On Tuesday 10 September 2019, the opening of the Master European Law took place in the Old Observatory. Ms Catherine De Bolle, Europol Executive Directeur, presented the opening lecture.

Mozambican politician and child rights activist Graça Machel will receive an honorary doctorate from Leiden University for her commitment to the rights of women and children in Africa and elsewhere. She will be awarded the honorary doctorate on the Dies Natalis, the University’s foundation day, on 8…

The war in Ukraine has lasted almost two weeks now. What does Putin expect to achieve with his invasion and how big is the chance that the West will get involved? We phoned André Gerrits, professor and expert on Russia.

When Petra Sijpesteijn became a member of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, she was the only Dutch member with an appointment at a Dutch university. Two years later, she is also the only Dutch member of the Austrian Academy and officially joined the British Academy on 7 October.

Ries Kamphof conducted research into European sustainability policies; his findings are that the European Committee very rarely uses her authority. ‘The member states are very protective when it comes to taking action to protect the climate.’ PhD ceremony on 22 November 2018.

Receiving a gift is nice, but giving a present also makes you happy. Development psychologist Mara van der Meulen former member of the Leiden Consortium on Individual Development (L-CID) answered four questions about giving gifts.

How did science relate to politics and colonialism in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries? Assistant Professor Lauren Lauret has been awarded an NWO XS grant to map the colonial and political activities of nineteenth-century scientists.

Valedictory lecture

Russia correspondent Eva Hartog took a Master’s in Political Philosophy in Leiden in 2011. This former editor-in-chief of The Moscow Times sees this short period as a new chapter in her life. And she is once again contemplating her future now she can no longer ask the big questions in Russia.

Below thesis archives will be moved shortly (work in progress) to the Leiden Repository. Once this is done, theses submitted by MI students (from 2008 onwards) can be accessed via the Repository and will be removed from this site.

Rühlig, Tim Nicholas, ed., China’s foreign policy contradictions lessons from China’s R2P, Hong Kong, and WTO policy. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2022). Pp. xvi +259. €90.81 (Hardcover). €51.12 (E-Book). ISBN-13: 979-8212055383.

Linguist Ingrid Tieken-Boon van Ostade retired in July, but is pressing on regardless with her languages in The Hague project. An online tour of her Hague Proverbs launched recently and Tieken also has academic publications in the pipeline.

On June 24 and 25, 45 heads of state and government were in The Hague, the Netherlands, to attend the NATO Summit. High-stakes security issues were discussed at the summit, which occurred during a crucial moment in time.

Below is a chronological list of the most recent to oldest publication from the MultiGreen project.

Without academic freedom, we might not have antibiotics, nor a deep understanding of human behaviour. Literary criticism, climate models, and ecological restoration would be severely limited; just like ethical reflection on artificial intelligence, justice, trauma, parenting, faith and hope. All these…

Monday 26 September, 2016 saw the first confrontation between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. Expectations were high – not only about the content of the debate, but also about how the two presidential candidates would behave, and how this might influence their campaigns. We asked three researchers…

Lecture, COGLOSS lecture

This project studies travel writing about the Dutch East Indies written between 1800 and the end of the Second World War. By analyzing both Dutch travel texts and Indigenous travel texts in Javanese and Malay, it presents a new, double-voiced perspective on (the historiography of) the Dutch colonial…

This programme aims to identify the intellectual contexts that were of importance for the architectural theory of the period, and especially to clarify the relation of architectural theory to primitivism.

The Institute of Criminal Law and Criminology’s ‘Vulnerable Groups and Inequality’ research project draws on a number of disciplines.

The terms ‘social’ , ‘collective’ or ‘public’ memory, are often contrasted with ‘private’, ‘individual’ or ‘personal’ memory. All these terms derive from a fairly new and interdisciplinary scholarly field that is often referred to as ‘memory studies’, and that according to some critics has developed…

The Heritage Sector at a Crossroads: The way of Intersectionality. This project investigates how heritage institutions can achieve inclusion and accessibility within their organization, collection, and exhibition spaces that meets the breadth of demands placed by today’s “critical visitors.” Fifteen…

Within the ICM 2018 project, Leiden University cooperated with 25 partner universities from 14 countries. In total, 97 mobilities were granted to this project - 65 mobilities were realised (some mobilities had to be ended prematurely due to covid-19, others were finished online).

