With the official launch of the Al-Babtain Leiden University Centre for Arabic Culture, Leiden University and the AbdulAziz Saud Al-Babtain Cultural Foundation have opened the door for new opportunities of cultural and academic exchange. Have a look at last week's festivities.

The United Nations has chosen The Hague as the location for a new data centre for humanitarian aid. Leiden University is involved in developing the digital knowledge to be used by the centre.

At the 66th Ordinary Session of the Authority of ECOWAS Heads of State and Government held in Abuja, Nigeria, on 15 December 2024, a landmark decision was made to establish the Special Tribunal for The Gambia.’ (Press release by the Ministry of Justice of The Gambia)

In 2017 the book Artists in the University-Positioning Artistic Research in Higher Education by Jenny Wilson was published by Springer. Prof.dr. Henk Borgdorff wrote the foreword, which includes part of his inaugural lecture.

The international conference “Legal Reform in Indonesia: towards Justice” will be held on 6-7 September 2017 at Gadjah Mada University, Yogyakarta, Indonesia.

De veroordeling van Ali B voor zedendelicten krijgt veel aandacht in de media, en zorgt voor vernieuwde discussies rond consent. Hoogleraar Jeroen ten Voorde sprak met het Parool over de impact die deze rechtszaak zal hebben.

Can you talk for three minutes in glowing terms about your science or medical research? If so, sign up for the Leiden preliminary round of FameLab, the international competition for science communication.

Dr. Joris Larik, Assistant Professor of Comparative, EU and International Law at the Faculty of Governance and Global Affairs — Leiden University College, has been awarded a Fulbright-Schuman Scholar Grant to conduct research in the United States. For the academic year 2017-2018, a total of five Fulbright-Schuman…

On 26 and 27 October 2017, the European Academy of Sciences (EURASC) organized its annual meeting at the Academy of Sciences in Lisbon, Portugal. Prof. Arnold Tukker of CML, Leiden University, was invited to give a keynote speech on a circular economy.

The LEF 2017 Start-up competition has been won by Polariks and their coach Bart Hoenen. Competing for the prize, start-ups Polariks, 1915 Watches and Vrendly presented their respective entrepreneurial ideas to an audience of 350. After the presentations, the jury was tasked with the difficult job of…

Dear friends of the NVIC,

The Pandora Papers turned the spotlight on Wopke Hoekstra’s investment in an African safari company via a tax haven. Apparently, there was no tax evasion, but that does not seem to be the whole story. Martijn Nouwen, assistant professor in tax law, explains in Follow the Money how the safari enterprise…

The Sustainable Business Battle was launched less than a year ago, but it has already won several prizes. Last week, the organisers received the Green Trophy and now they can also add the Van Bergen Prize to their awards.

On 25 October 2017, Ledi Bianku, judge at the European Court of Human Rights, gave a guest lecture entitled “The ECHR and asylum”. Ledi Bianku is Judge at the European Court of Human Rights since 1 February 2008. He has held the position of Vice-President of Section I of the Court from January 2016…

The Executive Board has decided to appoint Marike Knoef as Professor of Empirical micro-economics, commencing January 2018.

Study information

On Thursday 7 June and Friday 8 June 2018 the ‘Politicologenetmaal’ (‘24-hour Political Science Conference’) will take place in Leiden. The event is organised by the Dutch Political Science Association (NKWP) and the Flemish Association for Political Science (VPW). Workshop proposals are welcome!…

Open Access means shared responsibility for research programs. An interview with Prof. Huub de Groot for the Leiden Open Access Blog in the scope of the International Open Access Week.

The LLRC-Committee has changed: we thank Vicky Alcalde, Jill Jeffery, and Deniz Tat for their wonderful work for the LLRC since its launch in 2017 and hope to still see them on many occasions. At the same time, we welcome the new language teaching enthusiasts Szilvia Szita, Elivra Muñoz Moreno, and…

Scott Waitukaitus has been nominated by LION to be Discoverer of the Year 2017. Cast your vote now!

On 22 May 2017 Dr Carolien Metselaar (54) will be appointed Secretary to the Executive Board / Director-General of the Administration and Central Services Department at Leiden University.

Inaugural lecture

The Van Vollenhoven Institute for Law, Governance and Society (VVI), in collaboration with the Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies (KITLV), will organize a two day conference on the continued importance of adat law in present day Indonesia on 22 and 23 May 2017.

Novel language learning activates different neural processes than was previously thought. A Leiden research team has discovered parallel but separate contributions from the hippocampus and Broca's area, the learning centre in the left hemisphere. The right hemisphere of the brain also seems to play…

Through an NWO grant, chemist Rik Mom has received a tenure track position at the Leiden Institute of Chemistry, where he obtained his PhD cum laude in 2017. Mom will study the storage of sustainable energy by means of splitting water. Using new methods, he will investigate on an atomic scale which…

The representation of women in science is improving, also at the Faculty of Science. On 8 March – International Women's Day – we highlight the work of female scientists from our faculty.

