Last July, Robbert Dijkgraaf, Minister of Education, Culture and Science and Annetje Ottow, President of Leiden University's Executive Board, opened the new front office of the Leiden University office in Jakarta. The office - located on the grounds of the Dutch embassy - has a dual role. Firstly, it…

LEAP is a peer-reviewed journal founded in 2021 by a team of junior and senior scholars of Leiden University as part of a Faculty-broad Master course. Each year the journal has a new editorial board and a new theme. Series editors Astrid van Weyenberg and Nanne Timmer guide this process and are assisted…

BPS MSc student Guus Ruiter: This year I followed this new course called Design, Analysis, and Practical Use of Biologicals at the LUMC given by Rawi Ramautar and developed for both BPS MSc and Pharmacy students. During this course, there were many different speakers, in particular from biotech companies…

On the occasion of the conferral of an honorary doctorate to children’s rights activist Graça Machel, a fund has been established that will enable two female students from South Africa to come and study in Leiden.

Education

The Dutch universities are shocked by the Russian invasion of Ukraine and empathise with all those affected by this act of aggression. Leiden University also calls for solidarity with and support for all those affected by the war.

Linda Holtman

On 28 and 29 May, Carlotta Rigotti, postdoctoral researcher at eLaw, held a workshop on fairness and diversity bias in AI-driven recruitment at the annual symposium of the Japanese Society on Artificial Intelligence (JSAI) in Hamamatsu, Japan. The workshop was organised as part of the BIAS project in…

Carlotta Rigotti, Postdoc researcher at eLaw, participated in the ‘Intersectional Fairness in AI: Legal Frameworks, Tools, and Learning Opportunities’ webinar on 10 December 2024.

One of the largest roofs at Leiden University, that of the Snellius building, has recently been equipped with 590 solar panels and 57,000 sedum plants, making it the largest combined roof in the Benelux. The roof was officially opened on Monday 10 October by Annetje Ottow and Martijn Ridderbos, President…

Dr Antonio Missiroli has been appointed as Associate Senior Policy Fellow for Emerging Security Threats at the Institute of Security and Global Affairs (ISGA).

Tycho de Graaf has been appointed Professor of Technology and Private Law at Leiden University as of 1 June 2022.

The New Scholar, an interdisciplinary peer-reviewed journal at the Faculty of Humanities of Leiden University, is launching its first issue, and how? With a double issue!

The Executive Board of Leiden University has appointed Bart Joosen as Professor of Financial Law commencing on 1 July 2023. The chair is attached to the Hazelhoff Centre for Financial Law, part of the Institute of Private Law at Leiden Law School.

K-pop band BTS joining the Korean military is a compulsory obligation, one with increased meaning as tension builds on the Korean Peninsula and around the world, postdoc Aleydis Nissen writes in an article in The Diplomat.

In a recent article for the magazine Public Seminar, Santino Regilme argues that democracy across continents is being quietly usurped by a transnational billionaire class.

The demonstration on November 14th in Utrecht was cancelled, but alternative protests took place in Leiden and The Hague. Read the message from our Dean why we should keep raising our voices against the proposed budget cuts.

The Max van der Stoel Human Rights Award is presented every two years on 10 December (Human Rights Day) in recognition of outstanding academic works in the field of international human rights.

Over the next few years, the Pieter de la Court building will be refurbished. This summer, the first to be tackled is the basement. What will happen?

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.

Waarom laaien er rellen op in het Verenigd Koninkrijk, aangespoord door de extreemrechtse British Defence League? Jorieke Manenschijn sprak met EenVandaag over hoe de beloftes van Brexit aan de woede hebben bijgedragen.

In a project funded by the John Templeton Foundation to the group of Micha Drukker, scientists will produce stem cells from short and long living understudied species to model cellular and organismal lifespan.

