On 29 and 30 June 2018, a book workshop on the subject of general principles was held in Leicester, UK.

On 15 January 2019, the external relations committee of the Swiss National Council (lower chamber of the Federal Parliament) held a public hearing on the subject of the draft text for an agreement between Switzerland the European Union with new institutional rules for a number of Swiss-EU market acces…

The Koninklijke Hollandsche Maatschappij der Wetenschappen (Royal Holland Society of Sciences and Humanities) has appointed Koen Caminada, Professor of Empirical Analysis of Tax and Social Policy, as a member.

Dr. Joris Larik has become a member of the FGGA Faculty Council following a vacancy there until September 2019

On the 17th and 18th of September 2018, the workshop Egyptian Riverine Harbours took place for the second time. The workshop is organized by the French, Austrian and Netherlands-Flemish institutes in Cairo and the Leuven Egyptologists. Harco Willems held his lecture on the relation between the antique…

The Executive Board of Leiden University has appointed Professor Koen Camimada Vice-Dean, and portfolio holder for Education, at the Faculty of Governance and Global Affairs, with effect from 1 December 2018.

On 25 September 2018, Dr. Yannick van den Brink, gave a presentation during an expert meeting on the EU Directive on procedural safeguards for children who are suspects or accused persons in criminal proceedings. Van den Brink was invited by the European Commission of the European Union.

Jos Gommans is guest curator of the exhibition

New: Een Podcast over Natuurkunde, a podcast about Leiden physics. In the first episode, Dirk van Delft tells about the Hendrik Antoon Lorentz biography that he wrote with Frits Berends.

The recently formed Young Academy Leiden consists of a group of young scholars who are committed to increasing interdisciplinary research, promoting science policy, and encouraging outreach (both academic and public). Dr Sarah Schrader will represent the Faculty of Archaeology in the Young Academy L…

A new paramagnetic probe has been synthesized and applied to proteins.

Kees Goudswaard has been appointed as a board member of the GAK Institute on 1 October.

At 1 January 2019 NISIS will move from Leiden University to Utrecht University. Dutch research schools have to change host universities after a certain period and now it is time for NISIS to move.

After a successful launch in the beginning of 2018, the Business & Liability Research Network proudly presents its 2018 Annual Report.

The recent trade dispute between the U.S. and China has renewed the attention for the dependency of the U.S. and many other developed countries on the imports of critical materials. Recently this has led to an initiative by the U.S. government to team up with resource rich countries like Australia and…

Yiya Chen has been appointed professor of Phonetics at Leiden University as of March 1, 2020.

The results of the QS World University Rankings by Subject 2019 were announced last week. Law at Leiden has achieved 26th place of this worldwide ranking. It is the highest ranking for law programmes in the Netherlands.

The last blog of Leiden Law Blog of 2018 was written by Ladislav Kováč. He discusses the proposal for the Single-use Plastics Directive of the EU which was agreed upon on 19 December.

Wondering how to put your acquired skills to good use in and outside Academia? Join the PhD Career Event!

Two years after the first conference, the Napels based Institute of Chemistry and Technology of Polymers, together with a consortium of organisations and research institutes, organised the second conference from 15 to 18 September in Capri, Italy.

On Tuesday 22 January 2019, Beryl ter Haar participated in a comparative law lecture featuring labour law cases of the constitutional court of South Africa at the Kutafin State Law University Moscow, Russia. Topics discussed included short term employment contracts, the right to strike and the right…

Arco Timmermans, Professor by special appointment of Public Affairs, discusses the current protests in the Netherlands and whether this is a new phenomenon

Open! Platform for Art Culture & the Public Domain published a series of essays by members of the KABK Research Group 2019.

Annelien Bouland, PhD candidate at the Van Vollenhoven Institute for Law, Governance and Society, was interviewed by VPRO Bureau Buitenland (NPO Radio 1) about the Senegalese TV Series 'Mistress of a married man' (‘Maîtresse d’un homme marié’).

KWR Watercycle Research Institute and the Centre for Science and Technology Studies (CWTS) at Leiden University are collaborating in the area of social impact.

