The Dutch-Japanese made DESHIMA instrument has passed its first practical tests when measuring the distances and ages of distant galaxies. The core of the instrument is a chip the size of two euro coins that measures 49 shades of far infrared light. The developers of the spectrometer publish the results…

More people seeking asylum, overcrowded asylum accommodation and asylum procedures that take years because of a lack of capacity. The current government wants to declare an asylum crisis but what is that exactly and can they just do that?

The Dutch National Research Agenda announced today that it will provide 17 research projects with a total of 61 million euros in funding. Researchers from Leiden University or the Leiden University Medical Center are involved in five of the projects. All of the projects are interdisciplinary partnerships…

Physicist Sense Jan van der Molen researches materials that do not exist in nature. ‘It’s fascinating to see how the properties of a material change if we manage to make it super thin.’ He will give his inaugural lecture on 21 October.

Professor of Dutch History prof.dr. H. (Henk) te Velde will become interim Dean of the Faculty of Humanities at Leiden University for a two-year term with effect from 1 March 2025. He will succeed prof.dr. M.R. (Mark) Rutgers. Mark Rutgers’ second term of office expires on 1 March 2025; he will be professor…

Jelle van Buuren, Assistant Professor Institute of Security and Global Affairs, discusses why extremist-right activists can be found in the corona-sceptic movement in Dutch News Magazine One World.

As a result of two attacks in Germany and one attack in France within only one week, fears of new terrorist attacks in Europe have reignited. In France a radicalised police agent stabbed and killed four people. In Germany a man from Syria drove his car into a line of cars wounding sixteen people and…

As part of the GTGC Lunch Seminars (Spring 2023), Elena Burgos Martinez, Jyothi Thrivikraman and Daniela Vicherat Mattar presented their work on Food Solidarity as part of a GTGC seed grant project.

The battle for a strong power position in the run up to the provincial council elections in the Netherlands is currently being fought fiercely. Prime Minister Mark Rutte has become accustomed to a minority in the Senate in recent years. The four Rutte cabinets were always able to do business with various…

The last names for the future European Commissioners were made public at the beginning of September 2019 and also which candidates have been put forward for the new European Commission by the different member states.

An interdisciplinary consortium consisting of Leiden University, the University of Amsterdam (UvA) and Statistics Netherlands (CBS), receives €1 million to build an open digital infrastructure for network analysis of the entire Dutch population. This will allow scholars and policymakers to gain crucial…

Research by cyber security company Symantec shows that two-thirds of the hotels worldwide are unwittingly leaking client information to third parties. These data leaks providing booking information could cause several security risks.

Now that the government has collapsed, the Netherlands will have to vote once more. The elections will not take place before November, says the Electoral Council. The Electoral Act sets deadlines for various steps to be taken before new elections can take place. The fact that the summer recess and autumn…

Arco Timmermans, Professor by special appointment Public Affairs at the Institute Public Administration discussed the proposed fine that is likely to prevent Unilever from leaving the Netherlands.

Jelle van Buuren, Assistant Professor at the Institute of Security and Global Affairs, discusses the death of Al-Baghdadi and whether this could also mean the end of IS.

Terrorist organisation Boko Haram is gaining influence in the region, politicians who do not care about the people, extremists, separatists. The situation in Northern Cameroon is deteriorating. Mora is the last secure city, the area surrounding it is a war zone.

Ben de Jong, a guest lecturer at the Institute of Security and Global Affairs, appeared as a guest on NPO Radio 1 to discuss number stations that are used to send secret messages to spies in enemy territories.

This year marks the 75th anniversary of the establishment of the United Nations (UN). The world looked a lot different then than it does now. It is therefore important that the UN moves with the times. Together with experts from the Stimson Center, Joris Larik , Assistant Professor at Leiden University…

A marathon session took place in Brussels from Sunday 30 June to Monday 1 July to decide who would become the new President of the European Commission. Arco Timmermans, Professor by special appointment Public Affairs at the Institute of Public Administration at Leiden University, appeared as a guest…

Chip war export restrictions for ASML are most likely in conflict with the Word Trade Organisation’s regulations, claims Anna-Alexandra Marhold. China will certainly contest them.

Minister Grapperhaus wants to use intelligence services in the investigation of drug crime. There are many doubts about this wish in the intelligence world. Paul Abels, Professor by Special Appointment Governance of Intelligence and Security Services at the Institute of Security and Global Affairs (ISGA),…

At the request of Dutch Parliament, Professor of European Law, Freya Baetens, wrote an expert case study on the EU-Canada Free Trade Agreement (CETA) and the EU-Indonesia Free Trade Agreement (CEPA-Indonesia). This factsheet offers parliamentarians clear, research-based insights into complex policy…

Despite the wealth of historical literature on the Second World War, the subject of religion and churches in occupied Europe has been undervalued.

