special Appointment of Military History Thijs Brocades Zaalberg in his inaugural lecture. He warns that ignoring these forms of irregular warfare…

Theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking (76) passed away on 14 March at his home in Cambridge, having been a long-term sufferer of the muscular disease ALS. A number of Leiden scientists look back at the life and scientific career of this world-famous physicist. 'He was very approachable and extremely…

For the first time, astronomers have managed to take a photo of a supermassive black hole and its shadow. They used the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT), a worldwide network of eight radio telescopes that together form a virtual telescope the size of the earth. The news was presented in six press conferences…

One of the major stereotypes about Islam is that it is very male-dominant and women-oppressive, but is Islam really that patriarchal? Mahmood Kooriadathodi has been awarded a 250.000 euros Veni grant for his project ‘Matriarchal Islam: Gendering Sharia in the Indian Ocean World’.

Friday 5 July 2019 was the graduation of the Advanced Master International Relations and Diplomacy (MIRD). ´If the MIRD is like a good wine, this has been a vintage year'.

Three Dutch-Belgian telescopes have started operating at the ESO La Silla Observatory in Chile. This so-called BlackGEM array will scan the southern sky to hunt for cosmic events that produce gravitational waves, such as mergers of neutron stars and black holes. Leiden astronomer Rudolf le Poole is…

On 28 September the famous chemists Carolyn Bertozzi visited Leiden University to speak at the LED3 seminar. Just one week later, she was announced winner the 2022 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Leiden chemists Sebastian Pomplun and Hermen Overkleeft are fan: ‘We are extremely honoured to have hosted this…

On 20-21 June, the Society for Terrorism Research (STR) held its annual conference in Oslo. The Center for Research on Extremism (C-REX) of the University of Oslo led by Professor dr. Tore Bjørgo hosted one of the main academic conferences in the field of terrorism studies. The central theme was the…

We are grief-stricken that our PhD student Maolin Zhang passed away during the early morning of January 17th 2019. He died during a terrible fire that took place at his house in Hillegom.