A new plant species was named after Paul Kessler, prefect of the Leiden Hortus botanicus. Kessler discovered the small tree, which is related to the kiwifruit, himself.

Branda Katan is per 1 maart 2023 benoemd tot bijzonder hoogleraar Corporate Litigation aan de Universiteit Leiden. Deze leerstoel gaat uit van de Vereniging Corporate Litigation.

On 3 November 2022, Mariëlle Bruning, Professor of Children and the Law, spoke as an expert on child protection at a roundtable discussion with Dutch Lower House members of the Standing Committee on Justice and Security.

What would the Dutch cabinet look like if it consisted of academic experts? De Volkskrant explored this by assembling a hypothetical cabinet. Miranda Boone, Professor of Criminology and Comparative Penology, was appointed as the Minister of Justice and Security.

The number of children being housed in emergency asylum accommodation has skyrocketed over the past two years. Various agencies have been issuing warnings for several years about the distressing conditions found in emergency accommodation in the Netherlands. Dr Mark Klaassen, Assistant Professor of…

Jacqueline Hylkema, a cultural historian at LUC, will be appointed at Princeton University from January to June 2026. There, she will conduct research on the concept of truth in Dutch political forgeries from the 17th century.

On 16 May 2024, EU Talks?!, a student-based initiative, was delighted to organise its first session with the following theme: ‘Rule of Law in the EU: Beyond Poland and Hungary'.

In two moving articles, Dutch newspaper Trouw has reported on the lengthy detention of Abu Zubaydah in Guantánamo Bay. Zubaydah was tortured over a period of many years. Helen Duffy, Professor of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights, and also Zubaydah’s lawyer, recently booked a major victory…

The coronavirus crisis had a major impact on the judicial system in the Netherlands: courts closed at the start of the pandemic and instead held virtual hearings. Research now shows that things did not always go smoothly.

The Ben Pauw thesis prize for the best Master’s thesis in the area of Public Affairs was won by student Esther Mangelsdorf of the Institute of Public Administration.

Leiden University (UL), the Delft University of Technology (TU), and Erasmus University in Rotterdam (EUR), have been working together on a wide variety of terrains in research, education and valorisation.

Sonja Barend distantieert zich van het toneelstuk Sonja, dat gebaseerd is op haar boek. Dirk Visser, hoogleraar intellectueel eigendomsrecht, gaf uitleg in het AD: ‘De auteurs hebben het recht om te zeggen dat ze niet meer achter de productie staan.’

Too often, tax scholars have a dual role: advising the government on legislation, while at the same time helping companies to pay as little tax as possible. This needs to change according to Bart Snels, a member of parliament for Dutch GreenLeft party.

Staff shortages within the Dutch police force mean that fewer reported crimes are being investigated. Maarten Kunst, Professor of Criminology, spoke to Dutch public broadcaster NOS about the consequences of the staffing problems.

On 28 October, Leiden University received the first Javanese Culture Prize from Universitas Sebelas Maret in Solo, Indonesia. The jury praised Leiden University’s extensive collection of Indonesian and Javanese manuscripts.

On June 10, Michelle Achterberg received the prize for best dissertation from the Dutch Neurofederation, the network of Dutch neuroscientists, for her thesis 'Like me, ore else...'. Achterberg obtained her doctorate cum laude from the Gravitation Program 'Samen Uniek' of the Leiden Consortium on Individual…

Het kabinet wil noodrecht toepassen in het asielbeleid. Minister Faber meent dat dit juridisch ook is getoetst. Verschillende juristen, waaronder Mark Klaassen, universitair docent Migratierecht en Wim Voermans, hoogleraar Staatsrecht, betwisten dat het noodrecht in de huidige situatie een geschikt…

Museum Boerhaave amplifies its collection with original letters and pictures from Einstein and Lorentz. Professor by special appointment Dirk van Delft, also director of Boerhaave, accepted the documents on 12 March.

What is it like to study at the Humanities Faculty of Leiden University? Soon-to-be students of International Studies and Urban Studies experienced a day at university during the Experience Day in The Hague and found out what their studies are really about.

Social and organisational psychologist Aukje Nauta, who is researching how companies can enhance individuals in a dynamic work context, discusses what science says about working from home in the video portrait made by the LNVH. She also believes that employers could look at the Netherlands for inspiration…

Leiden University’s President of the Executive Board, Professor Annetje Ottow, has been reappointed for a second term by the Board of Governors.

On on 29 January 2024, it was announced that Aylin Alexa Zainea has won the Thesis Award from the Dutch Data Protection Authority. She wrote her thesis for the Advanced Master programme on Law and Digital Technologies hosted by eLaw, Center for Law and Digital Technologies. Her thesis entitled ‘Automated…

For the third time in a row, Leiden University has received a positive assessment in the Institutional Audit for the way it provides good teaching and a vibrant quality culture. Rector Magnificus Hester Bijl was presented with the official certificate.

In 1970, compulsory voting was abolished in the Netherlands. It wasn’t functioning at the time, and it was abolished for practical and ideological reasons, says Wim Voermans, Professor of Constitutional and Administrative Law, on a BNNVARA podcast.

