On Sunday 29 October the annual open day of the Old Observatory will take place. During this day, people can visit the Old Observatory for free and enjoy the historic building.

On 10 December Sarah-Devorah Poot won the Jaap Doek Children’s Rights Thesis Award 2019 for her thesis on child-friendly judgments.

As every year the Faculty of Archaeology bioarchaeology group has visited Schöningen Germany for field research.

How can heritage institutions make their organisations, collections and exhibitions more inclusive and accessible? University lecturer Eliza Steinbock will investigate this using a NWO Smart Culture grant.

The Austria Centre is pleased to welcome Dr. Lena Sadovski as a visiting scholar who will do research at Leiden University for a few months in 2023. We asked Dr. Sadovski a few questions about her doctoral work, her future research and what she wants to achieve during her time at Leiden.

What makes a good leader, and is there such a thing as a born leader? These are questions that the master's students of the Leiden Leadership Programme (LLP) will explore this year. During the opening seminar, the new participants learn about the programme and share their expectations. 'I want to bring…

A symposium on space diplomacy for experts and the general public will take place in The Hague on Monday 12 June. Everyone has an interest in learning more about this topic, says Professor Jan Melissen. ‘The scope of international relations has expanded beyond our planet.’

How to implement good leadership? This is the central question posed during the inspiration seminars of the LLP, in which renowned guest speakers share their insights. A seminar at the beginning of May imparts this message: “Keep listening to one another.”

Joachim Koops has been appointed as scientific director of the Institute of Security and Global Affairs (ISGA) of Leiden University in The Hague. ‘ISGA is in the position to connect research to policy in the field of security and global affairs, a remarkable combination for this young and creative institute.…

In dribs and drabs, first-year students in The Hague are discovering their new student town and the University buildings. We followed a group of Security Studies students during the HOP introduction week.

At the first Climate Café of 2025, we celebrated the one-year anniversary of The Hague Climate Agreement and reflected together on the successes and opportunities for the future.

Leiden University will deepen its cooperation with knowledge institutions in Africa. During a trip to Ghana, a delegation spoke with several African knowledge institutions about intensifying their collaboration.

The challenge: Building a tool to detect chemical compounds that individually cause non-lethal stress to bacteria, but that are lethal in combination. A team of thirteen Leiden students are taking up this challenge in the annual ‘international Genetically Engineered Machine’ (iGEM) competition for applications…

2024 has been an eventful year, and this is reflected in our social media posts. An overview of the most liked, most shared or most impressive posts.

This academic year 49 promising international students will start their master’s degree here thanks to a Leiden University Excellence Scholarship (LExS). The students, all from outside the EU, were welcomed in a special ceremony on 5 September. Who are they?

Leiden University College The Hague received the 'Top rated Programme' seal from the Keuzegids Universiteiten 2023 (Dutch University Guide). It is the tenth consecutive time the Liberal Arts & Sciences programme focusing on Global Challenges is awarded the honorary seal.

In a well-filled Telders Auditorium, university learners of Korean competed with each other to see who speaks Korean the best.

‘We have to have accountability.’ That was Roberta Metsola’ for her audience on Thursday evening. The President of the European Parliament had come to the Wijnhaven building to speak with students.

'Let's make this a twice-yearly tradition!'– a feeling shared by many after the vibrant Research Day. Engagement started early, with participants connecting informally over good coffee before the formal start of the event on 19 November.

Four professors specialising in migration will soon be appointed as Leiden-Delft-Erasmus professors: Professor Thea Hilhorst and Professor Peter Scholten (both Erasmus University Rotterdam) and Professor Marlou Schrover and Professor Olaf van Vliet (both Leiden University) will each receive a second…

During the final meeting of the Thesis Project on 10 February at 'Pand Zuidwest' in The Hague, several students presented their theses. Students from different disciplines conduct research on formulated practice-oriented challenges in The Hague South-West. 'The Thesis Project provides a connection between…

Teachers viewed multicultural classes with VR glasses and discussed that for the study 'Culturally responsive teaching in multicultural classes'.

Throughout this past year many students and staff at Leiden Law Staff received a prize or grant, were shortlisted for a prize or appointed to an academic body, or were honoured in some other way. All good reason to include them in our Hall of Fame 2020 to show how very proud we are of them!

How do students start asking more questions on a museum visit? Let them free an Egyptian princess from a sarcophagus! In the minor Living Education Lab, students from TU Delft, Leiden University and Erasmus University Rotterdam designed an escaperoom.

Leiden University, Wijnhaven Campus, Turfmarkt 99, The Hague | Date: 12 June 2023 | Time: 14:00 – 17:00

Prof. Giles Scott-Smith has made the first History MOOC (Massive Online Open-Access Course) produced by Leiden University. The MOOC 'The Rooseveltian Century', which covers the influence of Theodore, Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt through the 20th century, is now online at Coursera. The successful MOOC…

The Legal Tech Challenge 2026 kicks off on 5 February. Ishana Bhadai, Lizzy Streng and Jonathan Scholten van den Belt were last year’s winners. Here, they share their experiences stepping up to the challenge.

