Meet the newest Full Professor at the Leiden Observatory: Joe Hennawi. All the way from Santa Barbara, California, Hennawi will strengthen the astronomy institute. In Leiden, he will use his recent ERC Advanced Grant to study how supermassive black holes come into existence.

The Foundation for Austrian Studies and the Institute for History are very glad to announce that Monika Baár has been appointed as the holder of the Special Chair for Central European Studies.

On February 1st Cristina Grasseni started as Professor of Anthropology at the Institute for Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology. She is bringing the ERC Consolidator project ‘Food Citizens?’ with her to Leiden. A few questions to get to know the new professor.

On 7 and 8 October 2016 Leiden Law School received a visit from the external review committee, led by Mr Fred Hammerstein. This review committee reports on the results of research performed at the faculty and provides advice on how these results can be improved in the future. The assessment of the research…

Last November, it was announced that the European Commission has awarded a Jean Monnet Chair to Professor of Tax Law Irma Mosquera Valderrama. She will use the grant to shape the EUTAXGOV project over the next three years.

On 26 and 27 September, Eduard Fosch-Villaronga, Carlotta Rigotti, Mohammed Raiz Shaffique, Marie Schwed-Shenker and Antoni Mut Piña participated in the third edition of Lawtomation Days at the IE University in Madrid.

Two years ago, Amanda Henry joined the Faculty of Archaeology’s Archaeological Sciences department. She investigates diet and human evolution, with a specific focus on plant foods. ‘Most of the studies on the prehistoric diet focus on meat and hunting. This just didn’t make sense to me.’

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).

A thousand-year-old tooth has provided genetic evidence that the so-called

The corona crisis has had a major effect on research. Sarah de Rijcke, Professor of Science and Evaluation Studies, and her group research the effects of performance evaluation on the work of ocean scientists. The majority of the fieldwork was supposed to be carried out on ships and at marine labs throughout…

It is with deep sorrow that we share the news that our dear colleague Andrea Evers passed away on Monday, 4 August 2025. Since 2013, Andrea had been affiliated with the Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences at Leiden University as Professor of Health Psychology. She was an undeniable driving force…

According to a new study by an international team of researchers from the Caribbean, Europe and North America, the Caribbean was settled by several successive population dispersals that originated on the American mainland.

Political games have existed throughout history, but what is the role of 'play' in the way the American political world has developed? University lecturer Sara Polak has received an ERC Starting Grant to investigate this.

Who was professionally involved in language between 1550 and 1650? And what were the financial returns of this language sector? Assistant Professor Alisa van de Haar has received an ERC Starting Grant to map out the situation in Northwest Europe between 1550 and 1650.

Michaël Peyrot has been appointed professor of Comparative Indo-European Linguistics at the Leiden University Centre for Linguistics with retroactive effect from 1 January. He is looking forward to passing on his love for the subject to a new generation of students.

Professor Barend Mons has been appointed Chair of the Commission High Level Expert Group

Image from ESOF Forum programme page.

Stress and overwork are massive problems today, but relatively little is known about stress factors in the past. With a look at the deep history of stress, Sarah Schrader hopes to get a better understanding of the human stress experience. Her project application received an NWO XS grant.

The Justice and AI Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence is striving to become a European hub of excellence on fairness in AI. Eduard Fosch-Villaronga was invited to explain the role of fairness in robots and AI systems.

Nathaniel Martin has been appointed professor in the field of Bioorganic Chemistry within the Faculty of Science at the Institute of Biology Leiden, starting from 1 March 2018. His research focuses on using new (bio)chemical approaches to combat infectious disease, as well as on developing new molecular…

Special achievements, grants and a top 10 ranking, a great calendar year for the Faculty of Archaeology! See the overview of 2023 in the hall of fame below.

Over the past year, many students and staff members of Leiden Law School have been lauded for their extraordinary achievements. For instance: a grant received, an award won, or an appointment by a special committee. We have combined all these achievements in our Honours Gallery 2022:

Dr Amy Strecker (Heritage Dept., Faculty of Archaeology) has recently been awarded a LGI BREED grant to develop her project on property and spatial justice in international law. Building on her previous research into landscape protection from cultural heritage, environmental and human rights perspectives…

As robotics advances in the field of emergency response, firefighting robots – or 'firebots' – offer promising improvements in safety and operational efficiency. However, to ensure these technologies truly benefit society, non-technological factors must be considered from the outset.

Dr Amany Soliman joined the NVIC as a postdoctoral research fellow in October 2017. She is a lecturer of modern history and international relations at the Mediterranean Studies Institute at the Faculty of Arts, Alexandria University. For her PhD thesis, she examined the nationalist movements in Spain,…

A lively discussion on impact and society.