Climate change, depletion of natural resources, loss of natural and cultural landscapes, and many other (ecological) sustainability challenges urge us to (re)evaluate human interaction with the natural world. This renewed environmental consciousness has invigorated not only scientists working on effects…

Andrew Sorensen received the award for his work on the origins of fire-making, especially for his dissertation

Elsemieke Daalder has won the prestigious ‘Premio della Corte costituzionale italiana’, part of the ‘Premio Boulvert’ awards, for her dissertation ‘De rechtspraakverzamelingen van Julius Paulus’, for which she was awarded her doctorate cum laude on 23 October 2018 in Leiden.

How small steps can lead to big change: that was the theme of the Leiden Education Festival. Students and lecturers came to Scheltema on 9 May to share their experiences of educational innovation.

Professor Sjef Barbiers will be appointed Managing Director of the Institute for the Dutch Language (INT) with effect from 1 September 2025. He will step down as scientific director of LUCL as of that date.

Leiden students organised a Model United Nations (MUN) from 3 to 6 May in The Hague. An MUN simulates the working of the United Nations and is intended to allow students to learn about the practice of international relations. View the photo series.

On Friday November 2nd 2018, eLaw, the Center for Law and Digital Technologies at Leiden University, will host a one-day conference on the new EU Data Protection Law that came into force earlier this year.

Er zijn structurele (sociale) veiligheidsproblemen in vrouwengevangenissen, blijkt uit onderzoek van Leidse onderzoekers Esther van Ginneken en Yara Abbing. Universitair hoofddocent Van Ginneken sprak met Trouw: ‘We moeten macht, seksualiteit en discriminatie bespreekbaar maken.’

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

On Friday, November 7, 2025, the Leiden Jewish Studies Network together with the Leiden Interdisciplinary Migration Seminars (LIMS) and the MA Programme Governance of Migration and Diversity invited the German-Jewish writer, curator and activist Max Czollek to a conversation on his work.

On 9 February 2026, Bastiaan Rijpkema, Professor of Jurisprudence, was elected as a member of the Royal Holland Society of Sciences and Humanities (KHMW).

The recently published book ‘Avian Cognition’ is the first multi-author book to provide a comprehensive treatment of the cognitive abilities of birds and how they compare to those of other animals. Carel ten Cate, professor of animal behavior at the Institute of Biology, and Susan D. Healy (StAndrews…

Experts warn that large-scale use of foreign cloud services poses risks. Reijer Passchier, Associate Professor of Constitutional Law and Professor of Digitalisation and the Democratic Rule of Law at the Open University, says it could be ‘life-threatening’ to Dutch RTL news.

Mirjam Sombroek van Doorm, Professor of Law and Health, became a member of the Netherlands Sports Council in September 2024. This council is an independent advisory body that focuses on bolstering high level sport, grassroots sport and exercise for Dutch society.

'Bestaanszekerheid' (socio-economic security) is the buzzword in the Netherlands and the magic word in the current election campaign. The King also dropped the word in his Speech from the Throne on Budget Day.

With the What's Next? series we hope to inspire current Media Technology MSc students, show the variety of paths taken after the studies, and bring together alumni. Editions of the series are generally organized around a particular theme by Media Technology MSc students themselves, and followed by social…

On Tuesday 13 February 2018, the Europa Institute had the honour of receiving HE Ditmir Bushati, Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs of Albania. He delivered a speech in the Academy Building in the framework of the European Union Seminar Series, jointly organized by the master’s programme in International…

Unlike Dutch and English, most languages employ melody not only to add nuance to sentences but also to differentiate between words. How languages do this remains largely unknown. This project will investigate the linguistic, psychological and neural processes underlying the parallel communication of…

On 29 January 2019, Robbert J. van Eijk will defend his Ph.D thesis, in which he investigates the online advertisements that seem to follow you.

We are delighted to welcome Dr. Barrie Sander as Visiting Fellow of The Hague Program for Cyber Norms at Leiden University’s Institute of Security and Global Affairs from 27 September till 4 October 2017.

The Hague Journal of Diplomacy is delighted to announce it will be starting its own podcast series! The series will be aimed at bringing the themes of the journal’s research off the page, and onto the discussion table. Each episode will feature a guest who will share their insights and personal experience…

Femke Binnendijk and Olaf van Loon have been appointed as lecturers at the Department of Constitutional and Administrative Law at Leiden Law School.

Zsuzsa Bakk has been selected as the winner of the 2016 Distinguished Dissertation Award of the Classification Society for her thesis entitled 'Contributions to Bias Adjusted Stepwise Latent Class Modeling'.

Could water be present in planet-forming disks before the formation of rocky planets? The James Webb Space Telescope may have found evidence for that. Webb has for the first time observed water in the inner disc around young star where at greater distance, giant planets have already formed. The research…

While the interim ruling passed down by the International Court of Justice did not order a ceasefire, it did state that Israel must take all measures to prevent further victims and genocidal acts in Gaza. South Africa brought the case as it alleges that the war in Gaza constitutes a violation of the…

Playing a game, picking a cutting for your room or just having a cup of coffee: it is all possible in the new Humanities Living Room in the Matthias de Vrieshof. From Wednesday 17 May, staff and students will be able to meet informally and socialise here.