On Thursday 12 June 2013 , Radosław Sikorski, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Poland, gave the first Europa lecture entitled: 'Poland, the Netherlands and the European Union - Common Challenges'.

Reports from Quebec media show the French-Canadian far-right organisation La Meute dealt itself another self-inflicted blow this week, with several club executives being forced out of the group and having a former co-founder, Patrick Beaudry, publicly declare ‘the ship is sinking.’

Professor Barend Mons has been appointed Chair of the Commission High Level Expert Group

Together with the municipality of The Hague, the Centre for Innovation of Leiden University is launching a new Hub in the city that connects organisations on data technology, peace and justice together.

A catalyst: normally a substance that speeds up a chemical reaction, without adding molecules to this reaction. Scientists from the group of Prof. Marc Koper of Leiden University and Prof. Yang Shao-Horn of MIT now discovered that in specific reactions that need oxygen, catalysts called metal oxides…

Students were able to continue their studies in September 1945 after the University had been closed for several years during the Second World War. This moment was celebrated for four days, with the traditional cortège, commemorative services and a party in the Botanical Garden. Queen Wilhelmina was…

The Rt. Hon. the Lord Mance, Judge at the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom delivered the Europa Lecture on 29th September 2016 in the Grand Auditorium of the Academy Building at Leiden University. The lecture was entitled: “Jurisdiction, judgments and proper law relating to states outside the Brussels…

The Hague is going to have a new Campus Boulevard, enabling Leiden University to strengthen its position in the city. This decision was taken by the Municipal Executive of The Hague on 13 December.

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.

On Thursday 16 June, a seminar will be held on 'Public Prosecution Services and the Rule of Law in Europe' with the subtitle 'Conceptions and Misconceptions on the Required Level of Independence in a Transnational Context Conference theme and objective'.

Assistant professor Political Philosophy Dorota Mokrosinska has received the ERC Starting Grant for her project Democratic Secrecy: A Philosophical Study of the Role of Secrecy in Democratic Governance. The project, running from 2015 to 2020 is funded by the European Research Council

A farewell seminar was held on 22 November 2018 in honour of the departure of Prof. dr. Jan van den Berg, Professor in Cyber Security and Scientific Director of the Cyber Security Academy foundation (CSA).

Luuk van Middelaar and Vestert Borger, both affiliated with the Europa Institute of Leiden University, have recently been awarded a research grant by the Statesman Thorbecke Fund Programme of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW). The aim of the fund is to promote knowledge about…

Finding solutions for economically and socially relevant problems in digital data security. That is what Nele Mentens, Professor of Applied Cryptography & Data Security at the Leiden Institute of Advanced Computer Science (LIACS), wants to achieve. On 1 June she was appointed to contribute to the institute…

Louis Sicking's Maritime Conflict Management in Atlantic Europe was awarded an 'Internationalisation in the Humanities' grant from NWO. What can we learn from how maritime conflicts were managed in the past?

Government and public bodies in the Netherlands increasingly make use of complex data that has been collected on citizens. But the connections between all this data are nontransparent and the algorithms government services use to process the data are difficult to verify. This is a recipe for persistent…

Image from ESOF Forum programme page.

Samuel Jong has won the Institute of Political Science MSc Thesis Prize 2016. With ‘Bridging the Gap: Do Ideological Differences Determine Whether Center-Right Parties Cooperate with the Radical Right?’, Jong completed his Political Science master studies. His research findings, according to the jury,…

Emeritus professor of international law, Nico Schrijver, spoke on NPO Radio 1’s program Spraakmakers about the law of warfare and humanitarian law. He characterized the recent Israeli action that took place in Qatar as ‘brazen, because the attack affected not only Qatar and Hamas, but also the United…

Nadine Chahine, designer of Arabic typefaces and external PhD candidate at Leiden University, has been named in Fast Company's 2012 ranking as one of the 100 Most Creative People in Business. ‘I see type as the means to engage in the larger context of culture and society,’ commented Chahine.

With a special symposium at Museum Boerhaave, ESO celebrated its 60th anniversary on Monday, 26 September. More than 100 scientists, politicians and people from industry were present to look back on collaborations, milestones and discoveries. Leiden astrochemist Ewine van Dishoeck was one of the pre…

The Hague Space Resources Governance Working Group, hosted by the IIASL, has recently agreed on the Draft Building Blocks for the Development of an International Framework on Space Resource Activities and will present the outcome of its work during the NewSpace Europe Conference in Luxembourg. The Executive…

On Thursday 27 June, the last festive ILS Lunch Seminar of this academic year takes place. This seminar will feature presentations from two distinguished speakers from different departments of Leiden Law School: Prof. Pablo Mendes de Leon and Albert van Marwijk Kooy.

PhD student Sung-Shik Jongmans of Leiden University and Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica investigated a new programming method to simplify this. On 3 March 2016, he graduated with the exceptional predicate 'cum laude' on his dissertation 'Automata-Theoretic Protocol Programming'. His results are interesting…

The Dutch Association for the Study of Religion (NGG) has decided to award the Cornelis Tiele MA Thesis Award 2018 to LUCSoR alumnus Bas van Rijn for his thesis “The Mind Behind the Cards: Searching for the Source of Tarot Divination’s Popularity through a Cognitive Analysis” (supervised by dr. Markus…

Op 10 juni 2024 heeft de Staatscommissie Rechtsstaat, waarvan universitair docent staats- en bestuursrecht Fatma Çapkurt deel uitmaakt, haar adviesrapport aangeboden aan burgers en de drie staatsmachten.

