The third Honours Academy Star was awarded to Jan Sleutels during the opening ceremony of the academic year of the Honours Academy on Tuesday 6 October. Sleutels is a lecturer in the Honours College Humanities Lab of the Faculty of Humanities and coordinator of the Pre-University College.

Luca Bruls has received a Catharina Halkes Fonds fellowship grant to finalize her fieldwork in Chad and Senegal and to complete her first ethnographic film.

Professor Maartje van der Woude, Professor of Law & Society at the Van Vollenhoven Institute, has been appointed as one of the three new series editors for the Routledge Studies in Criminal Justice, Borders and Citizenship.

Professor of Law and Society Maartje van der Woude (37) is one of the four young scientists who have been awarded a 2018 Heineken Young Scientists Award. Van der Woude is receiving the award in the field of Humanities for her research on the interplay between law and the public debate on such themes…

A controversial video in which PowNed asks Taylor Swift fans how far they would go for a meet-and-greet with the singer violates portrait rights according to Jeroen ten Voorde in Dutch newspaper ‘NRC’.

On Tuesday 8 April, the CV of Failures exhibition was officially opened by Hester Bijl. Members of the university community share their personal stories during the exhibition. They offer an honest insight into the rejections, setbacks, and unexpected turns that have shaped their journeys.

It is the eighth year in a row that the Faculty of Archaeology is placed in the top ten of archaeological institutes worldwide. The QS World University Rankings by Subject looks at criteria like academic reputation and citation ratios.

In the presence of the ambassador for the Netherlands, Rob Swartbol, and the rector of Universitas Indonesia Muhammad Anis, the winter school on tropical biodiversity and sustainability was officially started at the Universitas Indonesia on Monday 9 January. The winter school brings together 12 students…

Reijer Passchier, hoogleraar digitalisering en de democratische rechtsstaat aan de OU en universitair docent staatsrecht in Leiden, sprak op 26 mei voor de Commissie Digitalisering van de Eerste Kamer, tijdens een deskundigenbijeenkomst over de weerbaarheid van de democratische rechtstaat in tijden…

The Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW) announced on 25 April that it has appointed 18 new members. These include Leiden professors Andrew Webb and Jos Raaijmakers.

On March 11, a travelling photo exposition on the Mayan archaeological site El Mirador, in Guatemala, saw its festive opening at the Van Steenis building. For the occasion a special Faculty Lecture was organised, entitled 'Water Legacy: Mayan World Meets the Netherlands'. We were honored to receive…

On 10 December 2024, the European Parliament played host to an insightful presentation of ‘Protecting Democracy in Europe: Pluralism, Autocracy, and the Future of the EU’, the new book by Tom Theuns, Assistant Professor at Leiden University. Hosted by MEP Thijs Reuten (PvdA/S&D) and his team, the event…

Academics are increasingly facing threats, harassment and hate speech following public appearances. The Dutch universities – united in the Association of Universities in the Netherlands (VSNU) – is now adopting a number of national measures, from a zero-tolerance policty to psychosocial help for vic…

On 20 & 21 April 2017 international researchers in the field of law and society and criminology presented their work in Brussels and shared ideas on discretion and decision-making.

The Institute of Environmental Sciences of the Leiden University has, together with its European partners, presented the new MULTIPLY platform, during a workshop at the European Space Agency (ESA). This platform makes it for the first time possible to combine different data stream’s of ESA’s newest…

It is the seventh year in a row that the Faculty of Archaeology is placed in the top ten of archaeological institutes worldwide. The QS World University Rankings by Subject looks at criteria like academic reputation and citation ratios.

It is the ninth year in a row that the Faculty of Archaeology is placed in the top ten of archaeological institutes worldwide. The QS World University Rankings by Subject looks at criteria like academic reputation and citation ratios.

Is your strategic vote actually strategic? How can the Netherlands form a stable government? And what should the next government do about migration, defence and the housing crisis? This is what our experts have to say.

Emeritus Professor Ben Lugtenberg edited a book on “Principles of Plant-Microbe Interactions” together with Paul Hooykaas, Eddy van der Meijden and Jos Raaijmakers, all from the IBL.

Op 10 en 11 december 2019 vond het seminar ‘The Freedom of Movement in Intra-Schengen Border Areas: Challenges & Opportunities’ plaats aan de Haagse Campus van de Universiteit Leiden.

This collaborative study examines the major challenges facing migrant groups and the implications of deep social exclusion for policy and practice.

Professor Maartje van der Woude of the Van Vollenhoven Institute delivered a special Dies Lecture in San Francisco on Wednesday 12 February.

Maartje van der Woude, together with Dr Irene Vega, has won the 2024 Theoretical Criminology Best Article Prize for the article ‘Colourblindness across borders: The de-racialised logics of Dutch and American border agents’ in the journal Theoretical Criminology.