The Faculties of Leiden University have developed several themes for research cooperation between Leiden University and its Indonesian partners.

If you are new to Leiden, it might be a good idea to join one of its many student associations. You’ll quickly get to know people and build up a network that will continue to prove its worth long after you’ve graduated from your master’s.

Leiden is bursting with student associations, from sports to music associations and from social to cultural associations. And this is good news because they will help you make more than just friends.

Uniting an international consortium of scholars, the Skandapurāṇa Project comprises a team of researchers working in fields across the Humanities. We are creating a critical edition of a foundational work of purāṇic literature and, in doing so, tracing the dynamics of a textual tradition to better understand…

Inaugural lecture

Natalia Grincheva (2020). Museum Diplomacy in the Digital Age. London: Routledge. ISBN 978-0-8153-6999-8, 164 pp., £27.99 (paperback).

LUCL is glad to announce that two of its members have been awarded an NWO Vrije Competitie Grant.

More than 80 percent of the EU’s agricultural subsidies go to the production of animals or animal feed. These products are responsible for 84 percent of the EU’s food-related greenhouse gas emissions. That is revealed in a new study by three Leiden researchers published in Nature Food. ‘If we continue…

What do you get when you bring a percussionist and a trumpet player together in a project orchestra? A story full of passion, unique experiences and a healthy dose of enthusiasm. We spoke with Tommy and Jeroen, both staff members at ISGA, about their participation in the Leiden Canal Concert on Sunday…

Almost 7,000 prospective students came to Leiden last Saturday to visit the Open Day. They came from all corners of the Netherlands and even from abroad to start the process of choosing a degree programme. At the Information Fair in the Pieterskerk they were able to ask students and study advisers all…

In collaboration with the The Hague Historical Museum and photographer Dagmar van Weeghel, Leiden University Libraries (UBL) is the first to present a retrospective exhibition of the photographic oeuvre of Alexine Tinne (1835 – 1869). New research into her life and work is the reason for a reappraisal…

From mandrill teeth to the microstructure of bones: archaeology alumna Simone Lemmers (31) is determined to reveal the past by studying old remains. Her curiosity has led to a very international career, also in the UK, where she witnessed the Brexit referendum.

Many European citizens feel connected to the European Union and place trust in it, Eva Grosfeld found in her PhD research. Yet around a quarter do not identify with the EU at all. How can the EU regain their trust?

On the occasion of the retirement of Robert Ross, Professor in African History at Leiden University, his successor and former student Jan-Bart Gewald wrote a valedictory note.

On Tuesday 24 April 2018, Nick Clegg, who served as Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, gave a guestlecture to first year students public administration about the profound dilemmas on Brexit. The lecture was part of a political science course within the Bachelor Public Administration of Leiden…

You can make some astounding images using just a box with a hole. Inspired by the celebration of Leiden as the European City of Science, Professor Matthew Kenworthy left several pinhole cameras across the Observatory over the course of 2021. This is how the simplest devices may uncover the greatest…

Future technologies will drastically influence our daily lives. To what extent will that benefit us? The Brave New World future congress on 2 and 3 November in Leiden will reveal a range of different scenarios, some optimistic and some worrying.

Zār jewellery from Egypt can be found in many museums and private collections in the West, but for a long time very little was known about it, except that it was used in rituals to protect against spirit possession. PhD candidate Sigrid van Roode has explored its history and discovered that the jewellery…

Is aviation on a one-way journey or a round trip? That is the question Steven Truxal will answer in his inaugural lecture From Disruption to Innovation in Air and Space: Legal Solutions for a Sustainable Future on Monday 15 November. This professor of air and space law is positive. That’s one thing…

On 13 January 2020, the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) has named 95 members ACM Fellows who have demonstrated excellence across many disciplines of computing. Among the new ACM Fellows is Professor Holger Hoos of the Leiden Institute of Advanced Computer Science, who was specifically selected…

In haar boek ‘Diensten met geheimen’ vertelt Willemijn Aerdts hoe de AIVD en MIVD te werk gaan. En ontkracht ze ook een paar mythes.