The Grotius Centre for International Legal Studies in collaboration with the University of Geneva, the Chinese Journal of International Law (ChineseJIL, OUP) and the European Society of International Law (ESIL), are pleased to invite public international scholars and researchers to attend a conference…

ICT, Research

Organisation

Do people actually understand the constitution? This is what Jelle But, PhD candidate at Constitutional and administrative law, wondered. To find out, he conducted a survey among 1333 respondents. His research shows that lawyers and other legal professionals actually do not have a better understanding…

Facility, Human resources, Social

Assistant Professor Briitta van Staalduinen has received the Best Dissertation Award from the American Political Science Association, Section on Class and Inequality. Her dissertation, Ethnic Inequality in the Welfare State, aims to reconcile the persistence of ethnic inequalities in expansive welfare…

In a few weeks’ time Carel Stolker will be retiring as Rector Magnificus. In a double episode of the Science Shots podcast, we take stock: what were the key lessons, how has the coronavirus crisis been and of course, what will he do to avoid the post-retirement void? Stolker shares his experiences in…

One of the core concepts of the Master programme Crisis & Security Management (CSM) is ‘governance’. In the course Security Networks and Technology, the focus is on the interplay between various levels of security governance and new technological developments.

This year's RISE Award goes to emeritus professor Jetty Kleijn (LIACS). According to the board of RISE, Kleijn has dedicated herself in the past years to gender equality within LIACS and the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences. It is the first time since the introduction of the award in 2018…

Jan Pronk has been reappointed by the Executive Board of Leiden University as Executive Director of the Faculty of Archaeology. Pronk will begin his second term (2026-2029) on March 1st.

Carlotta Rigotti, Postdoc researcher at eLaw, was invited by Conventry University to join a roundtable on policy approaches to address online and technology-facilitated violence.

Education

The editorial board of the Leiden Elective Academic Periodical (LEAP) is proud to announce the release of the third edition , titled “Sense(s)”!

We are excited to share that the article, Does pre‐packed bankruptcy create value? An empirical study of post-bankruptcy employment retention in The Netherlands, by our colleagues, Jan Adriaanse, Jean-Pierre van der Rest, Gert-Jan Boon, and Reinout Vriesendorp, published in the International Insolvency…

Prof. Suzan Stoter will be the Dean of Leiden Law School at Leiden University as of 1 January 2024. The Leiden University Executive Board has appointed her for a period of four years. Stoter succeeds Joanne van der Leun, who, together with the other members of the Faculty Board, brought great verve…

Do you practice public engagement? The International Astronomical Union (IAU) has just released a unique set of open-source materials designed to be used in public engagement training workshops.

Over the past year, AI experts across the university have launched initiatives for and with lecturers, students and staff. This is in response to the growing role of AI in society, with its impact and associated risks calling for greater awareness within our sector. All information for lecturers is…

On 10 June, students and staff from all the Dutch universities will go on strike against the government’s proposed budget cuts. The day after the strike, on 11 June, the House of Representatives will debate the Spring Budget Memorandum, which includes the proposed cuts. The university supports this…

One of the EU's most heralded weapons against tax avoidance and evasion falls prey to political whims, is applied arbitrarily, and lacks transparency, according to tax observers and lawmakers.

Toen in 2019 honderden afvalcontainers in de Waddenzee vielen, wilde de overheid geen informatie vrijgeven over wat er in de containers zat. Vijf jaar later weten we eindelijk meer, nadat hoogleraar Esther Kentin beroep deed op de Wet Open Overheid.

Rafal Matuszewski has been unanimously elected to the Board of the Young Academy of Europe.

Dr Jake Benson, who completed his PhD in Persian Studies at Leiden University in 2024, has been awarded a prestigious international prize for the best dissertation in manuscript studies.

Ivonne Koomen

By copying each other’s non-verbal behaviour, we gain access to what others think and feel. In psychology, this is known as mimicry. As part of her PhD research, cognitive psychologist Fabiola Diana investigated this phenomenon in social interactions between humans and robots.

Dennis Claessen has been appointed Scientific Director of the Leiden Institute of Biology (IBL) with effect from 1 September. He succeeds Hubertus Irth, who has held the position since September 2024. The appointment is for a four year term.

Jasper Knoester is the dean of the Faculty of Science. How is he doing, what exactly does he do and what does his day look like? In each newsletter, Jasper gives an insight into his life. Jasper first wrote his column from Kuala Lumpur, and it was ready to share. Then a crisis arose this week that demanded…