After the episode of TV programme 'Collegetour' featuring Dutch Minister of Finance Sigrid Kaag, more attention is (rightly) being paid to threats made to politicians. Jeroen ten Voorde, Professor of Criminal Law and Criminology, answered pressing questions about this topic on Dutch news programme '…

In the coming decades, more than 2 million social housing units in the Netherlands will receive an upgrade in insulation and heating, in order to increase energy efficiency. To study the environmental, financial and social impact of this energy transition, a team of scientists from three universities…

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?

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:

Leiden Biology student Pam Engelberts received the annual award for being the best BSc-student in 2016 from the “Stichting Professor Dr. K. Bakker-fonds”.

Jan Erk, political scientist at Leiden University, has been selected as the 2016-2017 Smuts Memorial Fellow at the University of Cambridge. During his residency at the renowned British academy, he will work on his research project ‘The Enduring Impact of Africa’s extinct kingdoms and invisible chief…

The MOOC Terrorism and Counterterrorism: Comparing Theory & Practice was one of the first MOOCs of Leiden University to go live back in September 2013. More than three years have passed and the MOOC has attracted over 100,000 people coming from more than 100 countries.

A research team from Radboud University and Leiden University, led by senior researchers Prof. Masja van Meeteren (RU/UL), Dr Paul Mutsaers (RU) and Prof. Maartje van der Woude (UL), will examine what national and international research has really found about ethnic profiling by the police.

On 26 June 2025, Melanie Fink delivered a presentation titled 'Good Administration in the Age of AI: Explanation Rights and Human Oversight under EU Law' at the European Ombudsman.

Mozambican politician and child rights activist Graça Machel speaks October 27 at Leiden University about her work.

Soil that is too wet, or too dry. Or with a lot or few nutrients. Due to climate change, the differences are becoming bigger, and plants must increasingly be able to adapt to survive. How do you make plants more stress-resistant? For this purpose, researchers from Leiden, along with other universities,…

From the Anthropology of discrimination to the history of Anthropology; from consumer finance in the digital age to techno-enterprise in Tanzania and positive change generated by critical heritage studies. This spring series of research seminars and workshops will be aspiring as well as practical.

What should policymakers and politicians do to prevent violent extremism? What are the greatest risks posed by the radical left and right? How do ideological media publications that terrorists assemble before attacks, may help to counter extremist narratives? About 30 professionals from all over the…

Hans-Martien ten Napel recently published a volume with Routledge, Culture, Secularization, and Democracy; Lessons from Alexis de Tocqueville, co-edited with Prof. Sophie van Bijsterveld (Radboud University Nijmegen).

Across Thailand, Indonesia and Sri Lanka there is an urgent need for appropriate educational programmes that develop skills in data science and artificial intelligence. European and Asian experts in Artificial Intelligence education came to Leiden University from 11 to 15 November to agree on a novel…

On 28 June 2017 the Department of Child Law and the Van Vollenhoven Institute of Leiden Law School organized the colloquium ‘Minorities and The Criminal Justice System’, with James Bell as the keynote speaker.

Only 27 per cent of Dutch households are financially healthy. This appears from a joint study conducted by Deloitte, ING, NIBUD and the Department of Economics of Leiden University.

At the beginning of this year CADS Lecturer Koen Suidgeest published his photobook Why I Cry on Airplanes. In this book he takes you on a visual flight around the globe to meet resilient human beings who live under challenging conditions. He decided to use the changing situation that COVID-19 causes…

Former leader of the Canadian opposition, world-renowned scholar and current President of Central European University (in Budapest) Prof. dr. Michael Ignatieff visited LUC The Hague on Thursday, November 25th. He was touring the Netherlands to promote his new book The Ordinary Virtues: Moral Order in…

Lotte van Dillen has been awarded a NWO funding for a research project in collaboration with Wilhelm Hofmann of the University of Cologne and Henk van Steenbergen of Leiden University about hedonic compensation.

Peter Pels, affiliated with the Institute of Cultural Anthropology of Leiden University, is one of the researchers. Together with Birgit Meyer (UU), he will lead the work package 'Heritage and the Question of Conversion'.

Saniye Çelik, Professor by Special Appointment of Diversity, Inclusion, and Policing at Leiden University, has received the Woman in the Media Award at Beeld & Geluid in Hilversum. She was selected as the winner by the jury from three female experts with the most votes.

Nusantara Capital Authority (OIKN), which is in charge of developing Indonesia’s new capital city entered a Memorandum of Understanding with Leiden-Delft-Erasmus Universities on 18 March on knowledge sharing and joint research.

PhD defence

Lecture, Research Seminar

EuroScience Open Forum – ESOF - is Europe’s biggest multidisciplinary and prestigious scientific conference. ESOF2022 will take place from 13-16 July 2022 and is hosted by Leiden as the European City of Science (in the Netherlands). The Kamerlingh Onnes Building is one of the locations of the ESOF and…

In this blog post, Linda Slapakova discusses the various roles that AI plays in counter-disinformation efforts, the prevailing shortfalls of AI-based counter-disinformation tools and the technical, governance and regulatory barriers to their uptake, and how these could be addressed to foster the uptake…