Building off the success of the 'Jews at Home' conference in December 2023, the Leiden Jewish Studies Network convened its second conference 'Care and the Jewish Experience' this past September in Leiden.

After ISGA and LUC had been at the forefront with the first live webinars, the Institute of Public Administration followed last Friday with the first live webinar for the Bachelor in Public Administration. While LUC and Security Studies provided an English webinar for both national and international…

No fewer than 194 students received their bachelor's diplomas in International Studies on Friday 26 August.

A new NMR microscope gives researchers an improved instrument to study fundamental physical processes. It also offers new possibilities for medical science, for example to better study proteins in Alzheimer patients’ brains. Publication in Physical Review Applied.

Professor Frits Kalshoven passed away on 6 September 2017 at the age of 93. Kalshoven was internationally renowned as an expert in the field of international humanitarian law (IHL). From 1970 onwards he was a professor at our law school, where he had also been a student himself and where he was awarded…

On Tuesday 10 September 2019, the opening of the Master European Law took place in the Old Observatory. Ms Catherine De Bolle, Europol Executive Directeur, presented the opening lecture.

The pandemic has challenged us to revisit the way we structure education and how to reach out to students remotely. It almost seems fitting that a course devoted to a topic so closely related to the context of the corona crisis, that of global health, would explore the possibilities of making the course…

Liselotta Jahnke, Jason Irwin, Rachel Cruickshank and Paula Kovač are the new student members of the Programme Committee (OLC). This committee advises the Executive Board and the Faculty Board of CADS about educational matters, such as determining the Course and Examination Regulations and evaluating…

Do all graduates in the humanities pursue a career in education? What does support for incoming students look like in Leiden? And what makes a language study so enjoyable? These and more questions were answered during an information session organised specially for twenty deans from West Brabant.

Every year the international leadership course of the Leiden Honours Academy, the International Leiden Leadership Programme (ILLP), attracts master’s students from all over the world. In June, this year’s 25 students will get their certificates, but that is not the most important part, according to…

On 1 February 2014 the second issue of the Journal of the LUCAS Graduate Conference, titled 'Death: Ritual, Representation and Remembrance', was published.

What makes young people susceptible to misinformation? And how do their friends influence this? Psychologist Jiemiao Chen aims to find out by using eye-tracking to monitor where young people focus their attention while watching TikTok videos.

On 14 February, the second student edition of Mediaforum, journal of media and communication law, was festively launched with a symposium in the Academy Building of Leiden University. During the symposium, the student authors, some of them from our own ranks (Roosmarijn Altink, Roosmarijn Niesing and…

The Faculty of Archaeology is pleased to announce that Dr Sarah Schrader has been appointed as the new Head of the Department of Archaeological Sciences (DV). In April 2026 she succeeds Dr Jason Laffoon, who has led the department for the past six years.

Cyber-attacks, privacy-related problems or failures in functioning: many technologies that are used every day have security issues that are solved when the software is already in use. A new interdisciplinary project, in which Olga Gadyatskaya, Harry Wijshoff, Alex Uta and Kristian Rietveld from the…

From the first semester of 2026, Leiden University and Universidad Diego Portales (Santiago, Chile) will launch three online virtual exchange programmes. The themes are: political analysis, tensions surrounding Indigenous peoples in Latin America, and the securitisation of borders.

The celebration of the university’s 450th anniversary is not confined to the walls of the university. For the 7th time, professors stood in front of the class of grade 7, in both Leiden and The Hague. Four FGGA professors visited primary schools, introducing the children to research questions such as…

Many of our staff and students have won prizes over the past year. Others have been awarded a subsidy, or, because of their eminence in their field, they have been appointed members of academic societies or have taken up positions in the community. Reasons enough to be proud of them and to include them…

On Wednesday 8 March, the 'Meet & Mix: ‘Speed dating with Traineeships’ event took place in Wijnhaven. Trainees, employees and HR advisers from different organisations got together with students from the Faculty of Governance and Global Affairs to talk doing a traineeship.

In 2025, students, lecturers, researchers and alumni of the Faculty of Humanities were once again at the heart of society. They demonstrated the importance of the humanities through their groundbreaking research, meaningful education and strong collaborations.

Eighteen researchers from Leiden University have been awarded a Veni grant by the Dutch Research Council (NWO). This grant gives promising young researchers the opportunity to develop their ideas for a period of three years.

How do parents communicate anxiety to their child via body language and words? Psychologist Cosima Nimphy studied this question for her PhD research. Experiments show that children of anxious parents are not more sensitive to their parents’ signs of anxiety.

Each year on or around International Women’s Day, the university hosts the Annie Romein-Verschoor Lecture. You are welcome to attend − even if you wouldn't call yourself a feminist, says professor and organiser Nadine Akkerman. ‘You get the best discussions with a diverse audience.’