Between 11 and 13 September 2025, the ESIL Annual Conference took place in Berlin, Germany. This year's conference unfolded on the theme 'Reconstructing International Law', attracting an unprecedented number of legal scholars from all over the world.

Directors of museums in the Netherlands announced in March 2019 that they would be taking new steps in relation to the return of looted colonial artefacts. So what has happened since?

The Leiden Center for the Study of Ancient Religions (L*CeSAR) facilitates the integration of scholarly expertise and resources, promoting interdisciplinary collaboration and intellectual exchange among researchers of ancient religions, both within Leiden University and in the broader academic commu…

Promotor: Promotor: W.Th.F. den Hollander, Co-promotor: V. Sidoravicius.

Prepare for the MSc in Nationalism, Ethnic Conflict and Development at Leiden University with orientation programmes, academic resources, visa guidance, and student support.

Prepare for your MSc in Democracy and Representation at Leiden University: orientation week, student card & LU-card setup, study resources, and arriving tips for international & Dutch students.

Discover how to prepare for the MSc The Politics of Artificial Intelligence at Leiden University: orientation activities, academic resources, visa guidance, and student support services.

The Executive Board has appointed Pieter ter Keurs as professor of Museums, Collections, and Society as of 1 September 2019. The chair will be part of LUCAS (Faculty of Humanities) and is a collaborative effort of the Faculty of Archaeology and the Faculty of Humanities. Ter Keurs has his roots in…

How is social cognition shaped by our knowledge of language and stories?

As of 1 September , Karel Berkhoff has been appointed professor by special appointment in Ukrainian History. In this position, made possible in part by the KNAW, he will focus primarily on dark moments in recent Ukrainian history: the persecutions that have taken place in the first half of the twentieth…

By 2050, 70 per cent of the world's population will live in cities. This has major consequences for the lives of city-dwellers and for the environment. Uncontrolled urbanisation calls for an interdisciplinary approach. On 4 September, the first group of students started the new English-language Bachelor's…

Regional Federal Studies carefully reviews, selects and publishes high-quality articles dealing with various aspects of regionalism and federalism crossing substantive, thematic, geographical, theoretical, and methodological boundaries.

The 2025 Dutch Parliamentary Study is a comprehensive survey of views and experiences of members of the Senate and House of Representatives. This survey, conducted by Leiden University’s Institute of Political Science, is part of a long and rich tradition of parliamentary surveys in the Netherlands.…

Lecture, LIAS Lunch Talk Series

On Wednesday 1 September, the first thirteen students of the new BA Urban Studies at Leiden University, received their diplomas in person in The Hague. During a festive graduation ceremony, they were congratulated by rector magnificus Hester Bijl.

Brian McGarry and Cecily Rose, both affiliated with the Grotius Centre, are members of an adjudicative body established under the auspices of the NATO Support and Procurement Agency (NSPA). NSPA is ‘NATO’s lead organization for multinational acquisition, support and sustainment’ for the 32 NATO nations,…

Nobuaki Murai defended his thesis on 24 January 2018.

Last Friday was Master’s Open Day time once again. Students from home and abroad descended on Leiden and The Hague to find out more about our master’s programmes. Alongside the presentations, the information fairs gave them a good opportunity to ask any questions.

Corinne Hofman (Professor in Caribbean Archaeology) has been awarded 15 million euro by the EU for her archaeological research on the colonisation of the Americas. She will lead the ‘NEXUS 1492’ project together with colleagues Davies (VU), Brandes (Konstanz) and Willems (Leiden).

There are as good as no clear rules for the return of stolen art. This means that rather than in court, many cases are decided in the political arena instead. In her PhD research Evelien Campfens suggests how this could change. PhD defence on 11 November.

This semester archaeologist Dr Marike van Aerde teaches an Honours Course at the Faculty of Governance and Global Affairs in The Hague. “In the course, archaeology meets current issues.” For a course like this, the word interdisciplinary fits like a glove.

After a year of hard work, the second class of students of the Master of Laws: Advanced Studies in International Children’s Rights received their well-deserved master diplomas on Monday 28 August.

The third generation of students of the Master of Laws: Advanced Studies in International Children’s Rights 2017-2018 received their much-coveted master diplomas on Monday 27 August.

On 8 October, the Independent Expert, Prof. Manfred Nowak, leading the UN Global Study on Children Deprived of Liberty presented his report to the UN General Assembly. The presentation of the final report is set for 19 November 2019, at the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the UN Convention on the…

In the depots of the Faculty of Archaeology, many artifacts, accumulated after decades of fieldwork across the world, are stored. A new project, the Leiden Inventory Depot (LID), aims to unlock this wealth of information to the outside world. The 3D scanning of objects takes a central role in this endeavor.…