The Council of Ministers has appointed Jan Willem Erisman, Professor of Environment and Sustainability at Leiden University, as chair of the new Scientific Climate Council (WKR) from 1 March. This council will advise the government on climate policy.

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.

His PhD research project - entitled Charlemagne's Workshops - is an ongoing investigation into the role of copper-alloy craft production in the early medieval economy of North-west Europe. The geographic limits of this research have up until now centred on the Netherlands (Frisia Magna in medieval times)…

Leiden University’s Europe Hub invites submissions from all faculties for its annual Europe Hub master's thesis prize by 1 September 2025.

On 8 March the students of the Honours Class presented their paper proposals for the conclusion of the Honours Class on the aftermath of the European Refugee Crisis. In this course students looked at the interplay between the refugee crisis, the EU’s response to this crisis and the practical effects…

The Department of History of Art in Oxford has appointed Leiden University professor Caroline van Eck as Slade Professor of Fine Art for the second semester of academic year 2016-2017. As Slade Professor Van Eck will spend a semester in office at Oxford University and deliver eight public lectures and…

Of the 900 new companies that have set up shop on the Netherlands’ largest campuses since 2018, 194 chose Leiden. This makes the Leiden Innovation District the fastest growing of the larger campuses. This is the conclusion a study by Buck Consultants International.

From 26 until 28 January Leiden Law School hosted the regional training for lawyers as part of the EU funded project Advancing the Defence Rights of Children, organized by Fair Trials.

The proportion of professors at Leiden University who are female has risen slightly to 32.0%. These are the results of the Women Professors Monitor 2024 released by the Dutch Network of Women Professors (LNVH). This puts Leiden University above the national average of 28.7%.

Plants use sunlight to perform photosynthesis, but with too much light they have to dim their activity and protect their cells against photo damage. The protein PsbS acts as a light-stress sensor and plays a key role in this process. Article in Nature’s Scientific Reports.

A stretchy sheet over a bowl representing space, a marble on it's surface creating a dimple, deforming space. Simple classroom experiments like these are featured in new educational videos by AstroEDU. In the videos Leiden astronomers Maria Cristina Fortuna and Henk Hoekstra explain what we know of…

Leiden University won five prizes at the 10th edition of the IBA International Criminal Court (ICC) Moot Court Competition – English edition of 2023, including Best Regional Team of Europe.

The European Research Council (ERC) has awarded Nathaniel Martin a Proof of Concept (PoC) grant. With it, his group aims to make a dangerous but potent antibiotic less toxic. He receives €150.000.

Upcoming activities by ACPA PhD candidates Paul Houdijk, Gabriel Paiuk and Magda Dourado Pucci

The Developmental and Educational Psychology unit nominated Jiemiao Chen's paper

The region of Zuid-Holland is launching ‘AI Hub Zuid-Holland’. This network organisation will be a single point of contact for business and knowledge institutions in Zuid-Holland that want to work with Artificial Intelligence (AI).

Experts verwachten een aanpassing in de transferregels, waardoor voetballers meer vrijheid krijgen om een club te verlaten. Een uitspraak in de Diarra-zaak door het Europees Hof van Justitie, wordt binnenkort verwacht en zou tot deze herziening kunnen leiden. Stefan Vandenbogaert, hoogleraar europeesrecht,…

Researchers from Leiden, in cooperation with Philips, have won a challenge in which international research groups dedicate themselves to accelerating MRI scans with the help of artificial intelligence (AI). They developed an algorithm with which it is possible to use eight times less data than normal…

Dean Prof. Willem J.H. Willems will be travelling to Mongolia in september 2010, as participant of the Mongolian International Heritage Team (MIHT). Prof. Willems is co-president and expert member of ICAHM, the ICOMOS International Committee of Archaeological Heritage Management and will serve as evaluator…

The Digital Legal Talks (DLT) conference is part of the Dutch Sector Plan Law, which is a key component of the broader Sector Plan Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH). This initiative represents a collaborative effort between Tilburg University, the University of Amsterdam, Radboud University Nijmegen,…

Two Leiden researchers have been awarded a Consolidator Grant by the European Research Council (ERC). This grant of up to 2 million euros will enable them to continue and develop their research.

Rüya Akdağ is part of a research team with the aim of further studying social anxiety. The Leiden psychologist receives the grant for her doctoral research on the role of emotions and cognition in the emergence and occurrence of social anxiety in adolescents.

Together with the municipality of The Hague, the Centre for Innovation of Leiden University is launching a new Hub in the city that connects organisations on data technology, peace and justice together.

This year’s theme of the Cyber Summit is: “Using Technology Responsible”. The Cyber Summit will take place in Banff, Canada on October 26th-28th. Dr. Bart Custers, associate professor and head of research at eLaw, the Center for Law and Digital Technologies, is invited to give a presentation on privacy…

The Jaap Doek Children’s Rights Thesis Award is an annual award for the best thesis in the field of Children’s Rights granted by Defence for Children and the Department of Child Law of Leiden Law School.