On March 7, 2019, the Hazelhoff Centre for Financial Law organised a mini-seminar on ‘Asset segregation in the financial sector’. During this meeting a number of experts, both practitioners and academics, gave a presentation on a topic in the field of asset separation. All the participants were also…

The ESSHC is coming to Leiden (Wednesday 18 - Saturday 21 March 2020)! The European Social Science History Conference is one of the largest gatherings of historians in Europe. The next conference will be held in Leiden in 2020. We are very happy that Leiden has been chosen to host this conference.…

Willemijn Heeren has, together with dr. Lei He (Department of Linguistics, Tübingen & Center for Forensic Phonetics and Acoustics, Zürich), received a research grant from the International Association for Forensic Phonetics and Acoustics to start a pilot project on “Between-speaker variability in dynamic…

On the 28th of January 2019 Beryl ter Haar gave a guest lecture at Tbilisi State University organised by the European Law School Association (ELSA). The lecture addressed issues of EU fundamental rights, more particularly it was on the freedom to conduct a business versus several labour rights, among…

On 20 February 2019, a special meeting on data science took place in the House of Representatives. The aim of the meeting was to start a dialogue with government organisations about data developments within the government.

The Graduate School of Science starts 2024 with a new Dean. The Faculty Council appointed Erik Danen for the coming four years. He succeeds Eric Eliel, who has held the position since May 2020.

What interests and motives shape how people cooperate, clash and place their trust in one another? For more than 36 years, Van Dijk explored these questions using experimental games in the laboratory. 'Games strip complex issues back to their core.'

Arts and leisure, Arts and leisure

Natalia Sobrino-Saeb, third-year student at Leiden University College The Hague, won the challenge by the Ignitor Fellowship Program held by the Nobel Peace Center for her essay on the threats to journalism in Mexico. On December 10th Natalia met the Committee of the Ignitor Fellowship in Oslo and attended…

Like ants, termites and bees, some bacteria work together as a multicellular group. There is a strict division of labour in such colonies, to make the group more resilient to the outside world. Now researchers have found that some parts of the bacterial colony can take ‘for the greater good’ to a whole…

Professor Ignas Snellen has developed an online platform where exoplanet researchers can post videos about their work: exoplanet-talks.org. ‘For young researchers in particular it’s a way to bring their research to people’s attention.’

To develop good cancer treatments, we need to know much more about how malignant tumour cells develop. Professor Ewa Snaar-Jagalska looks at not just the effect of medication on isolated cells but also the behaviour of cancer cells in their tissue environment. Inaugural lecture on 11 December.

It is time for the international community to put a stop to war crimes – especially against medical personnel, argued international chair of Doctors Without Borders Joanne Liu in her Cleveringa lecture.

Paul Brakefield, Professor of Evolutionary Biology at the Institute of Biology in Leiden (IBL) has been awarded an ERC Advanced Grant for his research. He will receive 2.5 million euro to develop his research programme over a period of five years.

On Tuesday October 11th, ACPA’s PhD-candidate Frank Blokland will publicly defend his thesis “On the origin of patterning in movable Latin type: Renaissance standardisation, systematisation, and unitisation of textura and roman type”.

Ilze Bot wants to reduce the prevalence of cardiovascular diseases. Her research focuses on mast cells, which protect us from infections but can also make us ill.

How does language work and how do we learn a language? The more we know about language, the better we can understand how people interpret the world in words. Roberta D'Alessandro carries out research on the architecture of language. There is now a dossier about her work online.

What moral concerns do people have when they encounter the financial sector in their everyday life? Erik Bähre's ERC consolidator project 'Moralising Misfortune: A comparative anthropology of commercial insurance’ aims to find out. In collaboration with Brechtje Boeke, five short documentaries from…

Globally, the number of deaths from infections is on the rise as more bacteria become resistant to antibiotics. New classes are desperately needed. A promising resistance inhibitor is now being developed by the research group of Nathaniel Martin, Professor of Biological Chemistry. Inaugural speech on…

The D66 proposed bill on Ending Life with Dignity is inadequately substantiated and contains contradictions. This is the view expressed by Professor of Political Philosophy Paul Nieuwenburg in his inaugural lecture on 17 March.

The logic seems inescapable indeed. The bigger the population, the higher the probability it contains an Einstein. Hence, bigger populations are more likely to develop complex culture.

More and more people worldwide have infections caused by bacteria that are resistant to many types of antibiotic. Why is this and how big of a problem is it?

Leiden University has awarded its prestigious University Medal to Emeritus Professor Lex van der Eb. As a pioneer in genetics and molecular biology, he received this honour for his services to science and his key role in the development of the Leiden Bio Science Park (LBSP).

In the Netherlands, 1.55 million people suffer from cardiovascular diseases. Yet, acute cardiovascular events, such as a heart attack or stroke, often occur unexpectedly. That is because many people do not know they are at risk for such an event. Immunological researcher Amanda Foks and her colleagues…

PhD candidate Dennis Wander searches for the best of both worlds. That is to say: a cancer drug that is effective and also has minimal side effects. To this end, he makes new molecules inspired by two existing medicines. And not without result: ‘We have created a new variant that is very promising.’…