During her time as Speaker of the Dutch House of Representatives, Arib was, among other things, accused of creating an 'unsafe working environment'. To prevent disclosure of the case, she is taking legal action to demand access to all documents and their subsequent destruction. In addition, she is demanding…

Fundamental rights protect citizens from the government, but they are not absolute. A crisis situation not only gives the government the opportunity to restrict freedoms, it also shows citizens how far it is willing to go in doing so. ‘In the [Dutch] cabinets led by Rutte, there seems to be less and…

On 1 March, Lennart Schada von Borzyskowski will start on a tenure track position at the Institute of Biology Leiden (IBL). With a focus on the natural and synthetic biochemistry of environmental bacteria, he wants to apply their features to health and sustainability issues.

With defending his thesis ‘Applications of topology to Weyl semimetals and quantum computing’, the Leiden theoretical physicist Tom O'Brien has gained the rare 'cum laude' qualification. The freshly minted PhD has started a five year research programme on quantum algorithms for quantum chemistry, funded…

Today, CBS launches the Center for Big Data Statistics (CBDS), a cooperation of an unprecedented scale in the field of Big Data. Leiden University and HumanityX are key partners.

'We believe that developing a protocol to help people fight cancer is extremely valuable, given that cancer is such a prevalent and devastating disease. If you believe so too, you can support us in realising this mission.' Master's student in Psychology Saskia Heijnen starts crowdfunding to make her…

Government and public bodies in the Netherlands increasingly make use of complex data that has been collected on citizens. But the connections between all this data are nontransparent and the algorithms government services use to process the data are difficult to verify. This is a recipe for persistent…

How correct are mathematical theorems? And is all the theory around them correct? To find out, mathematics student Dominique Lawson converted a mathematical theorem into computer language. ‘This allows a computer to understand the theorem and check whether the proof behind it is entirely correct.’ The…

The annual World Economic Forum (WEF) is underway, and it is a key instance for world leaders to adress global and regional challenges. The organisation expects to convene over 3,000 leaders from more than 130 countries. However, there is rising concern about the number of key leaders that will not…

United Nations Global Pulse, an initiative of the UN Secretary-General on big data and AI, recently launched the Data Fellows program. Kevin Duisters, PhD in Statistics at the Mathematical Institute, was selected to take part in its first cohort of eight international students.

In an attempt to give European citizens a say over who should lead the European Commission, the European Parliament has opted for so-called 'Spitzenkandidaten'. Prior to the elections for the European Parliament, the EP’s political parties appoint lead candidates for the role of Commission President,…

Public authorities fail to inform citizens, or inform them too little or too late, about the use of algorithmic profiling in administrative decisions. This is clear from research conducted by Anne Meuwese and Fatma Çapkurt on the legally and practically responsible use of profiling algorithms.

Staff and students who want some quiet time out will now have a low-sensory room available to them. Lipsius 1.38 has been specially designed to help people relax.

Leiden Child Law Department at Leiden University in the Netherlands formally entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the African Child Policy Forum (ACPF)

The current rule of law debate in the EU occupies not only the mind of European policy and lawmakers, but also of legal practitioners on the ground. The Europa Institute, in collaboration with the Meijers Committee, therefore organized a Leiden Law Exchange (LLX) to facilitate the exchange of ideas…

Research at the Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC) Department of Pathology shows the power of artificial intelligence (AI) applied to endometrial carcinoma microscopy images. The group of Dr. Tjalling Bosse offers novel insights that could improve diagnosis and treatment of uterine cancer. Their…

In this episode, we talk with Leonie Vreeke and Nina Komrij about the Cool Little Kids research project. CLK explores the effectiveness of training parents of anxiety prone toddlers to prevent their children from developing anxiety on a later age. Want to learn more about their research and discover…

As of 1 September Miranda van Eck will be the new Scientific Director of the Leiden Academic Centre for Drug Research. She succeeds Hubertus Irth, who led the institute since 2016. Van Eck has been appointed for a period of four years.

On 19 June, an Iranian man was stabbed by another Iranian man at the train station in the Dutch city of Leeuwarden. He had been placed on an Iranian execution list because of his political past in Iran. Was this attack the work of the Iranian secret service?

The heavy storm on Thursday 18 January did not prevent EU Commissioner Günther Oettinger from visiting the Hague. In addition to a visit to Prime Minister Rutte, the Dutch parliament and the Dutch Minister for Finance Hoekstra, he also visited Leiden University in The Hague. There he gave a Masterclass…

A group of Leiden students launched the Van Leiden tot Later (From Leiden to Later) media platform on 27 March. In podcasts and videos, they talk with high-profile alumni about the big issues of today. ‘We want to build a bridge between generations.’

On 19 March 2026, Verena Weimer successfully defended her PhD thesis at Leiden University, titled 'Operationalisation of Higher Education Teaching Performance (HETP): recognising and rewarding teaching as a part of science is enabled by Open Scholarship'.

2021 was an eventful year once again for the Faculty of Governance and Global Affairs (FGGA). Hybrid, working from home, online education, on-campus education, face masks, self-tests, keeping distance, quarantine and the coronavirus. Words that have now become a standard part of our vocabulary when…

2024 was a remarkable and eventful year for the Faculty of Governance and Global Affairs. In this year overview, we look back month by month at the key events and developments.