Scientists have discovered that starlings and parrots can imitate the complex sounds of Star Wars droid R2-D2 remarkably well. Their study reveals how the structure of a bird’s vocal organ determines its vocal abilities – and how citizen science helps uncover it.

On 7 June, the National Museum of Antiquities opened a mini exhibition 'Scanning for Syria'. The exhibition shows how Leiden archaeologists and Delft technical specialists make reconstructions of 3000-year-old Assyrian clay tablets. The originals, stored in museum depots in Raqqa (Syria), have been…

The war between Russia and Ukraine plays out not only physically but also digitally. Van Den Berg, Professor of Cybersecurity Governance at the FGGA, talked about it at several news outlets.

President Zelensky of Ukraine has asked the UN International Court of Justice to issue an urgent order to stop Russian military activity in his country. According to Zelensky, Russia has twisted the concept of genocide to justify aggression.

The second call-for-papers has now closed and those who have submitted an abstract will hear whether their papers have been accepted or rejected by the end of November. The organizing team is keeping an eye on all developments regarding the Coronavirus and will decide in December whether ICEHL-21 will…

This project aims to excavate and date the setting of the east gate of the Roman fortress of Udhruḥ. This will be compared with other Diocletianic military installations from the region. We also hope to retrieve another gate inscription which can shed light on the function and political embedding of…

On January 14th the executive Master’s programme Cyber Security started for the second time at the HSD Campus

Two years after the first conference, the Napels based Institute of Chemistry and Technology of Polymers, together with a consortium of organisations and research institutes, organised the second conference from 15 to 18 September in Capri, Italy.

PhD student of the division Pharmacology, Jantine Brussee has won the second prize of the Figon-Pfizer PhD student Competition, at the Dutch Medicine Days in Ede.

On the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the magna carta of civil aviation, the Convention on International Civil Aviation (Chicago Convention 1944), Professor Steven Truxal has written a leading piece for the European Civil Aviation Conference: The Chicago system: a steadfast legal blueprint for…

Carl Li defended his thesis on 30 June 2015

Dr. Gruni published an article on the impact on sustainable development in the EU Common Commercial Policy of recent Opinion 2/15 CJEU on the Global Trade and Customs Journal.

The Leiden Papyrological Institute is the only papyrological institute in the Netherlands. The members of our staff publish Greek (and Latin), Demotic (and Abnormal-Hieratic) and Coptic papyri from collections all over the world, including our own collection.

Machine Learning is becoming a more and more substantial technology for industry.

This project investigates how early print media covered distant but urgent geopolitical conflicts, using newspapers from the Low Countries, north and south.

Political scientist Corinna Jentzsch received an NWO Veni grant for her research on the conditions of collaboration between militias and state forces and its consequences for safety and political order.

On Friday 16 May Juul Eijk successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated.

On 4 April 2024, a meeting of the standing committee of the Dutch House of Representatives was held. At this meeting, Anna Marhold, Assistant Professor at the Grotius Centre and Wim Voermans, Professor of Constitutional Law, informed the committee about the economic and legal implications of a military…

LIACS graduate Lieven van Velthoven won yet another award for his Media Technology MSc graduation thesis entitled

In early medieval England, there was an interest in the history of the Roman Empire and kings adopted such imperial titles as 'imperator' or 'basileus'. How can we explain this interest and what functions did imperial ideas and the reception of the classical world serve in early medieval England?

International Coalitions for Peace in the Era of Decolonization, 1918-1970

Today’s socio-economic challenges aren’t new. In the centuries after the retreat of the Roman state people with different backgrounds and with different ways of life somehow managed to build and maintain a complex economic system in northern Gaul that would produce the ruling dynasties of Europe. By…

The Persian Empire (539-330 BCE) was the first world empire in history. At its height, it united a territory stretching from present-day India to Libya - and it would take 2,000 years before significantly larger empires emerged in early modern Eurasia. This territorial sweep is both a source of fascination…

LUCIR presentation and discussion

The project explores the impact of the clash between defenders of a rules-based order and international law on global governance and the future of legal systems.

More than 600 staff members and students of Leiden University did not survive the war. Two of them were Caroline van Loen and Elsa Oppenheim .

Through language and culture, history, anthropology, and sociology, we delve into the countries, populations, and societies of South and Southeast Asia. From this perspective, we address global issues such as migration, heritage, and colonialism.

European integration is under pressure. At the same time, the notion of a European administrative space is being explicitly voiced. But does a shared idea of the public servant exist in Europe?

Lecture

At Leiden University College, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer urged Europe to show unity and strength in a world defined by fear, power politics, and uncertainty.

Is the legitimacy of law and governance of multilevel jurisdictions diminishing? What is the significance of (diminishing) legitimacy for the effectiveness of law? These kinds of questions about the legitimacy of the supranational formation of law, its application, and the policy and governance based…

Professor Marlou Schrover will receive a second appointment as Leiden-Delft-Erasmus professor. In addition to her current position as professor of Migration History at Leiden University, she will be appointed professor at the Erasmus School of Social and Behavioural Sciences. She discusses her field…

How do descendants of survivors of violent conflict anticipate and respond to potential, future disaster – both potential new conflict and natural hazards?

Terminating the Trade Treaty between the US, Mexico and Canada, as Trump intends, violates the treaty and also has implications for labour law, says emeritus professor of international labour law, Paul van der Heijden, in Dutch newspaper ‘Het Financieele Dagblad’.

It’s the middle of the academic year, but most of the University buildings are closed – something that hasn’t happened since the Second World War. Fortunately, after a week of intensive preparations, the teaching has moved online. How is the Central Crisis Team steering the University through the corona…

After a successful first edition in February 2019, the Stichting Bob Wessels Insolvency Law Collection invites PhD students from Europe and beyond for a second edition of the PhD workshop on European/International Insolvency Law. At this workshop they can present their ideas, but also the challenges…

This collection of essays explores processes of innovation in Greco-Roman technology and science.

What was the stringed instrument known in medieval and early Renaissance Italy as “cetra”?

Until the 1990s, the only known planets were those in our Solar System. Three decades later, several thousand exoplanets have been discovered orbiting stars other than the Sun, and substantial efforts have been made to explore these strange new worlds through spectroscopic analyses of their atmosphe…

Until recently, the role of external information processing in intelligence has rarely been investigated quantitatively or experimentally. A group of researchers from Erasmus University Rotterdam, Leiden University, GGZ Rivierduinen, and University of Edinburgh measured in a new way how and when people…

Sarah Giest and Annemarie Samuels, both Assistant Professors at Leiden University, researched the quality and coverage of the data being collected for policiymakers to be used, specifically pertaining to minority groups.

Does hegemony—legitimated rule by dominant power—have a role in ordering world politics of the twenty-first century? If so, what form does that hegemony take: does it lie with a leading state or with some other force? How does contemporary world hegemony operate: what tools does it use and what outcomes…