Medicines do not follow the one size fits all principle, because genetic differences can influence their efficiency. That is what research by PhD candidate Julia Hillger shows. She defends her PhD dissertation Take it Personal on Thursday 7 December.

On November 8, the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) named Wessel Kraaij as one of the 2017 Distinguished Members. ACM Distinguished Members have made a significant contribution to the field of computing, computer science or information technology. This year, worldwide 43 scientists received…

Arnold van der Valk on Food Council MRA.

From September 1, 2017, the Roosevelt Institute for American Studies (RIAS) will be awarding several four-year scholarships to complete a PhD in American History / American Studies.

Corinne Dettmeijer-Vermeulen, the well-known legal expert and Leiden University alumna, was for many years the National Rapporteur on Trafficking in Human Beings and Sexual Violence against Children. On 26 November she will deliver the Cleveringa lecture.

This year, Leiden University is organising the 34th Award Ceremony of the World Cultural Council (WCC). Who will be the prize winners this year?

Electrochemist Marc Koper has won a special award: the Allen J. Bard Award in Electrochemical Science. 'Allen Bard has always been a great example to me, so it is extra special to win this award.' The award will be granted by the Electrochemical Society, at their half-yearly conference next year in…

Successful innovation requires more than technological progress alone. Every new concept must first be firmly anchored into an existing context. At least this is the hypothesis of Dutch classicists, working together in the National Research School in Classical Studies OIKOS. They intend to test this…

The 2018 King's Speech was a string of statements containing little or no substance. It was obvious that, in an attempt to keep all the coalition parties happy, the speech covered more issues than in 2017. This is confirmed by an analysis of the speech carried out by public administration experts Gerard…

This fall, LUCIS will have the pleasure of welcoming Professor Hugh Kennedy from SOAS University of London to Leiden. He is the fourth Abdulaziz Saud Al-Babtain Cultural Foundation Visiting Professor in Arabic Culture at Leiden University.

Martina G. Vijver has been appointed professor of Ecotoxicology at the Institute of Environmental Sciences of Leiden University with effect from 1 December 2017.

On 1st July Austria will assume the rotating presidency of the Council of the European Union. An appropriate occasion to invite former president of Austria Heinz Fischer to deliver the eighth Europa Lecture on Friday 8th June. During the lecture Mr Fischer shared his views on the history of his country…

For the first time, scientists have traced back a high-energy neutrino to its source in space. It was produced by a so-called blazar—a supermassive black hole. Researchers from neutrino detector IceCube report this in Science. ‘This is a milestone for neutrino science,’ says physicist Dorothea Samtleben…

The new blog Afro-Asian Visions showcases new and ongoing research on Afro-Asian interactions through networks of artists, intellectuals, technical experts, and activists. It is designed as an online magazine.

Ever since the foundation of Leiden University in 1575, philosophy in Leiden has been committed to open-mindedness, dialogue, and comparative perspectives. In line with this tradition it makes perfect sense to question the widespread self-image of philosophy as well. Is philosophy the exclusive privilege…

Laura Nijkamp’s biggest dream came true recently: she took a parabolic flight and was weightless for a moment. The BrainFly student team, which includes psychology students from Leiden, needed volunteers. She signed up immediately. She tells us all about her experience.

The Common Market Law Review is proud to present a Special Issue on legal issues relating to Brexit following the lustrum conference on Brexit and the Future of the European Union that was held in Leiden in 2017 to mark the 60th Anniversary of the Europa Institute of Leiden University.

On 7 April 2017 Labour Law professor Heerma van Voss spoke on reduction of working time in European countries during the economic crisis at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in Miskolc, Hungary.

On 17 October 2017 an international conference took place at the University of Warwick Brussels Office and in the framework of the research project

From May to November 2017 the Van Vollenhoven Institute will carry out a research project, funded by NWO/WOTRO, on ‘Everyday justice and security provision for displaced and residents in Bukavu, DR Congo’.

Neanderthals were the first people to make glue, but how did they do that? Leiden archaeologists discovered how, and their findings did not go unnoticed.

We are extremely proud to have won the Excellent Aerospace Education Award of the NLF (Netherlands Aerospace Foundation) for 2017.

On 3 May2017 LAPP participated in a meeting on microplastics at the Plastic Soup Foundation.

In the 4 October, 2017 issue of Nature appeared the comment entitled ‘Scientists have most impact when they're free to move’, an analysis measuring the global movements of researchers and reflecting on the potential adverse consequences that isolationist policies may have on the advance of science.