Travel grant call for applications open to people who were identified as female at birth or who identify as female at the time of application for externally-funded Ph.D. students (not funded by any outside source such as ERC, NWO, etc.) and/or staff members (postdoc, docent, UD, permanent/non-permanent…

Twelve researchers of our Law School have been awarded an ILS seed money grant. This grant enables researchers to create space for preparing a grant proposal for NWO, ERC or otherwise.

As of 1 November, Jan Vonk has been appointed full professor of Mathematics at the Mathematical Institute (MI). The institute is delighted with Jan’s appointment, as is he. ‘At the MI we combine the abstract with the concrete like no other.’

The ERC consolidator project

As every academic year, the leadership team of the Young Academy Leiden (YAL) is changing. Sarah Giest, Assistant Professor at the Institute of Public Administration, will be the new Vice-Chair. Annemarie Samuels, Asssociate Professor at Social Sciences, will be the new Chair. The Young Academy Leiden…

Researchers from the Department of Tax Law were lead authors of a report on corporate taxation and digitalization for the World Economic Forum.

The Scientific Commission of the Swiss Anthropological Association (SSE-SEG-SAA) convenes once a year a major conference around thematic panels. This year, the annual meeting of the SSE-SEG-SAA addressed the topic of “norms and alternatives”. Prof. dr. Cristina Grasseni and lecturer Janine Prins participated…

Last Thursday, the final ILS Lunch Seminar of 2018 took place. Irma Mosquera Valderrama, Adrián Grant and Frederik Heitmüller gave two very insightful presentations on Global Tax Governance, part of the EU-ERC project ‘A New Model of Global Governance in International Tax Law Making’ (GLOBTAXGOV).

The Faculty of Archaeology has appointed Dr Marie Louise Sørensen as Professor in Bronze Age Studies in the European Prehistory research group from 1st September 2012. Prof. Sørensen is a Reader in Archaeology at the University of Cambridge (Fellow of Jesus College).

On Thursday 23 November, Professor Betty de Hart delivered the lecture ‘Exploring the Legal Archive on Race: Methodological Challenges’ as part of the lecture series ‘Reconsidering the Socio-Legal Gaze’ organized by the Van Vollenhoven Institute. Over 40 people attended the lecture, held online due…

A lively discussion on impact and society

On Monday 10 February 2020, guest lecturer Prof. Dr. Cedric Ryngaert (Utrecht University) will deliver a lecture on ‘Jurisdiction and the Territorialisation of the Extraterritorial’. This event is hosted by the ‘Interaction between Legal Systems 2.0’ (ILS) projects ‘Policing the high seas’ and SOLID…

As of 1 September, Martina Vijver is the new Scientific Director of the Institute of Environmental Sciences. She succeeds Arnold Tukker, who led the institute since 2013 and served the maximum term of two times four years. Vijver has been appointed for a period of four years.

The Embassy of Ireland in the Netherlands and Leiden University's GTGC proudly presented the joint event ‘Building the League of Nations and the International Labour Organisation’.

The first Dutch National Post-Doc Prize was awarded to Dr. Hayley Mickleburgh, postdoctoral researcher in the field of funerary archaeology with ERC-Synergy NEXUS1492 at the Faculty of Archaeology, Leiden University.

Professor of Cognitive Psychology Mariska Kret studies how humans and animals express emotions. Comparisons between humans and great apes offer important evolutionary insights, Kret will say in her inaugural lecture on Friday 9 September.

How did disability become a global concern? In this project we will identify the contribution of international agencies, governmental and non-governmental organizations and, just as importantly, disabled people themselves, to the IYDP and by showing the connections, interactions and entanglements between…

Leiden University has a long tradition of Asian language education. Chinese, Japanese and Korean partners are essential in providing a practical side of learning education.

Social, Economic and Organisational Psychology focuses on the application of scientific psychological knowledge of social processes within and between groups of people and individuals, in organisations, but also during economic and consumer decisions.

ILS organizes monthly Lunch Seminars in which all researchers from Leiden Law School can present their research. The idea is to share in an open and accessible way what researchers from other research programs and institutes are working on. During a seminar, two or three speakers will present their…

In the 19th century, Old English poems were claimed as cultural heritage by various non-Anglophone nations, including Scandinavians, Germans and Dutch. These competing nationalistic, cultural appropriations happened against the backdrop of a growing interest in early medieval English language and literature…

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Professor Marc Koper researches how you can use electrical energy to make or break chemical bonds. He has just been awarded a Spinoza Prize, the Netherlands’ highest personal science award, for his fundamental research into how this form of electrolysis works.

Researchers at the Universities of Amsterdam (Uva) and Leiden together with the Netherlands Cancer Institute and Oncode Institute have received a €10,6 million ERC Synergy Grant to develop innovative therapeutic approaches to target glioblastoma. This is a deadly primary brain tumour for which no curing…