Having served on the Executive Board for over nine years, the last five of which as Rector Magnificus, Hester Bijl will leave Leiden University at the start of next year. In a new step in her career, she will become Rector Magnificus on the Executive Board of Delft University of Technology (TU Delft)…

Depression and anxiety disorders among youth are causing major problems worldwide. The mechanisms involved are still unknown, however. Moji Aghajani – Assistant Professor at the Institute of Education and Child Studies - aims to provide new insights with his research

Andrea Cortellari, a 2020 graduate of the MA program in Middle Eastern Studies at the Leiden Institute for Area Studies, wins the best MA thesis prize by the Society for Turkic, Ottoman, and Turkish Studies.

On Saturday 11 May 2019, the BA South and Southeast Asian Studies programme held an Alumni Event for former students. All current students and staff were also invited. Several alumni were invited to talk about their study and career during two panel sessions. An inspiring afternoon!

How can we stop the endless stream of spam we receive in our mailbox? Journalist Warner van der Louw of Dutch newspaper ‘Trouw’ puts the question to Bart Custers, Professor of Law and Data Science at eLaw, Center for Law and Digital Technologies.

A controversial comment made by Mona Keijzer of the Dutch BBB party (Farmer-Citizen Movement) calling for the return of Ukrainian refugees and Ukrainian conscription-age men to safe areas of Ukraine has sparked fierce criticism. Mark Klaassen, Associate Professor of Immigration Law and a member of the…

On the 2nd of June, Valentina Carraro gave a lecture on the complementarity of human rights reviewing mechanisms in the United Nations and presented an original framework to assess the extent to which institutions within regime complexes repeat or contradict each other when delivering recommendations…

Almost all PhD defences at Leiden University have been postponed due to the corona virus, but statistician Sanne Willems is going through with hers. In a different form than usual that is. Hardly any audience, the committee dialing in from a distance and the celebration to be held at a later moment.…

From 9-12 April 2018, the Department of Child and the Grotius Centre for International Legal Studies have organised in cooperation with the Asia-Europe Foundation a training programme on Human Rights and Children.

On Saturday 9 February 2019 we celebrated the International Day of Women and Girls in Science 2019 in Leiden! View the photos of this festive day, with contributions from Robbert Dijkgraaf and Ewine van Dishoeck, and numerous fascinating workshops and exciting experiments.

Can the KLM reject an applicant for a job as a pilot or stewardess if they refuse to get vaccinated against Covid-19? Or put more broadly: can the employer of a new employee demand that they are vaccinated? Those questions were at the centre of court proceedings brought on Thursday by the Dutch Airline…

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 catalyst: normally a substance that speeds up a chemical reaction, without adding molecules to this reaction. Scientists from the group of Prof. Marc Koper of Leiden University and Prof. Yang Shao-Horn of MIT now discovered that in specific reactions that need oxygen, catalysts called metal oxides…

Joop van Holsteyn, Professor in Political Behaviour and Research Methods (Leiden University Institute of Political Science), joins the Dutch Electoral Council.

Leiden University's Asian Modernities and Traditions research area will be presented on 9 September, in the form a conference. The keynote speaker is Professor Prasenjit Duara, Director of the Asia Research Institute of the Singapore National University. The title of his address is Sustainability and…

The monthly ILS Lunch Seminars present the perfect opportunity to unite the different institutes situated within Leiden Law School and are steadily developing into somewhat of a tradition. On Thursday 14 June, the last edition of the ILS Lunch Seminars of this academic year takes place. This seminar…

Highland Bhutan is facing unprecedented challenges from a combination of climate change, new economic opportunities, and changing cultural aspirations of its residents. Today, what does highland heritage constitute, to who, and how does it matter?

Following the Beirut explosion, BBC's podcast series The Foodchain explores the chemical that caused the blast: ammonium nitrate. A compound that is widely used to produce fertilizer. Professor of Environmental sustaibability Jan Willem Erisman tells about the effects of nitrogen on the environment.

Visiting the beating heart of European politics, namely, the European Council in Brussels, is a great opportunity for students. I was lucky to be able to join the visit, organised by the Career Service and Alumni Office last Friday. The primary purpose of the visit was to familiarize us with the work…

An international collaboration of astronomers is organising a special online lecture series for physicists and astronomers in Cuba. The reason for this is the tightening of measures against this country, as a result of which researchers can hardly get any information from outside the island. ‘Everyone…

For many years, scientists have observed a correlation between Alzheimer’s disease and a surplus of iron in the brain. However, a causal link between the two has not been proven yet. We lack knowledge concerning the specific form of iron that is involved in the development of neurodegenerative diseases.…

Access to justice is essential for children to be able to exercise and claim their human rights. On 30 April 2019, Chrisje Sandelowsky represented Leiden University at a closed roundtable in Geneva to support this cause.

A rare medieval bookmark emerged in Leiden University Library. Book historian Erik Kwakkel found the disk in an archive of manuscript descriptions called the Bibliotheca Neerlandica Manuscripta. It was likely put their in the early twentieth century by Willem de Vreese, who made the descriptions. The…

The monthly ILS Lunch Seminars present the perfect opportunity to unite the different Institutes situated within Leiden Law School. On Thursday 28 November, the ILS Lunch Seminar of November took place. Melanie Fink and Tycho de Graaf both presented their current and future research.

On 24 January 2025, a Workshop on ‘Protecting human rights through collective redress’ took place at the Central European University in Vienna. It was organised by Dr Zsolt Körtvélyesi in the framework of a Maria Skłodowska-Curie project on ‘Minority Rights – Towards Effective European Enforcement’.