This study offers a new view on public services in the early modern Low Countries and answers the following questions: who provided public facilities in urban communities and in which ways did public amenities change in the period between 1500 and 1800?

The Leiden University College (LUC) education team behind The Learning Mindset (TLM) has received 800,000 euro’s during the Dutch Higher Education Award Ceremony 2022. The LUC team was second behind Universteit Twente. The prize was awarded during the annual Comenius Festival of the Comenius Network.…

During a symposium in honour of his 60th birthday, statistician Aad van der Vaart received the royal award of Knight in the Order of the Lion of the Netherlands. Colleagues talk about his significance for their field and how they got to know him. ‘The collaborations with Aad have been one of the great…

The Catholics were by no means pitiable victims over the two centuries that they had to practise their religion underground, Caroline Lenarduzzi writes in her PhD dissertation. They managed to keep their faith alive from the mid-sixteenth to the mid-eighteenth century. PhD defence 25 October.

Not only the United States but also the Netherlands are faced with 'systemic problems' to do with racism and discrimination, according to Dutch Prime Minister Rutte during a press conference held on 3 June. The Prime Minister responded to the events taking place in the United States after the death…

Geert Wilders’ PVV Party believes that Islam is a totalitarian ideology and not a religion, and thus Muslims are not equally entitled to the same freedom of religion or belief as other believers. This view is incompatible with liberal democracy, according to Hans-Martien ten Napel.

On Thursday evening, 7 December, the Centre for Professional Learning (CPL) gave the government's external communication pool a glimpse of what there is to learn about Public Affairs and the scientific research that is being done about it within the Faculty of Governance & Global Affairs.

The Council of State in the Netherlands gave a ruling in the so-called Porthos case which revolves around the exemption currently in place for nitrogen emitted during the construction of major projects such as housing. The Administrative Law Division of the Council of State ruled that the partial construction…

Joris Larik, Assistant Professor at Leiden University College in The Hague, was interviewed live on Al Jazeera on 2 April 2021 about the current political upheaval in The Netherlands and the difficult process of forming a new government.

Pharmacologist Amanda Foks is one of the ten talented scientists who received a Dekker grant from the Hartstichting. She receives €427,000 to find a way to rejuvenate immune cells to prevent infarcts. Foks was nominated as Discoverer of the Year in 2016.

Marta Fiocco, professor at the Mathematical Institute, has received a grant for predicting survival outcome and improving the balance between prognosis and quality of life for soft tissue sarcoma patients (Personalised Sarcoma Care).

Of the 150 elected representatives, 24 studied or conducted their PhD research in Leiden. Who are they and which degrees are most popular among these MPs?

This week the Turkish army invaded North East Syria. The Turkish invasion might well have had an unintended side effect: the escapement of thousands of Islamic State terrorists held in captivity. Experts on terrorism and politicians fear a resurrection of the terror group.

The Dutch East India Company (VOC) took healthcare seriously, albeit mainly for business reasons. Former GP Ton Zwaard’s PhD research reveals that although healthcare in Asia was well organised, the VOC faced persistent problems for two centuries.

‘Seated behind her desk, she initiated and influenced embassies, conventions, ambassadorial meetings, sieges, and skirmishes that had kept a war-torn early modern Europe in its grip.’ This is how Nadine Akkerman, researcher as the Leiden Institute for Cultural Disciplines and author of The Correspondence…

Three research projects with researchers from Leiden University have received a Dutch Research Council Open Competition Science-M grant. This is for innovative, high-quality fundamental research within the science domain.

The numbers of asylum seekers and the direct family members hoping to join them were not the problem, says Mark Klaassen. The stumbling block was the housing market. He says the asylum crisis is being used for electoral gain.

Thijs Porck (Universiteit Leiden) and Monika Opalińska (University of Warsaw) have received a small grant from the Neil Ker Memorial Fund (British Academy) for their research into the fragments of an 11th-century manuscript that were found scattered across European libraries, in The Netherlands, Poland,…

In October 2020, the Dutch Journal of Administrative Law had a special PhD issue, giving an overview of all PhD research currently being conducted in the area of administrative law in the Netherlands.

Het nieuwe kabinet is uniek, met vier coalitiepartijen en een niet gekozen minister-president. Hoogleraar Staats- en Bestuursrecht Wim Voermans analyseert het kabinet in een opiniestuk voor het NRC, en beschrijft een instabiele en ongekende situatie.

Ben de Jong and Paul Abels, both working for ISGA, discuss the Russian claim that espionage equipment was found in Dutch newspaper Algemeen Dagblad (AD). According to the Russians the equipment was found in one of the cars used by their diplomats in The Hague.